R&G Are Dead - My Thoughts #2

I notice a lot of witty banter throughout the play, which really makes it interesting to read through - it keeps the reader/audience on their toes and is a key element in the rhetoric of humor. This play sure knows how to strike the funny bone in all sorts of ways. We laugh at disorder and misunderstanding (Postmodernism and establishment of superiority/laughing at the misfortune of others); we laugh at gay jokes (low comedy); we laugh at repetition and slap stick and ambiguity. I always consider an author more successful when they get me to chuckle with them. It makes me feel like we have an inside joke, and I love being able to imagine how much fun Tom Stoppard had writing this clever piece. What a blast that would have been for him to see it performed. I really want to see it performed live; I'm glad we get to see the movie.
I like the significance Stoppard places on certain elements also, like the coins. He uses the turning point line "It was tails" to transition into a different part of the story - the part where R&G meet with the king and queen and we begin to see those familiar Hamlet lines.
I flagged Guildenstern's quote, "The only beginning is birth and the only end is death - if you can't count on that, what can you count on?" This shows naturalism (focusing only on the physical and saying nothing else matters). It's also postmodern in the sense that we can't know any truth about our lives, and that all we know is birth and death. Truth isn't knowable or expressible.
Oh, and I found a typo on page 44.