Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth | Literary Criticism & Book Review

Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth Critical Overview

Stoppard's quirky Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth has an even more quirky creation history. The play began as a one-act play, entitled Dogg's Our Pet, which was performed in 1971 in London. In 1976, Stoppard wrote a different play, The 15 Minute Dogg's Troupe Hamlet. In 1979, this play was combined with Dogg's Our Pet, and the two plays were revised to create Dogg's Hamlet. In the same year, Dogg's Hamlet was combined with Cahoot's Macbeth, and the two have usually been performed together ever since.

Critical reaction to this set of plays has generally been mixed. In 1979, Brendan Gill noted in the New Yorker that Stoppard is an "ingenious author" and that the audience is "amused and instructed."