Stoppard's Theatre

by Fleming, John

• ISBN13: 9780292725331
• ISBN10: 0292725337
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

With a thirty-year run of award-winning, critically acclaimed, and commercially successful plays, from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967) to The Invention of Love (1997), Tom Stoppard is arguably the preeminent playwright in Britain today. His popularity also extends to the United States, where his plays have won three Tony awards and his screenplay for Shakespeare in Love won the 1998 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.John Fleming offers the first book-length assessment of Stoppard' work in nearly a decade. He takes an in-depth look at the three newest plays (Arcadia, Indian Ink, and The Invention of Love) and the recently revised versions of Travesties and Hapgood, as well as at four other major plays (Rosencrantz, Jumpers, Night and Day, and The Real Thing). Drawing on Stoppard' personal papers at the University of Texas Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRHRC), Fleming also examines Stoppard' previously unknown play Galileo, as well as numerous unpublished scripts and variant texts of his published plays.Fleming also mines Stoppard' papers for a fuller, more detailed overview of the evolution of his plays. By considering Stoppard' personal views (from both his correspondence and interviews) and by examining his career from his earliest scripts and productions through his most recent, this book provides all that is essential for understanding and appreciating one of the most complex and distinctive playwrights of our time.

Author Biography

John Fleming is Director of Graduate Studies in the Theatre Department at Southwest Texas State University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
Annotated Chronology of Stoppard's Career	xi
Introduction	1	(9)
Career before Rosencrantz and Guildenstern	10	(37)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead	47	(19)
Galileo	66	(16)
Jumpers	82	(19)
Travesties	101	(20)
Examining Eastern Bloc Repression	121	(16)
Night and Day	137	(18)
The Real Thing	155	(20)
Hapgood	175	(16)
Arcadia	191	(17)
Indian Ink	208	(16)
The Invention of Love	224	(21)
Conclusion	245	(10)
Notes	255	(48)
Bibliography	303	(14)
Index	317