I got a collection of Tom Stoppard's plays for Christmas (cleverly titled 5 Plays). On Christmas night, I took the collection with me up to Katie's family cabin up at Alta, and I read the entire first play, Arcadia, the next day. It was phenomenal. Sometimes plays are hard to read, and understandably so since they are written to be seen. But this play was a delight to read. It reminded me a lot of Oscar Wilde's plays. Like Wilde, Stoppard continuously plays with words through puns, double entendre, and other wordplay. But while Wilde's plays are playful and farcical, this play is playful, farcical, and philosophical. Stoppard incorporates and plays with theories from math, history, psychology, literature, and landscape architecture to explore themes about the meaning of history, what motivates us to act, and the determinability of the present, and it is all fascinating (you would think that a play that dives into a little basic calculus would be terribly boring, but you would be wrong).
The play itself takes place in a single house/estate in England, but it switches back and forth in time from the present to the early 1800's (in the heart of the English Romanticism period). Some of the characters in the present are academics trying to uncover what happened in the early 1800's in a series of events involving Lord Byron. And in the scenes set in the early 1800's, we see what really happened. Think Possession by A.S. Byatt but funny. It is quite funny and quite brilliant.
A note on Stoppard: he has written a number of plays, many of which are supposed to be as fantastic as Arcadia, but he has also done some screenwriting. He won an Academy Award for screenwriting for Shakespeare in Love. And he is rumored to have assisted George Lukas to polish up the dialogue in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (which I could believe because the dialogue is quite good) and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (which I can't believe because the dialogue, although improved from Episode I and II, is still terrible). He is currently working on The Bourne Ultimatum.
I highly recommend picking up Arcadia or another of Stoppard's well-regarded plays.
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5 comments:
I know you're enjoying a book (play) when you laugh out loud while reading it. That's one of my favorite tgings about you. The plays do sound clever and witty.
thanks for writing about this. I'm putting it on the top of my "to read" list. Sounds like a great writer.
I have only read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, which, as I recall, I really liked. Probably standard high school reading, but still fun. I'm looking forward to reading Arcadia--I'll look for it at the library. My book choices have tended to be on the "fluff" side lately, but they still cause me to laugh out loud, so I guess that is good. And, I'll join you on a triathlon. Marathon--no way. My body can't take that much running. I tried once.
From what I've read, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead is probably Stoppard's most famous work. I'll have to read it. Maybe what I liked about Arcadia is that it is funny and lighthearted, but at the same time, it is a little erudite, which makes you feel like you aren't just reading fluff.
And for those who don't like reading plays and would prefer to listen to them, I requested Arcadia on audible.com. So watch and see if they get it.
Katie, I also read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in high school. I didn't realize it was the same author. Thanks for pointing it out. Ian, I think you would really like it as well. I remember it being very funny.
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