S1E2: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

The world feels insane and more absurd every day. When I open the news, I’m hit again and again with scandal, affronts, chaos, ridiculous people in charge. When I open social media, I’m agog at the folks I associate with: “You really stand for this? You really want this in your life?! This is the kind of people you really are?!?” When I’m in the classroom, kids spit out gibberish like “Six seven!” or “He’s so aura’d right now, for real for real!!” and it can’t possibly be English they’re blabbering.How can this be the normal world we were all living in?When did things slide off the rails? Was it that election? Was it when they killed Harambe? Was there a point in time when we broke the universe and slid into the darkest timeline? Because everything — politics, social upheaval, pandemics, economic collapse, everything — everything since a certain point feels utterly absurd. And why, why, why can I not remember exactly when it happened? Am I just repeating the same mistakes over and again?Such is Tom Stoppard’s classic play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. This week, my co-host and I are exploring the play’s ridicule of the absurdity in the world through the lens of Shakespeare’s two side characters from Hamlet.Second Stage is a Free Zone Radio production. You can find our show on Spotify alongside our other podcast, With Honorson Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0881bUWWdgkBdGzHlPNToi?si=b510a0cd363a4320on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/with-honors/id1797115480on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCweufFHJbylu4tR598SDj5wAlso, throw some love at our brotherly podcast with Coach Haston, A Deadman’s Books. He’s on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/4HtulwbO10pOjV5hbdWOty?si=a23d92c90128476eand Apple Podcasts at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-deadmans-books/id1795582942as well as Haston Curation, on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/3O8GDUtqshbxFF7gU2FMwM?si=d15c2539fadd40fcThis episode also features “Caught in the Middle” by Amarent and “Flea Bop” by Mr. Smith, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit secondstagepodcast.substack.com