Who Are Rosencrantz And Guildernstern??? First performed in 1603, Hamlet is probably the best known of William Shakespeare's works, and may well be the most famous English language play ever written. But while Hamlet has been the subject of critical analysis since Elizabethan times, the 1960’s saw Tom Stoppard bring Hamlet back to life with “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”. Using Shakespeare’s work as his own starting point, he makes the two minor characters from …showed first 75 words of 1054 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1054 total…first act and provides humour in Polonius’ overly detailed instructions to Reynaldo. The second dramatic function is to indicate the passage of time. We learn from the script that a few weeks have passed since the last act. In the theatre, however, only a few minutes have gone by. This scene serves to put some distance in between the time we next see Hamlet. In “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern” we can also witness several dramatic functions