HOW SUCCESSFULLY HAS THE MODERN COMPOSER TRANSFORMED THE.
CLASSICAL TEXT FOR THE MODERN AUDIENCE?.
The conversion of old into new presents different themes and issues to the new age.
audience, styles are manufactured to give the former work a creative edge, not to mention.
a change in perspective. Tom Stoppard changed Hamlet, a Shakespearean tragedy, into.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, an Absurdist piece, in an attempt to make sense.
of contemporary society through classical texts. Stoppard transformed themes and issues,.
characters and techniques, emphasising the intricacies of modern life, creating a new.
perspective on arguably the most well-known play in history. Altering the philosophies of.
Hamlet, abandoning both, structure and development within the parameters of the stage,.
creating an importance for the underdog, instead of monitoring life from the top,.
Stoppard took Shakepeare's idea and made it new and inviting to the contemporary age.
The transformation of genres gives Hamlet, the story, a modern feel, one which the.
contemporary audience can relate to. Hamlet was a tragedy by definition, containing.
definite stages of development, with the expectation of resolution. It paralleled the social.
context of the Seventeenth Century, where the general belief was that things occurred for.
distinct reasons, and the eventual -right-turning of the hierarchy triangle would set.
things back to normal. Stoppard broke the Shakespearean trait of righting wrongs by.
presenting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as an Absurdist piece with no.
resolution, no development, and no direction. We have a complex genre, a comedy which.
ends in tragedy, and we have two characters whose fatal flaw is not an internal one, but.
one that has been inflicted upon them. This way of showing life is very modern, as the.
Twenty- first Century psyche dwells on the questioning of everything, and the.
absoluteness of direction is hardly ever equated with contemporary society.