He did, and oddly enough, it's sitting right next to me. It's in
Thinking About The Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness.
The Coast of Utopia is sort of a different animal, culturally, I think, because I'd argue that it falls into the genre of historical drama (or history play, whichever term you prefer) way more easily than does something like Arcadia. I do agree that as Stoppard goes, Arcadia is pretty accessible, but I actually find Rock 'n' Roll to be much more emotionally engrossing than Arcadia... though I know a lot of people really disagree about that.
I also think that part of the problem with Arcadia and accessibility is that people get hung up on the math, and think they need to understand it to understand the play, which they don't. But they let their hangup there confuse and distract them, and then stay frazzled for the rest of the play, because they aren't paying attention to the story, which is where the emotion's going to be. But that's all part of the general problem -- I think people let the material that Stoppard draws from and references scare them away from his work. I remember seeing my first Stoppard play and being nervous after hearing all this stuff about how he was too heady and had no heart, and was very pleasantly surprised.
A work of art is an invitation to love.
Updated On: 2/27/11 at 03:45 PM
