Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (play) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (play) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, A Tragic Episode, in Three Tabloids is a short comic play by W. S. Gilbert, a parody of "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare. The main characters in Gilbert's play are King Claudius and Queen Gertrude of Denmark, their son Prince Hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Ophelia. Gilbert's play first appeared in "Fun" magazine in 1874 after having been rejected for production by several theatre companies. The first performance of the work was not until June 1891, a benefit matinée at the Vaudeville Theatre in London. The play finally ran at the Court
Characters of Shakespear's Plays room for [...] worse than needless additions" from other plays, often not by Shakespeare, "many of the most striking passages in the real play have been omitted by the foppery and ignorance of the prompt-book critics." Viewing it as the stage presentation of a story, he finds this play is damaged by these manipulations, as, in Shakespeare's original, the "arrangement and developement of the story, and the mutual contrast and combination of the "dramatis personae", are in general as finely managed as the developement of the characters or the expression of the passions." He remarks on another kind of editing—what