In 1977, ten years after Tom Stoppard’s breakthrough success withRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Kenneth Tynan, prominent critic and longtime Literary Manager for England’s National Theatre, asserted that in terms of international prestige, the standard of British playwriting was held by Harold Pinter, Peter Shaffer, and Stoppard (46).¹ Since that assessment Pinter has done limited writing for the stage, while Shaffer’s post-1980 work has received a mixed reaction. In contrast, Stoppard has consistently continued to garner both critical acclaim and commercial success. Of his nine major plays—Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead(1967),Jumpers(1972),Travesties(1974),Night and Day(1978),The...

When the rave reviews came in during the opening night party for the 1967 Broadway production ofRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard turned to his wife and carried out a mock interview with himself: “‘Question: Mr. Stoppard, what is your play about? Answer: It’s about to make me rich’” (Hedgepeth 96).¹ Indeed, the success of the play in many of the major theatre centers of the Western world altered not only Stoppard’s financial fortunes but also his literary reputation, as he went from a one-time writer of propagandistic radio soap operas to being hailed as one of the...

Speaking about his early writing career and process, Stoppard remarked: “The reason whythatidea appealed to me rather than another one is that it does have this under-structure to it. . . . The important thing about a successful work of art is not that it should communicate X to everybody but that it should run through the absolute alphabet for each 26 people” (Taylor 28). The Stoppard work that most embodies this idea of presenting a metaphoric situation that offers a range of multiple meanings rather than specific intent is his 1967 breakthrough playRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are...

The international success ofRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Deadmade Stoppard a writer in great demand. When West End producer Michael Codron requested a script, Stoppard revised an early play,The Critics, into the work now known asThe Real Inspector Hound. Also,Enter a Free Manwas near the end of its option, but now was moved quickly into production on the West End. Thus, in 1968, Stoppard was in the rare position of having three new plays being produced in prestigious London venues.

The film industry also sought Stoppard’s talents; within a month ofRosguil’sopening, Stoppard had...

The huge success ofRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Deadensured two things: first, that whatever Stoppard wrote next the National Theatre would be interested in staging it; and second, that critical eyes would be focused on this second major play to see whether Stoppard was just a one-hit wonder. Stoppard startedJumperswith a few pages in the summer of 1968: “Then I stopped, and I wrote ‘After Magritte’ and a radio play [Where Are They Now?], and I left Jose [his first wife] and I bought and sold houses and was divorced and was in and out of courts...

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are DeadandJumperswere both awardwinning successes at the National Theatre, and through them Stoppard was recognized for his linguistic and theatrical virtuosity. His reputation was that of a flashy, entertaining, apolitical, intellectual artist. But what is an artist? What are the possible roles, functions, and aims of the artist? What is the position of the artist in society? These questions formed part of Stoppard’s internal debate, and so he followedJumperswith two meditations on the nature of art and the role of the artist. His 1972 radio playArtist Descending a Staircasewas a...

Between major stage plays Stoppard typically remains busy by writing for other media, by composing adaptations, and by penning works for nonmainstream theatre venues. These “minor” works include some of Stoppard’s most innovative and effective writing. In particular, in 1977, Stoppard’s personal concern for human rights abuses in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union manifested itself inEvery Good Boy Deserves Favor(henceforthEGBDF) andProfessional Foul.¹ Since these plays directly confront social issues, critics initially hailed them as marking a new, more mature Stoppard, a playwright who would be serious and politically engaged. Stoppard quickly distanced himself from such claims:...

In a 1976 interview, Stoppard remarked: “A lot of things inTravestiesandJumpersseem to me to be the terminus of the particular kind of writing which I can do. I don’t see much point in trying to do it again” (Hayman,Tom Stoppard, 138). Indeed, whenNight and Day, Stoppard’s next major play, debuted at the Phoenix Theatre in November 1978, audiences encountered a work that Stoppard sheepishly described as “one of those beginning, middle and end plays with one set and eight characters, including a woman who’s falling for somebody” (Berkvist 135). The change in style from...

WhileNight and Daywas a fairly successful foray into the realm of modified realism with a narrative throughline and threedimensional characters, it was withThe Real Thing(1982) that Stoppard more fully answered the critics who said he could not write truthfully about the depths of basic human emotions. A witty, intelligent romantic comedy focusing on the joys, pains, and emotional dynamics of adult love relationships,The Real Thingis Stoppard’s most realistic, most personal, and most accessible play, the one in which audiences can most identify with the characters and their situations. Not surprisingly, it ranks withRosencrantz...

After the huge success ofThe Real Thing, Stoppard, like his fictional playwright Henry, appeared on the bbc radio programDesert Island Discs. There Stoppard mentioned that he was interested in writing a play about mathematics. Fans and book publishers soon began sending him suggestions and resources, but Stoppard followed his own path. He explains both his interest in the subject, and why he veered away from his original idea:

For centuries mathematics was considered the queen of the sciences because it claimed certainty. It was grounded on some fundamental certainties—axioms—which led to others. But then, in a...

In a 1989 profile piece on Stoppard, friend and actor John Wood is quoted as saying: “When I first met [Tom] in the sixties, there was a kind of anarchic joy in him, and it’s still there, but it contains its own impossibility now. I can’t say that life has disappointed Tom, but I think he once thought there must be a system behind the absurdity, and he found out there isn’t” (Schiff 224). The article proceeds to mention that Stoppard had just finished reading James Gleick’sChaos: The Making of a New Science, and that he knew that chaos...

Just asArcadia’salteration of past and present dis-rupts a linear narrative, so too does the appearance ofIndian Inkin the Stoppard canon of stage plays. Produced in 1995,Indian Inkis a stage version of Stoppard’s 1991 radio playIn the Native State, and thus the essence ofIndian InkpredatesArcadia. As such, it is necessary to delve back into the roots ofIn the Native Stateto ascertain the inspiration and origin of the stage play.

In the late 1980s, Stoppard was commissioned by friend John Tydeman, then head of bbc radio drama, to write a...

When actor John Wood heard that Stoppard was writing a play about Alfred E. Housman, he thought: “There’s an unpromising subject, a minor poet who lived like a hermit and was staggeringly rude” (Gussow, “So Rude”). By the timeWood read the play and accepted the leading role, he found Stoppard’s Housman to be a fascinating character. While Housman has some name recognition in England, he is largely unknown in the United States, and on the surface, he seems an unlikely subject for a major play, much less one by Stoppard.The Invention of Loveis a complex play, and to...

For more than thirty years, through nine major plays and one Academy Award, Tom Stoppard has enjoyed widespread respect and admiration.¹ He is one of the few playwrights who can legitimately claim that cornerstones of his canon come from four decades.Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead(1967),Jumpers(1972),Travesties(1974),The Real Thing(1982), andArcadia(1993) have been Stoppard’s most lauded works, and they are the plays that seem most likely to endure.

While Stoppard’s plays are known for their complexity, their fundamental theses are often rather simple. For example,Hapgood’s labyrinthine plot and use of quantum theory can...