rosencrantz and guildenstern are single
SHITTY HIPSTER BAR. WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN. NIGHT.
A sign out front reads, "USED BOOKS BOUGHT AND SOLD." Underneath, another sign saying, "TRIVIA THURSDAYS 7PM - $4 PBR." It is not Thursday.
Joshua ROSENCRANTZ, 26. Beard, horn-rimmed glasses. Hipster.
Alex GUILDENSTERN, 23. Flannel shirt, curly hair, trucker cap. Also hipster.
OPHELIA, 25. Short dark hair, vintage skirt, tiger-striped knee-high leggings, horn-rimmed glasses. Resembles an American Apparel model.
GUILDENSTERN. Dude. Dude dude dude dude dude. Check out that ass, man.
ROSENCRANTZ. Yeah.
GUILDENSTERN. I'm not gay or anything, but that's one hell of an ass.
ROSENCRANTZ. Let me guess. You'd tap that.
GUILDENSTERN. Tap that. Tap that. Dude, I'd tap that, take it home, tap it some more, cuddle all morning talking about Lacan and Barthes and Foucault, fry it some falafel bangers and mash for breakfast, take it out for vegan gelato in the park and an oil drilling docudrama at the Angelika, tap it again, fall in love, get married, move out to Denver and open up a used bookstore in the Rockies. I'd raise 2.5 kids with it. Grow old with it. We'd go skiing every other weekend, weather permitting.
ROSENCRANTZ. You'd do all that for an ass.
GUILDENSTERN. I'm serious. That's a kegful of untapped potential right there. No. No, it's the whole fuckin' beer truck, man. The whole fuckin' Anheuser-Busch plant, built on the site of an orphanage a dance troupe of plucky young teens couldn't save. I'd tap that 'til her bush got so grey you could see it in the dark. I'd tap that 'til I came dust. Fuck, you bury me next to her, I'd be tapping that in the fuckin' dirt. We'd be like those dead people in Pompeii. Archaeologists, man, they're gonna dig us up, they're gonna dig us up a thousand years later, and they're gonna have to separate our rotting skeletons with a crowbar.
ROSENCRANTZ. Alex.
GUILDENSTERN. What.
ROSENCRANTZ. You already talked to her, didn't you.
(Long pause.)
GUILDENSTERN. (Drinks sullenly.) Her name's Juliette. She's from Missouri.
ROSENCRANTZ. Missouri.
GUILDENSTERN. I don't know a fuckin' thing about Missouri.
ROSENCRANTZ. So what are you sitting here drinking with me for. Go over there and ask.
GUILDENSTERN. I don't know, man.
ROSENCRANTZ. Don't tell me you had a conversation with this girl and you didn't learn anything about her other than where she's from.
(Beat.)
(GUILDENSTERN weeps.)
GUILDENSTERN. I hate this fuckin' city.
ROSENCRANTZ. (Pats GUILDENSTERN on the back.) You, my friend, are the shittiest douchebag pervert New York has ever known.
GUILDENSTERN. I just want to love.
ROSENCRANTZ. Good thing you don't have commitment issues then.
GUILDENSTERN. I just feel like I missed the boat, you know? Normal people. How do they do this, normal people. You never talk to someone's mom and dad, couples married long enough to see someone our age grow up, and ask them how they met and they say, "Oh, we met in some shitty dive bar after a Hall and Oates concert." No. Fuck that shit. They met in college. They met at work. They were lab partners, they were in a band, they wrote the same thesis on general relativity or some shit. They were in each other's lives for ages before they even got to third base. When they did get married it was the most natural thing in the world.
ROSENCRANTZ. By that standard you and I should have three kids and a Boston terrier by now.
GUILDENSTERN. Fuck you. And you know what really gets me? They were our age. Can you fuckin' believe that? At twenty-three my dad wasn't hanging around in bars trying to meet my mom, he was watching the doctor pull me out of my mom's vagina. I'm an embarrassment to four hundred years of Guildensterns.
ROSENCRANTZ. Recession blows, dude. It's all socioeconomics.
GUILDENSTERN. Socioeconomics. I'm tired of reading about fucking socioeconomics. We're off the track, man, our whole generation has gone off the rails. I mean...look at that bartender.
ROSENCRANTZ. The brunette? The really hot one? Speaking of ass...
GUILDENSTERN. One ass at a time, Josh. I bet she's got, like, a PhD in astrophysics or something. She should be discovering planets or inventing personal shuttles to the moon. You know what she's doing instead?
ROSENCRANTZ. Making a killing selling Pabst to hipsters at $5 a can?
GUILDENSTERN. She's living off tips from douchebags checking out her ass.
ROSENCRANTZ. I know you are, but what am I.
GUILDENSTERN. (Wistfully.) I saw the best minds of our generation...angel-headed hipsters...starving hysterical naked... (Chuckles.) Naked...
ROSENCRANTZ. Don't you fuckin' quote Ginsberg at me, dude.
GUILDENSTERN. (Singing.) What do you do with a B.A. in English...
ROSENCRANTZ. Don't forget our moratorium on Avenue Q, either.
GUILDENSTERN. What do I care. Gary Coleman's dead. And you never let me do anything fun.
ROSENCRANTZ. That's nice, dear. Go back to the kitchen and make me a sandwich.
(Beat, as ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN stare contemplatively into their drinks.)
ROSENCRANTZ. This is probably the part where I tell you again, there's plenty of fish in the sea, you're drunk, you're an asshole, you're overreacting, and you're not getting laid in this condition.
GUILDENSTERN. Gee, doesn't that sound familiar.
ROSENCRANTZ. Doesn't it.
GUILDENSTERN. What about you, Mr. Rosencrantz. How are you so nonchalant. I don't see you bringing back ladies to the Awesome Ninja Monkey Pad every Friday night.
ROSENCRANTZ. "Ladies," he says.
GUILDENSTERN. Now is not the fuckin' time to come out of the closet, dude.
ROSENCRANTZ. Fuck you. No, see, the the problem with you--the problem with you that I don't have--is that I don't go to shows to score with (air quotes) "ladies." I go to shows to enjoy some music, hang out with my bros (punches GUILDENSTERN in the shoulder), and have a drink or two. And if a particularly special lady, singular, comes along, well, she and I already have something in common.
GUILDENSTERN. You hypocritical asshole. How is that any different from what I do.
ROSENCRANTZ. The difference, dear roommate, is that I do not cast my net too wide. Look at all these ladies bumming about, schmoozing with their lady friends about shitty pop music and their shitty paralegal jobs and who is oh my god no they didn't on The Real Housewives of Bumfuck County.
GUILDENSTERN. Where the fuck you think you are, some yuppie fern bar in the Upper East Side. We're in Williamsburg. You picked this venue yourself, man, you said there were cute--
ROSENCRANTZ. Good music and cute, smart hipster girls. I know. I'm speaking in general here. The point. The point is.
GUILDENSTERN. Yeah.
ROSENCRANTZ. Just got to let the alcohol clear my head for a second. The point is, you don't want to date "most women." I've been there, man, you don't want to see what "most women" are like. Why would you even bother mackin' on a girl you're going to fuck once, who's going to be a drag on you every waking moment for the rest of your life. No. You want a special lady. One that's...appropriate for you. Different from the pack. One who is probably having the same conversation we're having with her lady friends right now, complaining about how all dudes are douchebags who only talk about football and video games and how there's just got to be some guy out there who likes poetry and listens to the Shins and doesn't read Sartre just to get laid.
GUILDENSTERN. I read Sartre to get laid.
ROSENCRANTZ. You read Sartre to get laid with Tanya. That's the difference, dude. You're never going to find happiness constructing elaborate, apeshit fantasy mythologies around every woman you want to fuck, and hoping they come true. You might get laid hanging around dating sites sending flowery messages to every girl with a cute photo or complimenting some random chick at a bar on her hair, but you're never going to find happiness. The only way to find happiness--
GUILDENSTERN. Is to already be friends with her and have known her forever?
ROSENCRANTZ. No. No, dude. I mean, that worked for our parents, like you said, but the only way to find happiness--where was I.
GUILDENSTERN. You were at the part where you were going to tell me the secret to happiness.
ROSENCRANTZ. Shit. Goddamn it, I can't believe I fuckin' let you derail me again.
GUILDENSTERN. I take it it has something to do with hanging out in hipster bars an hour after the band packs up.
ROSENCRANTZ. Shut the fuck up. Anyway. Love finds you. Yes. That was my point.
GUILDENSTERN. That was your point.
ROSENCRANTZ. Yes. Love finds you. You hang out where, if you were a woman, you would hang out, and hope you meet yourself.
GUILDENSTERN. So basically you hang out where you would hang out anyway and hope the woman of your dreams just happens to drop by.
ROSENCRANTZ. Exactly. Precisely. That is exactly, precisely it. (Drinks.)
GUILDENSTERN. I dunno, man. That sounds a lot like doing absolutely nothing.
ROSENCRANTZ. It works, dude. It works. You don't want to be wasting your time on girls you'd never date anyway. Why play with kittens when you can lie in wait for a tigress.
GUILDENSTERN. You want to fuck a large, dangerous animal that spends most of its time sleeping.
ROSENCRANTZ. Fuck you.
GUILDENSTERN. So how's that working out for you. Found any tigresses yet.
ROSENCRANTZ. Patience is part of the game, my friend.
GUILDENSTERN. Really.
ROSENCRANTZ. Yes. Yes, really. Look. Here comes one now.
(Enter OPHELIA. ROSENCRANTZ rises and walks over to greet her.)
ROSENCRANTZ. Hey.
OPHELIA. (Looking away.) Hey.
ROSENCRANTZ. Great band, huh.
OPHELIA. Yeah.
ROSENCRANTZ. I like your glasses.
OPHELIA. Look, I really have to go.
ROSENCRANTZ. Wait. I'm...uh, I'm Josh. Nice to meet you.
OPHELIA. (Dryly.) Ophelia. I'm not a nice girl. Bye.
ROSENCRANTZ. Cool name. Wow, what a coincidence, I mean--Look, hey, would you--
OPHELIA. What part of bye didn't you understand.
(Exit OPHELIA. ROSENCRANTZ returns to his barstool.)
GUILDENSTERN. Well?
ROSENCRANTZ. Her name's Ophelia.
GUILDENSTERN. And...?
ROSENCRANTZ. (Pulling out his iPhone.) How many Ophelias do you think there are on Facebook.
(ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN high-five.)
GUILDENSTERN. Smooth motherfucker!
ROSENCRANTZ. My conscience is a lead weight, dude. We're never gonna get laid. Out of the karma if nothing else.
GUILDENSTERN. (Calling.) Hot bartender! Another Pabst for this lucky young gentleman. (Grinning.) She rolled her eyes at me. She made eye contact. Maybe I should ask her to the fuckin' prom.
ROSENCRANTZ. All our friends are married and we are going to die alone. (Raises mostly-empty glass.) To douchebags, my bro.
GUILDENSTERN. (Toasts.) To douchebags.
Fin.