Tom Stoppard is widely regarded as our finest living playwright. His play are celebrated for the depth and subtlety of their philosophical and scientific inquiry, their historical awareness, their literary sophistication, their comic wit and their emotional impact. In this SDG, we will read - in chronological order - his nine most powerful and widely performed plays: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; Jumpers; Travesties; The Real Thing; Arcadia; Indian Ink; The Invention of Love; The Hard Problem; and Leopoldstadt. These plays invoke writers as diverse as Shakespeare, James Joyce, and A. E. Housman, and treat such "hard problems" as the nature of consciousness, the randomness of human experience, the meaning of love, colonialism, quantum mechanics and the existence of God. We will also watch two films, Stoppard's own film of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and John Madden's film that was co-written by Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love.
1. Tom Stoppard's biography (Wikipedia); selected passages from Shakespeare's Hamlet; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, 1966, Acts 1-2
2. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), Act 3; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (film, written and directed by Tom Stoppard)
3. Jumpers (1972): A satirical exploration of ethics, Zeno's paradox, quantum mechanics, and the meaning of life set in the context of a murder mystery and acrobats.
4. Travesties (1974): A comedy based on the uniting of Oscar Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest, Lenin's Marxist ideology, Joyce's Ulysses, and Tristan Tzara's Dadaist art form
5. The Real Thing (1982): A play that delves into the complexities of love, infidelity and authenticity, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.
6. Arcadia (1993) - A Witty drama that combines 18C landscape architecture, the life of the poet Byron, and fractals
7. Indian Ink (1995): Set in India both in the 1930’s and the 1980's, this play examines the intersection of art, the British Raj, and personal relationships.
8. The Invention of Love (1997): an examination of A. E. Housman's life, loves and poems in the context of the Classics curriculum at Oxford University in the late 18th and early 19th centuries
9. The Hard Problem (2015): a play that explores the nature of human consciousness and the conflict between science and religion
10. Leopoldstadt (2020): Set in the Jewish quarter of Vienna, the play traces three generations of a Jewish-Catholic family before, during and after the Holocaust.
11. Shakespeare in Love (1998 film, dir. John Madden, screenwriter, Tom Stoppard): the fictional story of Shakespeare and his romance with a young woman that inspires his Romeo and Juliet.
Core Books
Tom Stoppard's plays are available on line in pdf format. You can also buy new or used copies as you choose. A number of his plays are available on audio in full play form (e.g. Tom Stoppard: A BBC Radio Collection - 14 full-cast productions). Some of the productions are also available on film or YouTube.
Bibliography
Tom Stoppard: A Faber Critical Guide: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, Travesties, Arcadia (Faber Critical Guides)
The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, ed. Katherine e. Kelly (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
The Cambridge Introduction to Tom Stoppard
Hermione Lee, Tom Stoppard - A Life