Tom Stoppard : A Life

by Nadel, Ira Bruce; Nadel, Ira

• ISBN13: 9780312237783
• ISBN10: 0312237782
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-06-01
• Publisher: St Martins Pr

Summary

Tom Stoppard has written some of the most challenging and fanciful plays of the 20th century. His work, from the early Jumpers to the film Shakespeare in Love to the current play The Invention of Love, has in effect changed the landscape of drama. Witty, erudite, passionate, abstract, clever (some would say too clever by half), his works are like no one else's. Who is Tom Stoppard -- the Czech-born son of Jews who became the singularly English man of letters? In this vibrant, critical portrait, Ira Nadel weaves life and works into a fascinating chronicle of Stoppard's world on English and American stages. Peopled with such characters as Diana Rigg, John Wood, and Billy Crudup, the book untangles Stoppard's genius against the backdrop of Broadway and London's West End.

Author Biography

Ira Nadel is a commentator for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and teaches English at the Univerity of British Columbia.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xi
Deserts of Bohemia	1	(16)
Lavender Street	17	(22)
Et in Arcadia Ego	39	(34)
At the Paragon	73	(27)
Swinging London	100	(28)
Berlin Cowboy	128	(21)
Rosencrantz on the Royal Mile	149	(26)
The Old Vic and a New Playwright	175	(30)
Swinging from an Epigram	205	(31)
Artist Ascending a Staircase	236	(23)
Marzipan Clocks	259	(22)
Czech Mates	281	(26)
Incurable Semantic	307	(24)
Broadway to Brazil	331	(23)
Eloquent Equations	354	(35)
An English Eden	389	(23)
The Classic Romantic: Shakespeare in Love	412	(13)
Byron in a Laptop	425	(28)
New York, Prague	453	(18)
Multiple Fascination	471	(29)
Camouflaged by Display	500	(37)
Notes	537	(52)
Bibliography	589	(4)
Acknowledgements	593	(6)
Index	599