Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Elizabethan gentlemen only in appearance. Apart from one joke about the 'fashionable theory' of earth going round the sun no attempt at all is make to link their mental processes to the Renaissance world of corrupt grandeur in which they have roles to play. While they do not make references to films or other modern inventions they psychologically think and feel like memb3ers of a modern audience. Both the humour and the darkness of Stoppard's play comes substantially from this blending of ancient and modern.
             Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are also more defined as individuals than Shakespeare's interchangeable pair. Theatrically they need to be as they have to carry almost all of the action of the play, and although the main drama is about their common situation, there had to be some tension between them if only at the level of a comic double act. Stoppard uses this familiar comedy double act to stage and to typically present an image of irritated but long term friendship. One si sharp-witted, or at least imagines he is; the other more simple or silly, though sometimes his may be the final victory- the essential basic for comedy (or drama)( is that they must differ. Stoppard's theatrical instinct has transformed Shakespeare's bland, sycophantic courtiers, not quite into straight-men and idiot, but into a cerebral Guildenstern (thinking more abstractedly, trying to reason beyond his direct experience) and a more down-to-earth Rosencrantz. After Guildenstern has spent 2 pages playing at abstract philosophy, Rosencrantz is more interested in his toenails. Rosencrantz is not a fool but is more easily fooled (eg by the player pg.49/50) and he prefers to get back to basics, even if they include a basic fear of death (pg.51-52). He is the kinder of the two.
             Stoppard has spoken of them as 'carrying out a dialogue which I carry out with myself. One of them is fairly intell...