Stoppard's play is a fresh take on Hamlet, in which he lifts two of the minor comedic yet ill-fated characters from Shakespeare's play and revamps the plot so that it plays out from their perspectives.
This knowing, play-within-a-play approach signals that we're reading/watching a piece of meta-theater, with Stoppard evoking Samuel Beckett as much as Shakespeare. Ultimately, Stoppard's play is less concerned with driving the action forward than with listening to the banter of these characters, a semi-absurdist approach that turns theatrical conventions on their head.
How is the relationship between art and life explored within this play and to what effect? In what ways could the play be seen as a postmodern text?