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Rosencrantz does not grasp the fact that that the Player is selling pornography. In the Player's description of the works available for purchase, he insinuates that a romance filled with "faithless wives" and "ravished virgins" will cost more money. The Player, who initially interacts primarily with Rosencrantz, is trying to sell them a performance.

It is a troupe of six tragedians led by a spokesperson called the Player.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hear a band playing in the distance. After asking each other questions, together they remember a messenger who sent for them early in the morning to attend to an urgent matter. They can barely remember what happened earlier that morning. Unable to settle upon any substantive justification for the event, Guildenstern tries to recall his first memory, but neither Rosencrantz nor Guildenstern have memories of their past. He lists several explanations ranging from divine intervention to the possibility that a single moment has been replayed over and over again. Guildenstern proceeds to muse upon possible explanations for why the laws of probability seem to have been suspended in this coin toss game.

Rosencrantz is not unsettled by the events, and simply believes he has set a new record. Guildenstern, the more philosophical and probing of the two, is not angry at his loss, but is rather trying to hide his discomfort at the improbability of the situation. The coin has landed on heads over seventy-six times in a row, and Rosencrantz has won every time. As the coin is called "heads" or "tails," the winner places the coin in his sack. The play opens as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are spinning coins in an indistinct landscape.