![]() ![]() In Hermione Lee’s excellent and exhaustive, but sometimes too spellbound, biography of Stoppard, we see time and again how his plays begin with a concept-chaos theory or the lure of dead languages-and then go hunting for a story entertaining enough to animate it. Stoppard has garnered a reputation as the canny “ideas guy” of British theater, someone who will stage an argument between James Joyce and Tristan Tzara ( Travesties), or a spy thriller inspired by the laws of quantum physics ( Hapgood), or an existential deep dive into minor Shakespearean characters ( Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead), but he’s also not above highbrow high jinks either. This retreat into the enigmas and ambiguities of imagination can be found in nearly all of Stoppard’s plays. Except for the part about never writing a good play, Belinsky’s description of artistic inspiration can be read as self-portraiture. ![]()
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