But starting Friday, Company Carolina will revive the treacherous twosome with its production of Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead."
While Shakespeare's play can be dark and depressing, this updated, postmodern version injects much more humor into the Bard's sticky, incest-ridden situations.
"One critic called it the worm's-eye view of 'Hamlet,'" said sophomore Betsy Herzog, the play's director. "Hamlet, Ophelia and the other characters are going to come on and go off. We're seeing the story from the sidelines."
Stoppard, who also penned "Arcadia" and colaborated on the screenplay for "Shakespeare in Love," wrote the play in 1966 and centered it on the two enigmatic characters. Easily confused and interchangeable, the pair shuffles off this mortal coil when Hamlet sends them to England with a forged letter originally meant to execute the Dane himself.
Their demise warrants a single line in the fifth act of "Hamlet," which has become the title of Stoppard's play.
"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" became popular in the United Kingdom upon its initial performance and was eventually made into a 1991 film starring Gary Oldman and Tim Roth. Company Carolina members say they were excited to take on a recent work with such an illustrious history.
"People have really strong reactions when they hear the title," Herzog said. "They either say, 'Oh, I love that play!' or 'What in the world is that?'"
Junior Michael Gagnon, a producer with Company Carolina, said Stoppard's play fits with the group involved in this particular production.
"His themes really appeal to a literary environment," Gagnon said. "Most of us have read the play, so this is happening at just the right time."
