Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Stoppardianism
- Professional chronology
- Chapter 1 Stoppard: briefly, a life in the theatre
- Chapter 2 Keys to Stoppard’s theatre
- Chapter 3 The breakthrough years
- Chapter 4 Playing with the stage
- Chapter 5 Science takes the stage
- Chapter 6 Love is in the air
- Chapter 7 Politics humanized
- Conclusion: The play’s the thing
- Appendix Stoppard’s theatre: a summary
- Notes
- Guide to further reading
- Index
Introduction: Stoppardianism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Stoppardianism
- Professional chronology
- Chapter 1 Stoppard: briefly, a life in the theatre
- Chapter 2 Keys to Stoppard’s theatre
- Chapter 3 The breakthrough years
- Chapter 4 Playing with the stage
- Chapter 5 Science takes the stage
- Chapter 6 Love is in the air
- Chapter 7 Politics humanized
- Conclusion: The play’s the thing
- Appendix Stoppard’s theatre: a summary
- Notes
- Guide to further reading
- Index
Summary
I admit it looks odd. The question is does it look odd enough?
The Dog It Was That Died (18)Mix vaudevillian slapstick with crisp, witty banter. Add a song or two in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan. Try doing a whole scene in limericks. How about a shell game using humans popping in and out of shower stalls? Maybe add some really funny Communist Bloc shenanigans. Set it on a verandah in India, or on a transatlantic passenger liner, or in nineteenth-century Vienna, or in the secret byways of Elsinore Castle. Why not open eyes with a striptease act on a flying trapeze? Maybe parody the work of Agatha Christie. Or play fast and loose with Oscar Wilde. How about tapping into chaos theory or quantum mechanics? How about trying three full-length plays dedicated to the nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia? Or how about taking on Shakespeare himself? And always leave your audiences wondering whether they have just been educated or entertained, in the end allowing for the likelihood of both.
In a nutshell, that is the theatre of Tom Stoppard.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Introduction to Tom Stoppard , pp. 1 - 4Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012