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
The Shakespeare Code "Sycorax" to Shakespeare, Shakespeare says that he will use the name (the joke is that the name in fact derives from Caliban's mother in Shakespeare's play "The Tempest".) Other sequences include subtle references to much earlier episodes. One of the putative lines of "Love's Labour's Won", "the eye should have contentment where it rests", is taken from episode three of the 1965 serial "The Crusade" — a story consciously written in Shakespearean style. The episode concerns the "lost" Shakespeare play "Love's Labour's Won", which is referred to in more than one historical document, but which may be just an alternative