{"id":75036,"date":"2025-11-30T00:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T00:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/75036\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T00:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T00:53:09","slug":"9-essential-plays-by-tom-stoppard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/75036\/","title":{"rendered":"9 essential plays by Tom Stoppard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tom Stoppard<\/a>, frequently hailed as the greatest British playwright of this generation, had both a remarkable life and a remarkable career. <\/p>\n

Born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, his family fled to Singapore when the Nazis invaded. When Japan threatened their new home, his mother took him and his brother to India. His father stayed behind in Singapore but died when the ship he was aboard was sunk. His mother later married a British officer and the family relocated to England, where young Stoppard took his stepfather\u2019s surname and \u201cput on Englishness like a coat,\u201d he later said.<\/p>\n

Stoppard quickly became known for his clever, witty and intellectually curious work, earning three Olivier Awards, five Tony Awards and an Oscar (for \u201cShakespeare in Love\u201d). He was even knighted in 1997 by Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to theater.<\/p>\n

Starting with \u201cRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead\u201d in 1966, through his final full-length play \u201cLeopoldstadt\u201d in 2020, Stoppard crafted a body of work that would be the envy of most countries, let alone one writer.<\/p>\n

Below are some of Stoppard most important plays, with observations from Times critics:<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The 2022 Broadway production of \u201cLeopoldstadt\u201d in a family scene from 1924.<\/p>\n

(Joan Marcus)<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966)<\/p>\n

After working as a journalist, Stoppard had a breakthrough when this absurdist romp debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe. Times theater critic Charles McNulty reviewed a 2013 production<\/a> at the Old Globe\u2019s Shakespeare Festival in San Diego, describing it as a \u201cmetapharcical romp (to coin a genre), in which \u2018Hamlet\u2019 is glimpsed through the oblique perspective of the prince\u2019s twin buddies, sent to spy on him by Gertrude and Claudius in that Elsinore castle of murder, adultery and occult intrigue. \u2026 Stoppard\u2019s fertile wit keeps this three-act drama pulsing along without too much strain. A subtle pathos, along with the playwright\u2019s verbal sophistication, prevents the play from degenerating into a collegiate vaudeville.\u201d In 1990, Stoppard himself directed a film version starring Gary Oldman and Tim Roth.<\/p>\n

Jumpers (1972)<\/p>\n

This satire set in an alternative universe in which British astronauts land on the moon and \u201cRadical Liberals\u201d have taken over the nation\u2019s government, premiered at London\u2019s Old Vic starring Michael Hordern and Diana Rigg. Two years later, Times theater critic Dan Sullivan reviewed an American Conservatory Theater production of it in San Francisco. \u201cStoppard\u2019s new play can\u2019t be hung with one of those preprinted tags that theater critics carry in their pockets for easy labeling,\u201d he wrote. \u201cYou might call it a Metaphysical Spoof With Acrobatic Prelude, or you might not. The only general thing you can say about it is that it\u2019s very bright and very funny, and sometimes rather touching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Travesties (1974)<\/p>\n

The Royal Shakespeare Company staged the first production at the Aldwych Theatre in London, starring John Wood, John Hurt, Tom Bell and Frank Windsor. Stoppard was fascinated with the idea that James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin and Dadadist poet Tristan Tzara were all living in Zurich in 1917. He placed these zeitgeist figures in the orbit of a more humble historical figure named Henry Carr, who figured into Joyce\u2019s \u201cUlysses.\u201d The Times\u2019 Sullivan took in the 1975 New York production, calling it \u201cdazzling\u201d and wondered if Broadway audiences would be able to keep up with it. \u201cLike Stoppard\u2019s last play \u2018Jumpers\u2019 (which didn\u2019t do very well here), this is a vaudeville show where the language does tricks as well as the actors,\u201d wrote Sullivan. \u201cAnd to do the tricks as well as \u2018Travesties,\u2019 John Wood [as Carr], a playwright\u2019s language has got to be pretty accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Real Thing (1982)<\/p>\n

Felicity Kendal and Roger Rees originated the lead roles in Stoppard\u2019s very personal examination of love and marriage, truth and honesty. The playwright significantly reworked the script for its Broadway run, starring Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons directed by Mike Nichols, to great success. Linda Purl and Michael Gross assumed the roles for the 1986 L.A. production at the Doolittle Theatre. \u201dWithout spoiling its surprises, the reviewer can say that not every scene in \u2018The Real Thing\u2019 is what it seems to be, including the first one,\u201d wrote Sullivan<\/a>. \u201cStoppard\u2019s characters are theater people, professional makers of scenes, and some of these scenes get swept into the play. \u2026 \u2018The Real Thing\u2019 has wit, surprise and characters you care about. \u2026 If you like plays written in full sentences, you\u2019ll like \u2018The Real Thing.\u2019<\/p>\n

Arcadia (1993)<\/p>\n

Moving between the 19th century and the present, Stoddard balanced tragedy and comedy with a healthy dose of science and mathematics. The play opened at the Royal National Theatre in London directed by Trevor Nunn with a cast including Rufus Sewell, Felicity Kendal, Bill Nighy and Emma Fielding. Two years later, in New York, Nunn directed a new cast that included Billy Crudup, Blair Brown, Victor Garber as Bernard, Robert Sean Leonard, Jennifer Dundas and Paul Giamatti in his Broadway debut. \u201c\u2018Arcadia\u2019 is a great play not because it seamlessly meshes serious ideas and the intense pleasure of a literary detective story,\u201d wrote Times critic Laurie Winer,<\/a> reviewing director Robert Egan\u2019s 1997 Mark Taper Forum production. \u201cIt is a great play because, by the end, Tom Stoppard touches ineffability, just as his heroine touches genius.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Invention of Love (1997)<\/p>\n

For this portrait of poet A. E. Housman, Stoppard once again turned to historical figures for his cast. The play premiered at the Royal National Theatre, London, with Housman played as an old man by John Wood and as a young man by Paul Rhys. It was directed by Richard Eyre. The play opened on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre in 2001, directed by Jack O\u2019Brien. \u201cStoppard has written an essentially undramatic dreamscape,\u201d wrote Times critic Michael Phillips<\/a>.\u201d The recently deceased Housman (Richard Easton), about to cross the River Styx, assesses his recessive life and great unrequited love for the athlete Moses Jackson (David Harbour), a fellow Oxford man. En route, the elder Housman runs into his younger self (Robert Sean Leonard). There\u2019s a long scene near the end of Act 1 shared by the two Housmans. As they discuss the niceties and textual flaws of the classics they love as much as life itself, Stoppard\u2019s playfulness is tinged with rue; the older man cannot prevent the younger\u2019s heartbreak to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Coast of Utopia (2002)<\/p>\n

This trilogy of plays, \u201cVoyage,\u201d \u201cShipwreck\u201d and \u201cSalvage,\u201d zeroed in on philosophical debates in 19th century Russia. They premiered at the National Theatre\u2019s Olivier auditorium in repertory, directed by Nunn. The plays debuted on Broadway, directed by Jack O\u2019Brien, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center in 2006. \u201cA nearly eight-hour drama about the Russian intelligentsia that received mixed reviews when it premiered in London in 2002, \u2018The Coast of Utopia\u2019 isn\u2019t for the theatrical faint of heart,\u201d cautioned Times critic McNulty<\/a>. \u201cStamina is a prerequisite for the company and audience alike. \u2026 Stoppard\u2019s play enacts a moment in history when thinkers and writers set out to redirect the future. Ideologies were conceived and pressed immediately into service, sometimes at the expense of the individual lives they were theoretically meant to serve. [It] dramatizes both the ebb and flow of conditional life and the hunger for unconditional solutions to its woes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll (2006)<\/p>\n

Stoppard looked to his Czech roots with this drama, connecting the Prague Spring of 1968 with the Velvet Revolution of 1989 through music. The play premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, once again directed by Nunn and featuring Rufus Sewell, Brian Cox and Sin\u00e9ad Cusack. The cast moved to Broadway in 2007. \u201cYou might want to arrive a bit early and study the timelines in the lobby, which detail Czechoslovakia\u2019s turbulent political history from 1968 to 1990 and key events in the rock music scene during that era,\u201d wrote reviewer F. Kathleen Foley<\/a> of Open Fist\u2019s 2010 production. \u201cRead them carefully. Otherwise your head just may explode at some point during this Los Angeles premiere, which presupposes an intimate familiarity with Czech history, the early rock scene and, oh, did we mention Sapphic poetry? It\u2019s all a bit ostentatious and difficult to follow \u2014 but even at his most intellectually prolix, Stoppard is flat-out brilliant, arguably our greatest living playwright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leopoldstadt (2020)<\/p>\n

The final play of Stoppard\u2019s brilliant career was sparked by the playwright learning of the plight of his Jewish ancestors upon his mother\u2019s death in 1996. It debuted at Wyndham\u2019s Theatre in London\u2019s West End, but was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and debuted on Broadway in 2022 starring Davis Krumholtz with Patrick Marber directing. The play \u201cunfolds as a series of oil paintings magicked into life,\u201d wrote Times critic McNulty<\/a>. \u201cThe play, which features a cast of 38 actors, moves from turn-of-the-century Vienna, where Freud, Mahler and Schnitzler are the talk of the town, to 1924, when the scars of World War I are clearly visible. Performed without intermission, the action ominously leaps to 1938, as the Nazis are ransacking the homes of Jewish citizens. The play concludes in 1955, when three family survivors reunite to piece together the fates of their murdered relatives. \u2026 It\u2019s not just that the work mirrors aspects of his personal history. It\u2019s also the virtuosic way that he conjures the shifting cultural zeitgeist of Vienna in the first half of the 20th century through stylized conversation alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can find audio dramas by L.A. Theatre Works<\/a> of \u201cRosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,\u201d \u201cThe Real Thing\u201d and \u201cArcadia\u201d on Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many of the films Stoppard wrote or co-wrote are available for streaming, including \u201cBrazil\u201d (1985),\u201d Turner Classic Movies, and for rent on Apple TV and Prime Video; \u201cThe Russia House\u201d (1990), for rent on Prime Video; \u201cRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead\u201d (1990), for rent on various platforms; \u201cEmpire of the Sun\u201d (1987), for rent on various platforms; and \u201cShakespeare in Love\u201d (1998), Paramount+ and Kanopy, and for rent on various platforms.<\/p>\n

Stoppard is also certainly a playwright whose work is a joy to read. Most of these plays can be found at your local public library or favorite bookstore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Stoppard, frequently hailed as the greatest British playwright of this generation, had both a remarkable life and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28291,43632,48,52,51,6547,47,50,49,4284,3238,26809,5927,43635,1010,43636,2489,43634,43637,43633,43631],"class_list":{"0":"post-75036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-broadway-debut","9":"tag-cast","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-headlines","12":"tag-la-news","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","16":"tag-los-angeles-news","17":"tag-love","18":"tag-play","19":"tag-playwright","20":"tag-production","21":"tag-real-thing","22":"tag-rent","23":"tag-royal-national-theatre","24":"tag-scene","25":"tag-times-critic","26":"tag-tom-stoppard","27":"tag-trevor-nunn","28":"tag-young-stoppard"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}