Tom Stoppard | |
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 Stoppard in 2022 | |
| Born | Tomáš Sträussler (1937-07-03)3 July 1937 (age 88) |
| Occupation |
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| Education | Pocklington School Mount Hermon School, Darjeeling |
| Period | 1953–present |
| Genre |
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| Notable awards | Full list |
| Spouses | |
| Partner | Felicity Kendal (1991–1998) |
| Children | 4, includingEd |
| Website | |
| www | |
Sir Tom Stoppard (/ˈstɒˌpɑːd/;[1] bornTomáš Sträussler, 3 July 1937) is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter.[2] He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, andpolitical freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical bases of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of theNational Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation.[3] He wasknighted for his contribution to theatre byQueen Elizabeth II in 1997.
Born inCzechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a childrefugee, fleeingimminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school inDarjeeling in the IndianHimalayas. After being educated at schools inNottingham andYorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.
Stoppard's most prominent plays includeRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966),Jumpers (1972),Travesties (1974),Night and Day (1978),The Real Thing (1982),Arcadia (1993),The Invention of Love (1997),The Coast of Utopia (2002),Rock 'n' Roll (2006) andLeopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays forBrazil (1985),Empire of the Sun (1987),The Russia House (1990),Billy Bathgate (1991),Shakespeare in Love (1998),Enigma (2001), andAnna Karenina (2012), as well as theHBO limited seriesParade's End (2013). He directed the filmRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), anadaptation of his own 1966 play, withGary Oldman andTim Roth as the leads. Stoppard wrote the film's screenplay.
Stoppard has receivednumerous awards and honours including anAcademy Award, threeLaurence Olivier Awards, and fiveTony Awards.[4] In 2008,The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people inBritish culture".[5] It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play,Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-centuryVienna. The play premiered in January 2020 atWyndham's Theatre.[6] The play went on to win theLaurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022Tony Award for Best Play.[7][8]
Stoppard was born Tomáš Sträussler,[9] inZlín, a city dominated by the shoe manufacturing industry, in theMoravia region ofCzechoslovakia. He is the son of Martha Becková and Eugen Sträussler,[9] a doctor employed by theBata shoe company. His parents were non-observant Jews.[10] Just before theGerman occupation of Czechoslovakia, the town's patron,Jan Antonín Baťa, transferred his Jewish employees, mostly physicians, to branches of his firm outside Europe.[11][12] On 15 March 1939, the day theNazis invaded Czechoslovakia, the Sträussler[9] family fled toSingapore, where Bata had a factory.
Before theJapanese occupation of Singapore, Stoppard, his brother, and their mother fled toIndia. Stoppard's father remained in Singapore as a British army volunteer, knowing that as a doctor, he would be needed in its defence.[10] When Stoppard was four years old, his father died.[13] The writer long understood that Sträussler had perished in Japanese captivity, as aprisoner of war.[14][15] The bookTom Stoppard in Conversation describes this, but the author later revealed the subsequent discovery that his father had been reported[9] drowned on board a ship, bombed by Japanese forces, as he tried to flee Singapore in 1942.[10]
In 1941, when Tomáš was five, he, his brother Petr, and their mother had been evacuated toDarjeeling, India. The boys attendedMount Hermon School, an American multi-racial school,[14] where the brothers became Tom and Peter.
In 1945, his mother, Martha, married British army major Kenneth Stoppard, who gave the boys his English surname and moved the family to England in 1946.[2] Stoppard's stepfather believed strongly that "to be born an Englishman was to have drawn first prize in the lottery of life"—a quote fromCecil Rhodes—telling his 9-year-old stepson: "Don't you realize that I made you British?"[16] setting up Stoppard's desire as a child to become "an honorary Englishman". He has said, "I fairly often find I'm with people who forget I don't quite belong in the world we're in. I find I put a foot wrong—it could be pronunciation, an arcane bit of English history—and suddenly I'm there naked, as someone with a pass, a press ticket". This is reflected in his characters, he observes, who are "constantly being addressed by the wrong name, with jokes and false trails to do with the confusion of having two names".[16] Stoppard attended the Dolphin School in Nottinghamshire, and later completed his education atPocklington School in theEast Riding of Yorkshire, which he hated.[15]
Stoppard left school at 17 and began work as a journalist for theWestern Daily Press in Bristol, without attending university.[15] Years later, he came to regret the decision to forgo a university education, but at the time, he loved his work as a journalist and was passionate about his career.[15] He worked at the paper from 1954 until 1958, when theBristol Evening World offered Stoppard the position of feature writer, humour columnist, and secondary drama critic, which took him into the world of theatre. At theBristol Old Vic, at the time a well-regarded regionalrepertory company, Stoppard formed friendships with directorJohn Boorman and actorPeter O'Toole early in their careers. In Bristol, he became known more for his strained attempts at humour and unstylish clothes than for his writing.[2]
Stoppard wrote short radio plays in 1953–54 and by 1960 he had completed his first stage play,A Walk on the Water, which was later re-titledEnter a Free Man (1968).[15]He has said the work owed much toRobert Bolt'sFlowering Cherry andArthur Miller'sDeath of a Salesman. Within a week after sendingA Walk on the Water to an agent, Stoppard received his version of the "Hollywood-style telegrams that change struggling young artists' lives." His first play was optioned, staged inHamburg, then broadcast on British Independent Television in 1963.[2] From September 1962 until April 1963, Stoppard worked in London as a drama critic forScene magazine, writing reviews and interviews both under his name and the pseudonymWilliam Boot (taken fromEvelyn Waugh'sScoop). In 1964, aFord Foundation grant enabled Stoppard to spend 5 months writing in a Berlin mansion, emerging with a one-act play titledRosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, which later evolved into his Tony-winning playRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.[2]
In the following years, Stoppard produced several works for radio, television and the theatre, including"M" is for Moon Among Other Things (1964),A Separate Peace (1966) andIf You're Glad I'll Be Frank (1966). On 11 April 1967 – following acclaim at the 1966Edinburgh Festival – the opening ofRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in aNational Theatre production at theOld Vic made Stoppard an overnight success.Jumpers (1972) places a professor of moral philosophy in a murder mystery thriller alongside a slew of radical gymnasts.Travesties (1974) explored the 'Wildean' possibilities arising from the fact thatVladimir Lenin,James Joyce, andTristan Tzara had all been inZürich during the First World War.[3]Stoppard has written one novel,Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966), set in contemporary London. Its characters include the 18th-century figure of the dandified Malquist and his ineffectualBoswell, Moon, and also cowboys, a lion (banned fromthe Ritz) and a donkey-borne Irishman claiming to be the Risen Christ.
In the 1980s, in addition to writing his own works, Stoppard translated many plays into English, including works bySławomir Mrożek,Johann Nestroy,Arthur Schnitzler, andVáclav Havel. It was at this time that Stoppard became influenced by the works of Polish and Czech absurdists. He has been co-opted into theOutrapo group, a far-from-serious French movement to improve actors' stage technique through science.[17]
In 1982 Stoppard premiered his playThe Real Thing. The story revolves around a male-female relationship and the struggle between the actress and the member of a group fighting to free a Scottish soldier imprisoned for burning a memorial wreath during a protest. The leading roles were originated byRoger Rees, andFelicity Kendal. The story examines various constructs of honesty including aplay within a play, to explore the theme of reality versus appearance. It has been described as one of Stoppard's "most popular, enduring and autobiographical plays."[18]
The play made itsBroadway transfer in 1984, directed byMike Nichols, starringJeremy Irons andGlenn Close in the leading roles with a supporting role byChristine Baranski. The transfer was a critical success withThe New York Times theatre criticFrank Rich declaring, "The Broadway version ofThe Real Thing—a substantial revision of the original London production—is not only Mr. Stoppard's most moving play, but also the most bracing play that anyone has written about love and marriage in years."[19] The production went on to earn sevenTony Award nominations, winning five awards forBest Play as well for Nichols, Irons, Close, and Baranski.[20] This would be Stoppard's third Tony Award for Best Play, followingRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1968 andTravesties in 1976.
In 1985, Stoppard co-wrote with Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown a feature film, thesatirical science-fiction dark comedyBrazil (1985). The film received near universal acclaim.Pauline Kael critic forThe New Yorker declared, "Visually, it’s an original, bravura piece of moviemaking ... Gilliam’s vision is an organic thing on the screen—and that’s a considerable achievement".[21] Stoppard along with Gilliam and McKeown were nominated for theAcademy Award forBest Original Screenplay, losing toWitness. He went on to write the scripts forSteven Spielberg's filmsEmpire of the Sun (1987), based on the book byJ. G. Ballard, andIndiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Spielberg later stated that though Stoppard was uncredited for the latter of the two, "he was responsible for almost every line of dialogue in the film".[22]
For his 1985 appearance on BBC Radio 4'sDesert Island Discs Stoppard chose "Careless Love" byBessie Smith as his favourite track; he also selectedInferno in two languages byDante Alighieri as his chosen book and a plastic football as his luxury item.[23][24]
In 1993, Stoppard wroteArcadia, a play in which he explores the interaction between two modern academics and the residents of aDerbyshire country house in the early 19th century, including aristocrats, tutors and the fleeting presence, unseen on stage, ofLord Byron. The themes of the play include the philosophical implications of thesecond law of thermodynamics,Romantic literature, and theEnglish picturesque style of garden design.[25]
The first production premiered at theRoyal National Theatre directed byTrevor Nunn starringRufus Sewell,Felicity Kendal,Bill Nighy,Harriet Walter andEmma Fielding. It won the 1993Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. A year later the play made its transfer onBroadway starringBilly Crudup,Blair Brown,Victor Garber andRobert Sean Leonard. The production was well received withVincent Canby ofThe New York Times writing, that while "There are real difficulties with this production...[there are] also great pleasures, not the least of which are Mark Thompson's sets and costumes. Mostly, though, there are Mr. Stoppard's grandly eclectic obsessions and his singular gifts as a playwright. Attend to them."[26] The production received threeTony Award nominations includingBest Play losing toTerrence McNally'sLove! Valour! Compassion!.
Stoppard gained acclaim with the feature filmShakespeare in Love (1998), which he wrote. The film, aromantic comedy, focuses on a fictional story involvingWilliam Shakespeare and his romance with a young woman who is an inspiration for the playRomeo and Juliet. The film starred an ensemble cast includingJoseph Fiennes,Gwyneth Paltrow,Geoffrey Rush,Colin Firth, andJudi Dench. The film was a critical and financial success and went on to earn sevenAcademy Awards includingBest Picture. Stoppard received his second career Oscar nomination and first win forBest Original Screenplay. He also received theBAFTA Award, andGolden Globe Award for his screenplay.
The Coast of Utopia (2002) was a trilogy of plays Stoppard wrote about the philosophical arguments among Russian revolutionary figures in the late 19th century. The trilogy comprisesVoyage,Shipwreck, andSalvage. Major figures in the play includeMikhail Bakunin,Ivan Turgenev, andAlexander Herzen.[27] The title comes from a chapter inAvrahm Yarmolinsky's bookRoad to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism (1959). The play premiered in 2002 at theNational Theatre directed by Trevor Nunn; its total length spanned nine hours. The play received threeLaurence Olivier Award nominations including Best New Play, ultimately losing in all its categories. In 2006 it made its Broadway premiere in a production starringBilly Crudup,Jennifer Ehle, andEthan Hawke. The play received 10 nominations winning seven awards including forBest Play, Stoppard's fourth win in the category.
Rock 'n' Roll (2006) was set in bothCambridge, England, andPrague. The play explored the culture of 1960s rock music, especially the persona ofSyd Barrett and the political challenge of the Czech bandThe Plastic People of the Universe, mirroring the contrast between liberal society in England and the repressive Czech stateafter the Warsaw Pact intervention in thePrague Spring.[28]
Stoppard served on the advisory board of the magazineStandpoint, and was instrumental in its foundation, giving the opening speech at its launch.[29] He is also a patron of theShakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres.[30] Stoppard was appointed president of theLondon Library in 2002 and vice-president in 2017 following the election ofSir Tim Rice as president.[31]
ForJoe Wright, Stoppard adaptedLeo Tolstoy'sAnna Karenina into the2012 film adaptation starringKeira Knightley. Film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum forEntertainment Weekly praised the film and Stoppard writing, "Stoppard—himself a master of puzzle-like construction in fine plays including Arcadia—supplies an excellently clean, delicately balanced script."[32]
In 2012, Stoppard wrote a five-part limited series for television,Parade's End, which revolves around a love triangle between a conservative English aristocrat, his mean socialite wife and a young suffragette. The series premiered onBBC Two, starringBenedict Cumberbatch andRebecca Hall. The series has received widespread acclaim from critics withThe Independent'sGrace Dent proclaiming it "one of the finest things the BBC has ever made".[33]IndieWire declared, "Parade’s End is wonderful accomplishment, smart, adult television".[34] Stoppard received aBritish Academy Television Award andPrimetime Emmy Award nomination for the series.[35]
It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play,Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-centuryVienna. The play premiered in January 2020 atWyndham's Theatre.[6] The play went on to win theLaurence Olivier Award for Best New Play.[36][8] The play then transferred toBroadway, opening on 2 October 2022.[37] It was nominated for sixTony Awards and won four, includingBest Play.
Stoppard has also co-written screenplays includingShakespeare in Love (1998) andIndiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).[22] Stoppard also worked onStar Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, though again Stoppard received no official or formal credit in this role.[38][39] He worked in a similar capacity withTim Burton on his filmSleepy Hollow.[40] His radio production,Darkside (2013), was written for BBC Radio 2 to celebrate the 40th anniversary ofPink Floyd's albumThe Dark Side of the Moon.[41]
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966–67) was Stoppard's first major play to gain recognition. The story ofHamlet as told from the viewpoint of two courtiers echoesBeckett in its double act repartee, existential themes and language play.[3] "Stoppardian" became a term describing works using wit and comedy while addressing philosophical concepts.[3] Critic Dennis Kennedy commented[3]:
It established several characteristics of Stoppard's dramaturgy: his word-playing intellectuality, audacious, paradoxical, and self-conscious theatricality, and preference for reworking pre-existing narratives... Stoppard's plays have been sometimes dismissed as pieces of clever showmanship, lacking in substance, social commitment, or emotional weight. His theatrical surfaces serve to conceal rather than reveal their author's views, and his fondness for towers of paradox spirals away from social comment. This is seen most clearly in his comediesThe Real Inspector Hound (1968) andAfter Magritte (1970), which create their humour through highly formal devices of reframing and juxtaposition.
Stoppard himself went so far as to declare "I must stop compromising my plays with this whiff of social application. They must be entirely untouched by any suspicion of usefulness."[2] He acknowledges that he started off "as a language nerd", primarily enjoying linguistic and ideological playfulness, feeling early in his career that journalism was far better suited for presaging political change, than playwriting.[15]
The accusations of favouring intellectuality over political commitment or commentary were met with a change of tack, as Stoppard produced increasingly socially engaged work.[3] From 1977, he became personally involved with human-rights issues, in particular with the situation of political dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe. In February 1977, he visited the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries with a member ofAmnesty International.[2] In June, Stoppard metVladimir Bukovsky in London and travelled to Czechoslovakia (then under communist control), where he met dissident playwright and future presidentVáclav Havel, whose writing he greatly admires.[2][15] Stoppard became involved withIndex on Censorship, Amnesty International, and theCommittee Against Psychiatric Abuse and wrote various newspaper articles and letters about human rights. He was instrumental in translating Havel's works into English.Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977), "a play for actors and orchestra" was based on a request by conductor/composerAndré Previn and was inspired by a meeting with a Russian exile. This play, as well asDogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth (1979),The Coast of Utopia (2002),Rock 'n' Roll (2006), and two works for televisionProfessional Foul (1977) andSquaring the Circle (1984), all concern themes of censorship, rights abuses, and state repression.[3]
Stoppard's later works have sought greater interpersonal depths, whilst maintaining their intellectual playfulness. Stoppard acknowledges that around 1982 he moved away from the "argumentative" works and more towards plays of the heart, as he became "less shy" about emotional openness. Discussing the later integration of heart and mind in his work, he commented, "I think I was too concerned when I set off, to have a firework go off every few seconds ... I think I was always looking for the entertainer in myself and I seem to be able to entertain through manipulating language ... [but] it's really about human beings, it's not really about language at all."The Real Thing (1982) uses ameta-theatrical structure to explore the suffering that adultery can produce andThe Invention of Love (1997) also investigates the pain of passion.Arcadia (1993) explores the meeting ofchaos theory, historiography, and landscape gardening.[3] He was inspired by aTrevor Nunn production ofGorky'sSummerfolk to write a trilogy of "human" plays:The Coast of Utopia (Voyage,Shipwreck, andSalvage, 2002).[15]
Stoppard has commented that he loves the medium of theatre for how "adjustable" it is at every point, how unfrozen it is, continuously growing and developing through each rehearsal, free from the text. His experience of writing for film is similar, offering the liberating opportunity to "play God", in control of creative reality. It often takes four to five years from the first idea of a play to staging, taking pains to be as profoundly accurate in his research as he can be.[15]
Stoppard has been married three times. His first marriage was to Josie Ingle (1965–1972), a nurse.[42] His second marriage was toMiriam Stern (1972–92); they separated when he began a relationship with actressFelicity Kendal.[43][44] He also had a relationship with actressSinéad Cusack, but she made it clear she wished to remain married toJeremy Irons and stay close to their two sons. Also, after she was reunited with ason she had given up for adoption, she wished to spend time with him in Dublin rather than with Stoppard in the house they shared in France.[45] He has two sons from each of his first two marriages: Oliver Stoppard, Barnaby Stoppard, the actorEd Stoppard, and Will Stoppard, who is married to violinistLinzi Stoppard.[44] In 2014 he marriedSabrina Guinness.[46]
Stoppard's mother died in 1996. The family had not talked about their history and neither brother knew what had happened to the family left behind in Czechoslovakia.[47] In the early 1990s, with the fall of communism, Stoppard found out that all four of his grandparents had been Jewish and had died inTerezin,Auschwitz, and other camps, along with three of his mother's sisters.
In 1998, following the deaths of his parents, he returned to Zlín for the first time in over 50 years.[15] He has expressed grief both for a lost father and a missing past, but he has no sense of being a survivor, at whatever remove. "I feel incredibly lucky not to have had to survive or die. It's a conspicuous part of what might be termed a charmed life."[16]
In 2013, Stoppard askedHermione Lee to write his biography.[45] The book was published in 2020.
In 1979, the year ofMargaret Thatcher'selection, Stoppard noted to Paul Delaney: "I'm aconservative with a small c. I am a conservative in politics, literature, education and theatre."[48] In 2007, Stoppard described himself as a "timidlibertarian".[49]
TheTom Stoppard Prize (Czech:Cena Toma Stopparda) was created in 1983 under theCharter 77 Foundation and is awarded to authors of Czech origin.[50]
In 2014, Stoppard publicly backed"Hacked Off" and its campaign towards press self-regulation by "safeguarding the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable."[51]
In July 2013 Stoppard was awarded thePEN Pinter Prize for "determination to tell things as they are."[52]
In July 2017, Stoppard was elected anHonorary Fellow of theBritish Academy (HonFBA), the United Kingdom'snational academy for the humanities and social sciences.[53] Stoppard was appointed Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre,St Catherine's College, Oxford, for the academic year 2017–2018.
Stoppard has been represented in various forms of art. He sat for sculptorAlan Thornhill, and a bronze head is now in public collection, situated with the Stoppard papers in the reading room of theHarry Ransom Center at theUniversity of Texas at Austin.[54] The terracotta remains in the collection of the artist in London.[55] The correspondence file relating to the Stoppard bust is held in the archive of theHenry Moore Foundation'sHenry Moore Institute inLeeds.[56]
Stoppard also sat for the sculptor and friendAngela Conner, and his bronze portrait bust is on display in the grounds ofChatsworth House.
The papers of Stoppard are housed at theHarry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The archive was first established by Stoppard in 1991 and continues to grow. The collection consists of typescript and handwritten drafts, revision pages, outlines, and notes; production material, including cast lists, set drawings, schedules, and photographs; theatre programs; posters; advertisements; clippings; page and galley proofs; dust jackets; correspondence; legal documents and financial papers, including passports, contracts, and royalty and account statements; itineraries; appointment books and diary sheets; photographs; sheet music; sound recordings; a scrapbook; artwork; minutes of meetings; and publications.[57]
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