Tom Stoppard (Arcadia, Hapgood, Rough Crossing) holds a fun-house mirror up to HAMLET, viewing Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy through the eyes of his two hapless college chums. When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are summoned by the King and Queen of Denmark to “glean what afflicts” the despondent Prince Hamlet, they are swallowed by the political manueverings surrounding them and forced to confront their own existential dilemma.

ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD has something for everyone: kings, queens, players, pirates, lovers, friends and spies; murder, mayhem, music, madness, incest, adultery, blood and revenge; classical allusions, poetical effusions, sexual seclusions, homicidal delusions, rhetorical confusions, rhapsodical occlusions, pokes, punches, poisoned stab wounds and contusions; word play, absurd play, sword play, foreplay, and a play within a play.

And jokes.