Tom Stoppard's first major success came with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead which chronicles the tale of Hamlet as told from the worm's-eye view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare's play. When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern opened in London in 1967, it was immediately hailed as a masterpiece of the modern theatre and catapulted Stoppard into the front ranks of modern dramatists almost overnight.