Flipping a Coin: April 23, 2018

Focus: Why is Tom Stoppard interested in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?

1. Warming up with three good things and the flip of a coin:

a. Take a coin and flip it in the air 20 times. Record how many times it comes up heads, and how many times it comes up tails. Interpret/explain the results.

b. Now, imagine that you take a quarter (a normal quarter) and flip it in the air twenty times. If it were to come up heads each time, would you be surprised? Why or why not? In your opinion, is the world generally an orderly or a disorderly place?

c. How would Samuel Beckett explain the imaginary phenomenon above?

2. Speeding up:
If time allows, (re)introducing yourselves to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern via two Hamlet clips

Act 2, scene 2 (58:10)
Act 3, scene 2 (2:00:30)

Here's what you need to know about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Hamlet...

• In Hamlet, they are minor characters and spend the vast majority of the play offstage.

• They're supposed to be Hamlet's friends, but they're really being used to spy on him.

• Near the end of the play, they ride on a boat from Denmark to England with Hamlet; they have sealed orders from King Claudius to the King of England, requesting that the King of England kill Hamlet.

• Hamlet, however, changes the note so that the orders are to kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, which the King of England carries out when they arrive in England.

• The action in the two bullet points above all takes place offstage in Hamlet and is merely reported by Fortinbras at the end of the play.

3. Acting out the beginning of Act One in R&G Are Dead

• Pre-reading: What's the significance of the title?

As we read, keep a log in your composition book of this play's use of extended metaphors:

• Where do you see elements of Absurdism/Existentialism?
• What connections to Waiting for Godot are you noticing?

4. Wrapping up: What do we know about these two characters, and why might Tom Stoppard have chosen them for his play?

HW:
Continue drafting your culminating essay. You have a little over three days left, and there will not be time to revise. Make your final draft a true final draft, and one that you're proud of. Click HERE for the Wednesday night checklist.

Final draft due Thursday, April 26 by 3:00 pm.

We will have one more in-class editing day on Wednesday; aim to finish your rough draft by then.