*Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead -Tom Stoppard
What I liked least about it was the transition between Stoppard’s writing and the extant text from Shakespeare. The old was just so obviously better than the new. The concept was nice. Some of the dialogue wit and snappy, it’s just that, no offense, Shakespeare is the superior writer. And I mean, by superior, actually, genuine. And I mean by genuine mindfulness of death. And I don’t mean mindfulness of death as tragedy, but the essence of comedy, where Shakespeare wrote humorously because of his imminent darkness whereas Stoppard, so it seemed, wrote humorously out of humor, or hyper-self-consciousness, or, gad, boredom (po-mo-ism). Well, it went fast.
In his own words (he did hit the mark a few times):
“We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the words for it… out we come, bloodied and squalling with the knowledge that for all the compasses in the world, there’s only one direction, and time is its only measure (he reflects, getting more desperate and rapid.) A Hindu, a Buddhist and a lion-tamer chanced to meet, in a circus on the Indo-Chinese border. (He breaks out.) They’re taking us for granted! …”
“…truth is only that which is taken to be true. It’s the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn’t make any difference so long as it is honoured.”
and I can’t help repeating, of course, Shakespeare, not Stoppard, “You cannot take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal—except my life, except my life, escept my life…”