Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Arcadia

ROS: Statement. One-love.

GUIL: What's your name when you're at home?

ROS: What's yours?

GUIL: When I'm at home?

ROS: Is it different at home?

GUIL: What home?

ROS: Haven't you got one?

GUIL: Why do you ask?

ROS: What are you driving at?

GUIL ( with emphasis): What's your name?!

ROS: Repetition. Two-love. Match point to me.

GUIL ( seizing him violently): WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

ROS: Rhetoric! Game and match! ( Pause. ) Where's it going to end?

GUIL: That's the question.

ROS: It's all questions.

GUIL: Do you think it matters?

ROS: Doesn't it matter to you?

GUIL: Why should it matter?

ROS: What does it matter why?

GUIL ( teasing gently): Doesn't it matter why it matters?

ROS ( rounding on him): What's the matter with you?

Pause.

GUIL: It doesn't matter.

ROS ( voice in the wilderness):... What's the game?

GUIL: What are the rules?

Enter HAMLET behind, crossing the stage, reading a book---as he is about to disappear GUIL notices him.

GUIL ( sharply): Rosencrantz!

ROS ( jumps): What!

HAMLET goes. Triumph dawns on them, they smile.

GUIL: There! How was that?

ROS: Clever!

GUIL: Natural?

ROS: Instinctive.

GUIL: Got it in your head?

ROS: I take my hat off to you.

GUIL: Shake hands.

They do.

ROS: Now I'll try you---GUIL---!

GUIL: ---Not yet---catch me unawares.

ROS: Right.

They separate. Pause. Aside to GUIL .

Ready?

GUIL ( explodes): Don't be stupid.

ROS: Sorry.

Pause.

GUIL ( snaps): Guildenstern!

ROS ( jumps): What?

He is immediately crestfallen, GUIL is disgusted.

GUIL: Consistency is all I ask!

ROS ( quietly): Immortality is all I seek...

GUIL ( dying fall): Give us this day our daily week...

Beat.

ROS: Who was that?

GUIL: Didn't you know him?

ROS: He didn't know me.

GUIL: He didn't see you.

ROS: I didn't see him.

GUIL: We shall see. I hardly knew him, he's changed.

ROS: You could see that?

GUIL: Transformed.

ROS: How do you know?

GUIL: Inside and out.

ROS: I see.

GUIL: He's not himself.

ROS: He's changed.

GUIL: I could see that.

Beat.

Glean what afflicts him.

ROS: Me?

GUIL: Him.

ROS: How?

GUIL: Question and answer. Old ways are the best ways.

ROS: He's afflicted.

GUIL: You question, I'll answer.

ROS: He's not himself, you know.

GUIL: I'm him, you see.

Beat.

ROS: Who am I then?

GUIL: You're yourself.

ROS: And he's you?

GUIL: Not a bit of it.

ROS: Are you afflicted?

GUIL: That's the idea. Are you ready?

ROS: Let's go back a bit.

GUIL: I'm afflicted.

ROS: I see.

GUIL: Glean what afflicts me.

ROS: Right.

GUIL: Question and answer.

ROS: How should I begin?

GUIL: Address me.

ROS: My dear Guildenstern!

GUIL: ( quietly): You've forgotten---haven't you?

ROS: My dear Rosencrantz!