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
Themes in Titus Andronicus is mentioned several times, and just as they are driven by a desire for revenge, so too are the characters in "Titus"; the entire narrative from midway through Act 1 is built around the plotting of revenge. According to Hereward Thimbleby Price, Shakespeare "is writing a Senecan play according to the rules, that is to say, a play in which the hero is a man who inexorably pursues revenge and who dies in the act of taking it." Bill Alexander, who directed a Royal Shakespeare Company production in 2003, argues that the play is largely about revenge and the desire