Stoppard, Staging, and Synthesizing: A Case Study of a Leading Playwright
by Howard Gardner
Note: In this essay I rely heavily on the recent excellent (and authorized) biography of Stoppard by Hermione Lee, who, like Stoppard, is generally considered an outstanding practitioner of her art—in this case, biographies of literary figures (Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather).
Here’s an unedited list of words and themes found among the papers of contemporary playwright, Tom Stoppard. Unless you are a student of Stoppard and of his plays, the list will likely make little sense to you. But, in fact, it captures the themes and the atmosphere of his 2006 play “Rock ‘N Roll” and, in addition, provides insight into the operations of one brilliant synthesizing mind.
Rock’n Roll
Pan
Consciousness
Theory and Practice/New Left
Sweet Bitter/Sappho
Censorship
Capitalism/Freedom/Market
Hymn to England
James Joyce
Barrett
Memories of hippies
Greed is Good
Plutarch, On the Decline of Oracles
Vera/Mrs Thatcher
Havel ‘97
TS (Tom Stopprd) Parallels
Intterrogator?
What happened to England
What happened to Communism
Consciousness and Idealism/Beauty/love/Sappho
Counter Culture /Plastic People
The End of History 9/11
Press-Privacy
Mystery of Consciousness
Duologues
“Pan is Dead”
Arguably, Tom Stoppard is the greatest playwright in English of the last fifty years—and in any case, he’s my favorite. Though I have never been introduced to him, about twenty years ago I was seated in a theater in London in the back row, absorbed in his play, Jumpers. I happened to look behind me and—lo!—there was Stoppard himself! I oriented toward him, clutching the text of the play. He smiled and signed it—and it’s among my most cherished, if not most valuable, possessions.
For those who do not know the facts of Stoppard’s life, here are the bare bones: he was born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, the son of Martha Beckova and Eugen Straussler. Both parents were non-observant Jews, though Stoppard only learned of this background decades later. In 1939, to escape the Nazis, the family fled the country to Singapore and thereafter hid their Jewish identity. Stoppard’s father, a respected physician, died shortly thereafter when a ship on which he was traveling was bombed by the Japanese military. But Stoppard’s mother, along with his younger brother Peter, travelled from Singapore to India where they lived in various cities, before finally living in Britain where they arrived when Tom was just 6.
Along the way, while juggling myriad pressures and responsibilities, Martha met and married a British army major named Kenneth Stoppard. In the process, Tom acquired both a stepfather and a last name. He knew that Stoppard was not his original father, and it turned out that the marriage was chiefly one of convenience (his stepfather never clicked with him and kept his distance from his stepson’s stunning achievements). In contrast, Tom remained close to his mother for the rest of her life—writing her lengthy letters almost every week until she died.
I should mention a similarity in our backgrounds—my sister Marion and I are both children of non-observing German Jews, who, like Stoppard’s biological parents, escaped from Europe just in time, taken refuge in Pennsylvania in 1939. They lost many relatives and friends. Tom, who (like me) began school with an accent (mine was German) strove to be as British as possible. He was helped by his ease with school work, quick wittedness, gifts in language, skill in cricket, and, notably, good looks and a charming personality, which have apparently lasted until today.
While he was certainly qualified for a quality higher education (and subsequently regretted that he did not attend university), Tom made the decision after secondary school to go directly into the workforce. (This ‘skipping of college’ was more common in Britain of the 1950s than in Anglo-America today.) Being interested in the wider world, gifted in language, and fond of adventures, he chose to pursue journalism. And for several years, he worked as a journalist, first in Bristol, and then London. He was reasonably successful. But he soon discovered that his gift was as a critic of the arts rather than as an on-the-scene reporter of fast-breaking newsworthy events. He was too much of a loner, and too dedicated to the arts, to become a roving reporter, in the style of “The Front Page.” Instead, he became a specialist in theater criticism, attending and writing about hundreds of performances.
Because of his appealing personality and his residence in the artistic world of mid-twentieth century London, Tom was able to meet leading figures of the day. He was impressed by the likes of actor (and impresario) Laurence Olivier, theater critic Kenneth Tynan, and playwright John Osborne—indeed, one might say that he was starstruck.
But at the same time, like the budding young ‘movie fan-cum-weekend actor’ who takes the chance of moving to Hollywood, Stopped was determined to become a successful artistic writer. For a while, he dabbled in stories and light verse, and even wrote a novel. He soon realized that his special gift was in conceiving and writing for the theater—rather than as a poet, a novelist, or even an author of film scripts (though he ultimately wrote many). Like other aspiring playwrights, he pored over the works of the major English and American playwrights (Shakespeare Shaw, Coward, Beckett) as well as leading figures in other languages (Ibsen, Chekhov). He was greatly influenced by other British and American writers—among them T. S. Eliot, best known as a poet but also a significant playwright.
Remarkably, because of the enthusiastic reception of his first performed play Rosenkrantz and Gildenstern are Dead, young Stoppard became nationally and internationally celebrated. Its literary, historical, and contemporary allusions as well as its witty command of language and memorable characters (“memorable in their forgetfulness,” he might have quipped) pleased a wide audience. And while not every one of his plays received the reception and notoriety of “R&G” (as he nicknamed the pair ), he has had a remarkable theater career—penning (and directing, though not acting) in a score of plays, including memorably—in alphabetical order Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia (three plays), Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, The Invention of Love, Jumpers, The Real Thing, Rock ‘ Roll, Travesties, and in 2020, just before the pandemic struck, his most personal play, Leopoldstadt. The latter play draws significantly on the lives of his biological family (about whom he learned only late in life), most of whose members had been murdered in concentration camps.
I could go on for pages, waxing enthusiastically for Stoppard as a writer and as a personality—but the impetus for this blog is a consideration of Stoppard as a synthesizer.
Of course, any successful professional is likely to have some gifts at synthesis. And an individual who has penned numerous plays, screen plays for film and television, and other literary works is by definition a synthesizer. And yet, within that ensemble, one can still make revealing distinctions. Tennessee Williams has written many plays, but the best known ones are about families of the American south that are disturbed if not deranged. Similarly American playwright A R Gurney has typically written about the upper class of American society, while Eugene O’Neill is valued especially for his portrait of individuals of Irish descent. Switching to the British stage, playwright Arnold Wesker (and John Osborne) wrote chiefly about the working class in Britain, Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward about the privileged.
There is certainly a Stoppard sensibility—whimsical , humorous, highly attentive to language and language games—but what is staggering is the range of situations and the diverse backgrounds of his characters. His early life in Singapore and India, his adult travels in Eastern Europe and the United States (and jetting to spots around the world), his philosophical investigations, his historical explorations from the classical era to the 20th century, his mastery of mathematical and scientific concepts, as well as philosophical debates, investigations of historical characters (Lord Byron, Lady Lovelace, Lenin, )—all of these are manifest in his oeuvre, and sometimes even in the same act of a single play.
What does it take to do this? At the very least:
A faithful memory of persons, personalities, scenes, and encounters from the earliest days of life;
Immersion in and analysis of literature of quality in several genres in several languages:
Eagerness to study history, science, philosophy—be a lifelong learner, even autodidact
The wit and flexibility to draw on these strands seemingly effortlessly and appropriately within and across acts and plays
It’s perhaps not an accident that Stoppard elected not to go to college (perhaps he did not want to restrict his knowledge to a particular topic or discipline) and instead to go into journalism (where he necessarily would have to cover many topics quite briskly). He was fortunate to live in Britain at a time when it was possible for him to get to know leading figures across the arts. (It was the time of “Beyond the Fringe” arguably the most influential theater troupe of the middle of the 20th century—in American terms, a blend between “Second City” and “Saturday Night Live”). And while, from all reports, he was socially appropriate, lovable, and capable of multiple love affairs, he insisted on having time alone to think, reflect, try out, and put together. Indeed, that necessity for time alone contributed to the dissolution of both his first and his second marriages, though he still had the energy to pursue more opportunities in more places than almost anyone else in his theatrical cohort and to maintain warm relations with children and grandchildren.
A word about playwriting in general, and Stoppard’s stance in particular—of course, plays begin with ideas and eventually a script. But so much of the success (or failure) of a play hangs on its realization on the stage. And that requirement calls in turn for attention to stage direction; choice of theater, sets, director, and actors; and willingness to attend rehearsals and to give feedback without undermining the talents of the director and actors. Stoppard studied and mastered all of these elements and seems to have enjoyed them, though he did not hesitate to put forth his own views throughout the life of the performances—as testified by his attendance (in the row behind me) at a play that he has doubtless seen performed hundreds of time.
The synthesis involved in writing and staging plays goes well beyond the selection and editing of the printed word. It’s perhaps not an accident that Shakespeare, the greatest English playwright, was also an actor and the part-owner of a theater company. It is quite possible that—even more so than writing novels or poems—playwriting calls for and selects individuals who are synthesizers.
As part of her biographical research, Hermione Lee asked some of Stoppard’s friends for a small set of adjectives that described her subject. Here’s her account:
I’ve often asked people to sum him with three words. They come up with “polymathic, brainy, inspirational, passionate, rigorous, sympathetic, conservative with a small c, irresistible, supportive, witty, curious, open, gentle, thoughtful, amatory, daunting, clear- thinking, focused, stimulating, brave, warmhearted…by far the most frequent adjectives have been loyal, kind, considerate, glamorous, generous, and intelligent… Nobody says cruel, proud, selfish, or inattentive.”
Quoting directly from biographer Lee and (indirectly) from Stoppard himself:
He has often said that he is a playwright in search of a plot and that when the idea for a play springs at him : “it’s as though at the far end of this gilded hall, the double doors have opened and a butler bearing a siver tray turns up and slowly approaches with the idea.. which he just puts in front me while the trumpets sound.
Back to that list of words in Stoppard’s file:
I discern elements that have been Stoppard’s preoccupations for years, sometimes decades:
Love of England (Hymn), enjoying of Rock n’ Roll (Syd Barrett was an admired perfomer who had declined precipitously and died during the run of the play)
Great Literary Figures: James Joyce—incidentally a focus of Stoppard’s play Travesties
Political concerns: Capitalism, Censorship, Communism, New Left; the End of History
Personal concerns : Privacy; Vera (could be allusion to Vera Chok, an actress who has appeared in Stoppard plays)
Cultural concern: hippies
What has happened in England and Czechoslovakia in his life time (the dominant personalities of Margaret Thatcher, Vaclav Havel)
Personalities from Classical times: Pan, Plutarch, Sappho
Philosophical concerns (more recent)
Consciousness:Incidentally, the topic of his play The Real Question, beauty, love,
Language: Duologues, Pan is Dead (Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning an introduction to Greece)
His own tumultuous and still in many ways mysterious life
So, that’s the list of topics, concerns, themes—the list of ingredients for this to-be-written play, which eventually became Rock ‘n Roll. Some of the themes (like love of England) pervade Stoppard’s work; some (like consciousness) relate to more recent preoccupations; and some, obviously, are specific to Czechoslovakia in the most recent decades.
The challenge for synthesizers for the stage:
To put them together in ways that make for a convincing and compelling work of art:
The challenge for a playwright of genius:
To do this repeatedly, across a lifetime, in ways that are not repetitive, that can be sensed or felt in one viewing or reading, and yet reward multiple readings and performances, most especially with different directors and performers, on different stages around the world.
Reference
Hermione Lee, Tom Stoppard: A Life. New York: Knopf, 2020.