Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Gertrude) refer to them frequently by the wrong names. Because of the play's similarity to "Waiting for Godot", Rosencrantz is sometimes compared to Estragon (one of the tramps who wait for Godot), and who shares his dim perception of reality, while Guildenstern parallels Vladimir, who shares his analytical perception. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet". They are childhood friends of Hamlet, summoned by King Claudius to distract the prince from his apparent madness and if possible to ascertain the cause of it. The characters were revived in W. S. Gilbert's satire, "Rosencrantz and
Play (play) a woman and two men, Syke and Conk, figures in white boxes. In the final version we are presented instead with, as Michael Robinson describes it in "The Long Sonata of the Dead: A Study of Samuel Beckett", “the three corners of love’s eternal triangle (the emphasis here is on the eternal) … They have no names [now], simply the designations M, W1 and W2 which aim at anonymity but also stand for all men and women who have, like them, been caught up in a three-part love affair,” The play is entitled "Play", in the same way that Beckett’s