Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
GUIL: Is that what you imagine? Is that it? No fear?
ROS: Fear?
GUIL (In fury - flings a coin on the ground): Fear! The crack that might flood your brain with light! - pg. 12
* * *GUIL: A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until - "My God,"says the second man, "I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn." At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are, the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience... "Look, look" recites the crowd. "A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer." - pg. 17
* * *ROS: Well, there are only two of us. Is that enough?
PLAYER: For an audience, disappointing. For voyeurs, about average.
ROS: What's the difference? - pg. 19
* * *ROS: I mean, what exactly do you do?
PLAYER: We keep to our usual stuff, more or less, only inside out. We do on stage the things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else. - pg. 22
* * *ROS: I remember when there were no questions.
GUIL: There were always questions. To exchange one set for another is no great matter.
ROS: Answers, yes. There were answers to everything.
GUIL: You've forgotten.
ROS (flaring): I haven't forgotten - how I used to remember my own name - and yours, oh yes! There were answers everywhere you looked. There was no question about it - people knew who I was and if they didn't they asked and I told them.
GUIL: You did, the trouble is each of them is... plausible, without being instinctive. All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque. - pg. 29
* * *ROS: ...Where's it going to end?
GUIL: That's the question.
ROS: It's all questions. - pg. 33
* * *GUIL: Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are... condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one - that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it'll just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we'd know that we were lost. (He sits.) - pg. 43
* * *(A good pause. ROS leaps up and bellows at the audience.)
ROS: Fire!
(GUIL jumps up.)
GUIL: Where?
ROS: It's all right - I'm demonstrating the misuse of free speech. To prove that it exists. (He regards the audience, that is the direction, with contempt - and other directions, then front again.) Not a move. They should burn to death in their shoes. - pg. 44
* * *(The PLAYER, progressively aggrieved, now burst out.)
PLAYER: We can't look each other in the face! (Pause, more in control.) You don't understand the humiliation of it - to be tricked out of a single assumption, which makes our existence viable - that somebody is watching... - pg. 46
* * *GUIL: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.
PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions. What do you assume? - pg. 49
* * *GUIL: I think I have it. A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself.
ROS: Or just as mad.
GUIL: Or just as mad.
ROS: And he does both.
GUIL: So there you are.
ROS: Stark raving sane. - pg. 49
* * *GUIL: What is the dumbshow for?
PLAYER: Well, it's a device, really - it makes the action that follows more or less comprehensible; you understand, we are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style. - pg. 56
* * *PLAYER: Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a lot of scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have got about as bad as they reasonably get. (He switches on a smile.)
GUIL: Who decides?
PLAYER (Switching off his smile): Decides? It is written. - pg. 58
* * *(ROS puts a hand into his purse, then both hands behind his back, then holds his fists out.)
(GUIL taps one fist.)
(ROS opens it to show a coin.)
(He gives it to GUIL.)
(He puts his hand back into his purse. Then both hands behind his back, then holds his fists out.)
(GUIL taps one fist.)
(ROS opens it to show a coin. He gives it to GUIL.)
(Repeat.)
(Repeat.)
(GUIL getting tense. Desperate to lose.)
(Repeat.)
(GUIL taps a hand, changes his mind, taps the other, and ROS inadvertently reveals that he has a coin in both fists.)
GUIL: You had money in both hands.
ROS (embarrassed): Yes.
GUIL: Every time?
ROS: Yes.
GUIL: What's the point of that?
ROS (pathetic): I wanted to make you happy. - pg. 75
* * *ROS: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
GUIL: No, no, no... Death is... not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
ROS: I've frequently not been on boats.
GUIL: No, no, no - what you've been is not on boats.
ROS: I wish I was dead. (Considers the drop.) I could jump over the side. That would put a spoke in their wheel.
GUIL: Unless they're counting on it.
ROS: I shall remain on board. That'll put a spoke in their wheel. - pg. 79
* * *ROS: ... We're his friends.
GUIL: How do you know?
ROS: From our young days brought up with him.
GUIL: You've only got their word for it.
ROS: But that's what we depend on. - pg. 80
* * *GUIL (excitedly): Out of the void... a pipe is heard. One of the sailors has pursed his lips against a woodwind, his fingers and thumb governing, shall we say, the ventages, whereupon, giving it breath, let us say, with his mouth, it, the pipe, discourses, as the saying goes, most eloquent music. A thing like that, it could change the course of events. - pg. 82
* * *ROS: Incidents! All we get is incidents! Dear God, is it too much to expect a little sustained action?! - pg. 86
* * *ROS: They had it in for us, didn't they? Right from the beginning. Who'd have thought that we were so important?
GUIL: But why? Was it all for this? Who are we that so much should converge on our little deaths? (In anguish to the PLAYER.) Who are we?
PLAYER: You are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. That's enough.
GUIL: No - it is not enough. To be told so little - to such an end - and still, finally, to be denied an explanation... - pg. 90
* * *ROS: (A cry.) We've done nothing wrong! We didn't harm anyone. Did we?
GUIL: I can't remember. - pg. 92
* * *GUIL: Our names shouted in a certain dawn ... a message ... a summons... there must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said-no. But somehow we missed it. - pg. 92
All page references are for the 1968 Faber and Faber publication :P
ROS: Fear?
GUIL (In fury - flings a coin on the ground): Fear! The crack that might flood your brain with light! - pg. 12
* * *GUIL: A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until - "My God,"says the second man, "I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn." At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are, the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience... "Look, look" recites the crowd. "A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer." - pg. 17
* * *ROS: Well, there are only two of us. Is that enough?
PLAYER: For an audience, disappointing. For voyeurs, about average.
ROS: What's the difference? - pg. 19
* * *ROS: I mean, what exactly do you do?
PLAYER: We keep to our usual stuff, more or less, only inside out. We do on stage the things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else. - pg. 22
* * *ROS: I remember when there were no questions.
GUIL: There were always questions. To exchange one set for another is no great matter.
ROS: Answers, yes. There were answers to everything.
GUIL: You've forgotten.
ROS (flaring): I haven't forgotten - how I used to remember my own name - and yours, oh yes! There were answers everywhere you looked. There was no question about it - people knew who I was and if they didn't they asked and I told them.
GUIL: You did, the trouble is each of them is... plausible, without being instinctive. All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque. - pg. 29
* * *ROS: ...Where's it going to end?
GUIL: That's the question.
ROS: It's all questions. - pg. 33
* * *GUIL: Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are... condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one - that is the meaning of order. If we start being arbitrary it'll just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we'd know that we were lost. (He sits.) - pg. 43
* * *(A good pause. ROS leaps up and bellows at the audience.)
ROS: Fire!
(GUIL jumps up.)
GUIL: Where?
ROS: It's all right - I'm demonstrating the misuse of free speech. To prove that it exists. (He regards the audience, that is the direction, with contempt - and other directions, then front again.) Not a move. They should burn to death in their shoes. - pg. 44
* * *(The PLAYER, progressively aggrieved, now burst out.)
PLAYER: We can't look each other in the face! (Pause, more in control.) You don't understand the humiliation of it - to be tricked out of a single assumption, which makes our existence viable - that somebody is watching... - pg. 46
* * *GUIL: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.
PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions. What do you assume? - pg. 49
* * *GUIL: I think I have it. A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself.
ROS: Or just as mad.
GUIL: Or just as mad.
ROS: And he does both.
GUIL: So there you are.
ROS: Stark raving sane. - pg. 49
* * *GUIL: What is the dumbshow for?
PLAYER: Well, it's a device, really - it makes the action that follows more or less comprehensible; you understand, we are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style. - pg. 56
* * *PLAYER: Between "just desserts" and "tragic irony" we are given quite a lot of scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have got about as bad as they reasonably get. (He switches on a smile.)
GUIL: Who decides?
PLAYER (Switching off his smile): Decides? It is written. - pg. 58
* * *(ROS puts a hand into his purse, then both hands behind his back, then holds his fists out.)
(GUIL taps one fist.)
(ROS opens it to show a coin.)
(He gives it to GUIL.)
(He puts his hand back into his purse. Then both hands behind his back, then holds his fists out.)
(GUIL taps one fist.)
(ROS opens it to show a coin. He gives it to GUIL.)
(Repeat.)
(Repeat.)
(GUIL getting tense. Desperate to lose.)
(Repeat.)
(GUIL taps a hand, changes his mind, taps the other, and ROS inadvertently reveals that he has a coin in both fists.)
GUIL: You had money in both hands.
ROS (embarrassed): Yes.
GUIL: Every time?
ROS: Yes.
GUIL: What's the point of that?
ROS (pathetic): I wanted to make you happy. - pg. 75
* * *ROS: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat?
GUIL: No, no, no... Death is... not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.
ROS: I've frequently not been on boats.
GUIL: No, no, no - what you've been is not on boats.
ROS: I wish I was dead. (Considers the drop.) I could jump over the side. That would put a spoke in their wheel.
GUIL: Unless they're counting on it.
ROS: I shall remain on board. That'll put a spoke in their wheel. - pg. 79
* * *ROS: ... We're his friends.
GUIL: How do you know?
ROS: From our young days brought up with him.
GUIL: You've only got their word for it.
ROS: But that's what we depend on. - pg. 80
* * *GUIL (excitedly): Out of the void... a pipe is heard. One of the sailors has pursed his lips against a woodwind, his fingers and thumb governing, shall we say, the ventages, whereupon, giving it breath, let us say, with his mouth, it, the pipe, discourses, as the saying goes, most eloquent music. A thing like that, it could change the course of events. - pg. 82
* * *ROS: Incidents! All we get is incidents! Dear God, is it too much to expect a little sustained action?! - pg. 86
* * *ROS: They had it in for us, didn't they? Right from the beginning. Who'd have thought that we were so important?
GUIL: But why? Was it all for this? Who are we that so much should converge on our little deaths? (In anguish to the PLAYER.) Who are we?
PLAYER: You are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. That's enough.
GUIL: No - it is not enough. To be told so little - to such an end - and still, finally, to be denied an explanation... - pg. 90
* * *ROS: (A cry.) We've done nothing wrong! We didn't harm anyone. Did we?
GUIL: I can't remember. - pg. 92
* * *GUIL: Our names shouted in a certain dawn ... a message ... a summons... there must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said-no. But somehow we missed it. - pg. 92
All page references are for the 1968 Faber and Faber publication :P