Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead delineates events that happen to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (minor characters from Hamlet) during Hamlet. Tom Stoppard, an English writer, wrote it in 1967. In the course of the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go through many absurd events, such as a coin flipping game where the coins always land on heads, and a game of questions. Stoppard portrays them as a pair of idiots, who are dead to everything but themselves. They frequently make profound statements about life, yet are too dull to realize what truths they have stumbled upon and quickly slip back into their idiocy. Stoppard uses "play within a play" theme by presenting scenes taken verbatim from Hamlet and new plays performed by the players from Hamlet. Stoppard often gives us clues to where they are in the time frame of Hamlet. The players from Hamlet have a larger role in this play. They assist Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in exploring the nature of death. The players die every night, but according to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, they cannot know the true nature of death, because death is not something that anyone has experienced and lived to tell about it. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are constantly confused and confusing. Usually we see one of them as being the brighter of the two, but the one we see in this light varies during the play. In this manner, they are two indistinguishable characters; they are two sides of the same coin. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead belongs to the "Theater of the Absurd" genre, which explores the senselessness of the human condition. The play is dark humor, meaning that it is a tragedy that is so absurd that it makes us laugh and has a definite message and is filled with verbal wit.