Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead Act I

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters from which Shakespearean play?

• As You Like It

• Hamlet

• King Lear

• Romeo & Juliet

As the play opens, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are traveling because

• They were hungry

• They wanted to see a play

• They needed more coins to flip

• They were sent for

The play is set in the early

• 1300s

• 1400s

• 1500s

• 1600s

Who is the author of the play?

• Tom Stoppard

• William Shakespeare

• Laura Hillenbrand

• Upton Sinclair

What description does Tom Stoppard provide of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's dress, and what does it reveal about their characters?`

• They are well dressed with "hats, cloaks. sticks and all." and a large money bag. This reveals that they are well off and wealthy.

• They are in robes with slippers meaning that they are poor.

• They are dressed in togas, meaning that they have Greek heritage

• Both men are wearing fancy polo shirts, meaning that they are professional golfers

When the Players meet Rosencrantz & Guildenstern on the road, why does the Player say that they had met "in just time"?

• The Players had just left Hamlet, so they tell R and G where to find them

• The Players were out of practice, and they needed an audience to perform for before they forgot everything and started improvising

• The Players had heard that a military troop was marching on a nearby road, and they were able to prevent R & G from going in that direction

• The Players needed someone to give them directions to the Court and R & G were able to lead them there

What side did the coins always land on?

• Heads

• Tails

• False, they levitated

• False, they were flipping bricks

Does Guildenstern trust Rosencrantz? How do you know?

• Yes. G never looks at the coins when R says they are heads and takes the coins.

• No, G begins to argue with R since he is losing a lot of money

The law of diminishing returns is an economic concept that says, in simplified terms, that a key amount of input yields the greatest amount of output. At a certain point, any additional input would actually yield less output. How does Rosencrantz conclude that the law of diminishing returns is not affecting the coin toss?

• R knows the coin is going to keep being heads, so it is useless/boring to keep flipping it

• R argues that he just needs to use up even more coins

In existential terms, what is the greatest difference between the two courtiers?

• R wants to find a logical explanation for everything, while G just accepts the world as absurd

• G wants to find a logical explanation for everything, while R just accepts the world as absurd