When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead premiered in Edinburgh and London in August of 1966 and in April of 1967, Tom Stoppard was immediately recognized as a major contemporary playwright The cleverness in the concept of the play, its verbal dexterity, and its phenomenal theatricality brought its first reviewer, Ronald Bryden, to call it "the most brilliant debut by a young playwright since John Arden." Later, in London, Irving Wardle, writing for the Guardian, said that "as a first stage play it is an amazing piece of work," and in New York, Harold Clurman, reviewing the play in Nation, echoed the general sentiment by calling Stoppard's play a "scintillating debut." And Clive Barnes, the highly influential critic for the New York Times, asserted in October of 1967 that "in one bound Mr. Stoppard is asking to be considered as among the finest English-speaking writers of our stage, for this...