How to write a Tom Stoppard play — Page 2

Given that we're talking about nearly 5 decades of a playwright's career here, it's inevitable that the man's going to have at least as many artistic misses as successes. I'm a huge fan of Stoppard's in principal, though when I sit down and list my favorite works of his, they shake down to:
ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN...
TRAVESTIES
THE REAL THING
ARCADIA
and the screenplay for SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE.

The last run of live shows of his that we've seen (ROCK & ROLL, and INDIA INK) were especially dreary and dull. But to me, 5 works of genius is plenty for any artist to be labeled a genius in my book. How many did Miller produce? How many did Williams? Asking for more is just greedy on our part.

Well according to Terry Teachout from the Wall Street Journal, Williams had one and a half classic plays and the rest were just him repeating himself. :P (I personally love a lot of his less popular plays, but out of the ones that are more or less established as classics, there's Menagerie, Streetcar, Cat, Night of the Iguana and maybe Rose Tattoo and Sweet Bird of Youth--) So I think your point is valid, and certainly I agree with your choices with the possible exception of Shakespeare in Love (that is an interesting case of Stoppard basically adapting an existing work--since the Marc Norman screenplay for Shakespeare in Love had been kicking around Hollywood for a decade before he was brought on.)

Absolutely, and I'd make a case for Jumpers, as well.

Oh, and, umm, congratulations?! :P

Fantod, think you need to mature a little more before you start advising others. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it "horrid".

I hear from friends who have seen "Indian Ink" at ATC that it's wonderful. I wish I were able to get to SF in time to see it, but I won't be in CA until the week after it closes.

Jungle, I'd love to hear your thoughts if you do get to see it.

"The production itself was laughably bad, which is especially surprising considering the ACT usually does great work."

"They do great work, and then they let Carey Perloff direct in between" was a usual criticism of ACT when I lived in the Bay Area. There are a lot of people who shriek in horror when something they wanted to see performed is the one she chooses to direct that season.

I found her hit or miss, but she definitely had her detractors. I didn't like her for other reasons, namely how she would give speeches at media events that were so self-aggrandizing. "When I went to New York City, and saw the new musical version of Spring Awakening, I immediately thought this was a work I needed to bring to the Bay Area..." and we'd all sit there politely, all thinking, umm, it was kind of a show with huge buzz, and a Tony Award for Best Musical, and we're just the first stop of the national tour, so not sure what role you had in making them decide to take a hit show on tour?!

The other classic was when they did a talkback after Clybourne Park, and usually an audience talkback is benign and not enlightening, but one of the ACT staff said that "when we first read the work, the thought in the office was is this a show that the Bay Area could handle?!" and the ENTIRE talkback became about What about this play did you think we couldn't handle?! I never saw an audience talkback get so focused on a single question and just hammer away at the theater on it again and again, it was divine! And even the cast members onstage were like, I'm not sure why they thought you couldn't handle this, since it is a great incisive play, and on and on... and you could see the staffer onstage, and some in the house were like deer in the headlights, heh.

But I did see some great stuff on their stages when I lived in SF... including Rock and Roll.

Updated On: 1/28/15 at 05:43 AM

Interesting post Haterobics. I've never been to an ACT talkback before, but that sounds about right for a lot of directors here in the Bay Area. The man who directs the San Francisco Playhouse (which does great work) always gives this absurd speech about the meaning of life and what theatre has to do with it before every performance and it is just so pretentious and ridiculous. Thankfully what he directs is usually really good unlike Perloff.

The only Stoppard play I enjoy without reservation is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The other plays feel to me like thesis projects. Academically and theoretically, they are impressive; Stoppard is unafraid to deal with major themes and actually venture outside the drawing room and create epic theatricality, for which he should be applauded. But ultimately his stuff just leaves me cold.

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I saw ARCADIA performed in London back in '95 with Dearbhla Molloy and an insanely sexy Alexander Hanson as Septimus. I don't know if they're just better than us at Stoppard, but good GOD was that one of the most thrilling productions I've ever seen. The actors treated the verbal and academic gymnastics as life-or-death, and it gave the show a depth of feeling that could easily not be there in lesser hands.

I bet you made a wonderful Valentine!

I had bought a copy of the play when I was in London, and a friend and I were the first to do anything from it at our school. They did it the year after I left, and if I knew, I would have paced myself to be a fifth year.

That scene changed my life as an actor. But that's not a story anyone cares to hear (read) about. It's more effective when I'm telling it mid-scotch.

I, however, was always cast as the older guy in college (Amiable in The Baker's Wife, Dorn in The Seagull, Max in The Real Thing), so I would have been either Bernard or Chater.