Author's Style and Elements of Drama

author's style and elements of drama

Stoppard uses a lot of elements of drama in his play. Two elements of drama that he utilizes heavily are blocking and lighting.

Blocking: Blocking is the movement of characters throughout the stage. Stoppard uses a lot of blocking throughout the play for several reasons:

Stoppard uses it in order to foreshadow the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. A prominent example of blocking to foreshadow is after the Tragedians mimic an act and the lights are turned on again: “The stage is empty save for two cloaked figures sprawled on the ground in the approximate positions last held by the dead spies” (85).
Blocking is also used to further emphasize the emotions of characters. For example, Guildenstern feels insulted when the Player suggests that he should pay to take part in a sexual play and “smashes the Player across the face” (26).
Blocking is also used to demonstrate the relationships between characters. The Player’s role as leader of the Tragedians is demonstrated when he orders the Tragedians to set up for the act while he stands and watches.
Finally, blocking is also used to show the inaction of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. In Act II, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are instructed to go find Hamlet several times and, while they consider going somewhere at first, they always decide to go back to the place where they began and wait for people to come along. At the end of the act, they are in the same place where they started showing that they have made no progress.

Lighting: Lighting is used throughout the play during moments when deaths occur, are set in motion, or are foreshadowed:

One example of lighting is after the Tragedians mimic the play in Act II. The lights go off and when they are turned back on, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are "sprawled on the ground in the approximate positions last held by the dead spies" (85).
In Act III, Hamlet blows out the lantern is holds to steal Claudius' letter from Guildenstern, turns the lantern on behind the umbrella (which conceals Hamlet) to write the new letter, and replaces the letter in the dark.
At the end of Act III, after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern disappear (they die), the "whole stage is lit up, revealing, upstage... the tableau of court and corpses which is the last scene of Hamlet" (126).

Stoppard has also created the characters' dialogue using contemporary English. As the play sporadically switches between Shakespearean iambic pentameter and a more modern syntax, the readers gain a sense of the absurd situation Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find themselves in.