2012 - 40th I was Rosencrantz. Christopher McHale was Guildenstern. We’re not dead. Guil: We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered. . . . Ros: Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it? Guil: No. Ros: Nor do I, really... It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead... which should make all the difference... shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like being asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you, not without any air-- you'd wake up dead, for a start, and then where would you be? Apart from inside a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it... Because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you? Stuffed in a box like that, I mean you'd be in there forever. Even taking into account the fact that you're dead, it isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really... ask yourself, if I asked straight off-- I'm going to stuff you in this box now, would you rather be alive or dead? Naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all. I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking-- well, at least I'm not dead! In a minute someone's going to bang on the lid and tell me to come out. "Hey you, whatsyername! Come out of there!" . . . Ros: ...We have no control. None at all... (He paces.) Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one, a moment, in childhood when it first occurred to you that you don't go on forever. It must have been shattering-- stamped into one's memory. And yet I can't remember it. It never occurred to me at all. What does one make of that? We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the words for it, before we know that there are words, out we come, bloodied and squalling with the knowledge that for all the compasses in the world, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure. . . . Guil: Autumnal-- nothing to do with leaves. It is to do with a certain brownness at the edges of the day... Brown is creeping up on us, take my word for it.. Russets and tangerine shades of old gold flushing the very outside edge of the senses... deep shining ochres burnt umber and parchments of baked earth-- reflecting on itself and through itself, filtering the light. At such times, perhaps, coincidentally, the leaves might fall, somewhere, by repute. Yesterday was blue, like smoke. . . . Ros: That's it then, is it? (No answer. He looks out front.) The sun's going down, or the earth's coming up, as the fashionable theory has it. (Small pause.) Not that it makes any difference. (Pause.) What was it all about? When did it begin? (Pause. No answer.) Couldn't we just stay put? I mean no one is going to come on and drag us off...They'll just have to wait...We're still young...fit...we've got years...(Pause. No answer.) (A cry.) We've done nothing wrong! We didn't harm anyone did we? Guil: I can't remember. Thank you for all your work on this project.