Dogg's Hamlet

Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth are two plays by Tom Stoppard, written to be performed together. This was not the first time that Stoppard had made use of Shakespearian texts in his own plays or even the first time he had used Hamlet although the context is far different from that of his earlier Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Stoppard would return to the theme of artistic dissent against the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in Rock 'n' Roll.

It was performed on Broadway for 28 performances and 2 previews at the 22 Steps opening October 3, 1979 and closing October 28, 1979.

In Dogg's Hamlet we find the actors speaking a language called Dogg, which consists of ordinary English words but with meanings completely different from the ones we assign them. Three schoolchildren are rehearsing a performance of Hamlet in English, which is to them a foreign language. Dogg's Hamlet was initially inspired by a scenario proposed by philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein in his work Philosophical Investigations. In this illustrative passage, which plays out in the play, a builder, A, is building something using differently shaped building stones. As A calls out "slab!" "block!" "pillar!" or "beam," the appropriate stones are brought to him by his assistant, B. An observer might assume that the words name the objects, but Wittgenstein suggests another interpretation: that the co-worker already knows what pieces to toss and in what order, but that the words are rather signals that A is ready for the next piece. Wittgenstein also suggests a scenario in which one worker understands the words to mean the shapes of the wood and the other understands the words as the signification of readiness, in other words: The two workers speak different languages without being aware of this fact.

The performance of Hamlet is a highly edited version that was performed as The Dogg's Troupe 15 Minute Hamlet.

Cahoot's Macbeth is usually performed with Dogg's Hamlet, and shows a shortened performance of Macbeth carried out under the eyes of a secret police officer who suspects the actors of subversion against the state. The piece is dedicated to the playwright Pavel Kohout whom Stoppard had met in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1977. Because Kohout and some fellow actors had been barred from working in the theatre by the communist government due to their involvement with Charter 77, he had developed an adaptation of Macbeth to be performed in living rooms.

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