The Plays of Tom Stoppard For Stage, Radio, TV and Film

by Hodgson, Terry

• ISBN13: 9781840462418
• ISBN10: 1840462418
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-08-16
• Publisher: Red Globe Pr

Summary

In this Readers' Guide, Terry Hodgson provides a general background to Stoppard's oeuvre, elucidating his main themes through selective quotation from the critics and from Stoppard's own illuminating interview comments. The book summarizes stage techniques and modes of critical approach, and focuses throughout on Stoppard's concern with the nature of creativity. This theme is particularly evident in important plays written in the 1990s Arcadia , Indian Ink and The Invention of Love - key works by this seminal playwright about which there has been little comment so far.

Author Biography

Terry Hodgson is Senior Lecturer, University of Sussex.

Table of Contents

Preface	8	(1)
The Background and the Work	9	(5)
Biography and background to the work
Early Stage Plays: Playing Games	14	(14)
Enter a Free Man and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Dual identity
games people play
tensions between imagination and `reality'
Early Radio Plays	28	(13)
The Dissolution of Dominic Boot; `M' is for Moon Among Other Things; If You're Glad, I'll be Frank; Albert's Bridge; Where Are They Now?
The radio medium
mechanical Millie
routine and longing
the limitations of logic
aspirations towards infinity
farce, the Marx brothers
remembering the past
Early TV Plays	41	(9)
A Separate Peace; Teeth; Another Moon Called Earth; Neutral Ground
Writing for television
escaping from the world
moon landings and reversed perspectives
the spy story
coming in from the cold
Detective Stories	50	(12)
The Real Inspector Hound and After Magritte
Having fun with the genres
the thriller, surrealism and visual stage effects
`Thou Shalt Not Kill'	62	(9)
Jumpers
Love among the logical positivists
visual conundrums
surrealism
the Hare and the Tortoise
moon landings
materialism and transcendency
detective stories
the incredible and the explicable
the serious and the funny
What Did You Do in the Great War?	71	(12)
Artist Descending a Staircase and Travesties
Radio virtuosity
hints and sound effects
love, imagination and visual memory
varieties of murder
a dry run for Travesties
memory and imagination
art, drama and history
A Knickers Farce and Tribute to America	83	(5)
Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land (integrated plays)
Farce, sex and politics in the Home Office
Ethics and Politics in Eastern Europe	88	(10)
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and Professional Foul
The London Symphony Orchestra
farce, authoritarianism and comic reversals
East and West
language games
ethics and problems of ends and means
on the football field and off it
African Naturalism	98	(7)
Night and Day
Sound effects
naturalism
night thoughts and day dreams
the private and the public story
Language and Czech Censorship	105	(5)
Dogg's Hamlet and Cahoot's Macbeth (integrated plays)
Language games
the value of secret languages
defeating the censor and building the wall
Writing About Love	110	(10)
The Real Thing
The various languages of love
plays-within-the-play
wit and smart remarks
cliche and the `real thing'
Adaptations	120	(11)
Undiscovered Country; On the Razzle; Rough Crossing; Dalliance
Schnitzler
love
comedy
farce and tragedy
Later Radio and TV	131	(14)
The Dog It Was That Died and Squaring the Circle
Sanity and insanity
`normal' and `abnormal' in a spy story
documentary television and the economic and cultural pressures
the problems of writing history
Triple Twinning
Hapgood	138	(7)
Writing and rehearsal
human identity and the nature of nature
when to reveal secrets
double-crossing
power and the private individual
Discovering the Past and Predicting the Future	145	(9)
Arcadia
Sources
playing with time
literary research and the second law of thermodynamics
the romantic and the classical temperaments
catastrophe and the `golden world'
From Radio to Stage	154	(9)
In The Native State and Indian Ink
Poetry and politics
naturalism
mingling cultures
mixing languages
naturalistic characterisation
from radio to stage
time passing
`rasa' and creativity
Scholarship and Poetry	163	(5)
The Invention of Love
Associative connections
isolation and duality
encounters
friendship
love, loss and scholarship
Film Scripts	168	(6)
Shakespeare in Love
Stoppard's film scripting experience
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on film
playwrighting and professional problems
identity, gender and playacting
loss and creativity
Theatre Views: Director, Actor and Author	174	(6)
Professional conditions
relations with the director, Peter Wood
comments of actors
politics and Stoppard
authorial experience
Stoppard's views
the originating idea
an anarchic spirit
chaos and control
Academic Criticism and Stoppard	180	(14)
Entries on MLA database, plays and topics
the absurd and high comedy
Marxism, modernism and the absurd
Stoppard and materialism
a conservative or a radical?
Stoppard and Shakespeare
the nature of comedy
Elam and a structuralist approach
ambiguity
postmodernism
A Note on Character and Dialogue	194	(9)
The creation of `living character'
the limitations of drama
the contribution of actors
fragmentation and `unity' of character
Lord Malquist and Mr Moon
breakdown
the author's voice
variety of discourse
the value of dominant rhythm
the wit and the fool
incompleteness and duality
the mechanical and the living
stylists
the development of individual characters
Conclusion	203	(2)
Bibliography	205	(12)
Acknowledgements	217	(1)
Index	218