“Life is a gamble, at terrible odds. If it were a bet you wouldn’t take it.”
Theme is death, and also the recurring theme of the coin flipping throughout the play.
“Now for a handful of guilders I happen to have a private and uncut performance of The Rape of the Sabine women--or rather women, or rather Alfred.”
Player 1: context is when the players first arrive in the woods.
"Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it."
Player on the boat to England, after they didn't get paid
Act Three
ROS: What are you playing at?
GUIL: Words, words. They're all we have to go on.
Theme is language and communication
"there must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said-no"
Guildenstern
“A Christian, a Moslme, and a Jew chanced to meet in a closed carriage.”
Act 2, directly after they talk about being alive in a box.
Claudius: "Thanks, Rosencrantz, and gentle Guildenstern"
Gertrude "Thanks Guildenstern, and gentle Rosencrantz"
Theme is individual identity, individualism.
“Thanks Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.”
Gertrude,
“The colours red, blue and green are real. The colour yellow is a mystical experience shared by everybody.”
Guildenstern, Intro after coin flipping, when discussing which way to go
ROS: Heads. (He picks it up and puts it in his money bag. The process is repeated.) Heads. (Again.) ROS: Heads. (Again.) Heads. (Again.) Heads.
GUIL (flipping a coin): There is an art to the building up of suspense.
ROS: Heads.
GUIL (flipping another): Though it can be done by luck alone.
ROS: Heads.
GUIL: If that's the word I'm after.
ROS (raises his head at GUIL): Seventy-six love. (GUIL gets up but has nowhere to go. He spins another coin over his shoulder without looking at it, his attention being directed at his environment or lack of it.) Heads.
GUIL: A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else at least in the law of probability.
Theme is Fate vs. Free Will
"We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.”
Player
“What is the dumbshow for?”
Act 2, during the dress rehearsal, after rosencrantz gets his hand stepped on.
GUIL: A scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a defence against the pure emotion of fear. Keep tight hold and continue while there's time. Now - counter to the previous syllogism: tricky one, follow me carefully, it may prove a comfort. If we postulate, and we just have, that within un-, sub- or supernatural forces the probability is that the law of probability will not operate as a factor, then we must accept that the probability of the first part will not operate as a factor, in which case the law of probability will operate as a factor within un-, sub- or supernatural forces. And since it obviously hasn't been doing so, we can take it that we are not held within un-, sub- or supernatural forces after all; in all probability, that is. Which is a great relief to me personally.
Theme is fear, Fate vs. Free Will
"Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else."
Player; Act 1
“There’s a logic at work--it’s all done for you, don’t worry. Enjoy it.”
Act 1, after they are introduced to the king and queen and discuss how they confused they’re names.