"Stoppard, Tom - Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead v0.5" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stoppard Tom)

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
A Play by Tom Stoppard
eVersion 0.5

ACT ONE

TWO ELIZABETHANS passing the time in a place without any visible character. They are well dressed---hats, cloaks, sticks and all. Each of them has a large leather money bag. GUILDENSTERN'S bag is nearly empty. ROSENCRANTZ'S bag is nearly full. The reason being: they are betting on the toss of a coin, in the following manner. GUILDENSTERN (hereafter "GUIL") takes a coin out of his bag, spins it, letting it fall. ROSENCRANTZ (hereafter "ROS") studies it, announces it as "heads" (as it happens) and puts it into his own bag. Then they repeat the process. They have apparently been doing this for some time. The run of "heads" is impossible, yet ROS betrays no surprise at all--- he feels none. However, he is nice enough to feel a little embarrassed at taking so much money off his friend. Let that be his character note. GUIL is well alive to the oddity of it. He is not worried about the money, but he is worried by the implications; aware but not going to panic about it--- his character note. GUIL sits. ROS stands (he does the moving, retrieving coins). GUIL spins. ROS studies coin.

ROS: Heads.

He picks it up and puts it in his bag. The process is repeated.

Heads.

Again.

Heads.

Again.

Heads.

Again.

Heads.

GUIL (flipping a coin): There is an art to the building up of suspense.

ROS: Heads.

GUIL (flipping another): Though it can be done by luck alone.

ROS: Heads.

GUIL: If that's the word I'm after.

ROS (raises his head at GUIL): Seventy-six-love.

GUIL gets up but has nowhere to go. He spins another coin over his shoulder without looking at it, his attention being directed at his environment or lack of it.

Heads.

GUIL: A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else at least in the law of probability. (He slips a coin over his shoulder as he goes to look upstage.)

ROS: Heads.

GUIL, examining the confines of the stage, flips over two more coins as he does so, one by one of course. ROS announces each of them as "heads."

GUIL (musing): The law of probability, it has been oddly asserted, is something to do with the proposition that if six monkeys (he has surprised himself) . . . if six monkeys were .