Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Gabriela Malaníková

Writing Politics in Tom Stoppard’s Plays: An Analysis of Three Plays Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph. D.

2011

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Author‘s signature

I would like to thank my supervisor Pavel Drábek for his professional guidance, useful advice and teaching me how to think about Tom Stoppard‘s plays.

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 5 1. Stoppard‘s Involvement in Politics ...... 8 2. Tom Stoppard – Political Writer? ...... 12 a. Stoppard‘s Way of Writing ...... 13 b. Politicization of Tom Stoppard? ...... 15 c. Morality and Freedom ...... 23 d. Stoppard‘s Well-Made Playing with Politics ...... 27 3. Analysis of plays ...... 33 a. Travesties ...... 33 b. Professional Foul ...... 49 i. Background ...... 49 ii. Professional Foul ...... 53 c. The Real Thing ...... 65 4. A Stoppardian Play ...... 73 Conclusion ...... 82 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 85 Czech Resume ...... 89 English Resume ...... 90

Introduction

This thesis focuses on the political aspects of the plays of the British playwright Tom

Stoppard (born in Czechoslovakia, 1937). In general, Stoppard is often regarded as a political playwright due to various issues concerning politics discussed in his plays.

Many literary critics point out Stoppard‘s increasing political engagement as one of the crucial features of his plays. A frequent judgement of his work says that in time,

Stoppard‘s work has become more and more concerned with politics.

This work addresses the question whether Tom Stoppard really is a political writer and if not, what purposes does he use politics for. I will also look at Stoppard‘s work to see whether there is any inclination towards politicization in his plays in time or whether such statement is too generalizing and inaccurate. The thesis examines the amount of political issues discussed in the plays, as well as the topics discussed themselves. The work also asks whether political topics are typical of Stoppard‘s writing at all or if they are rather minimised.

Another goal of the thesis is to show Tom Stoppard‘s work in a different light. It will be argued that Stoppard‘s interest in political issues never dominates over his moral and humanistic concerns. If his plays deal with any political topics, it is always with the focus on its moral or immoral aspects, and also the question of respecting or violating the rights of the individuals. Besides, the author never presents any political topics so as to promote any specific view.

This work follows the innumerable amount of books and articles written about

Tom Stoppard‘s work. It argues against many literary and theatre critics, such as John

Bull or Michael Billington, who see Stoppard as a writer who became a political spokesman through his plays. Similarly, it opposes Neil Sammels‘, Nigel Farndale‘s or

5 Thomas Whitaker‘s claims about Stoppard‘s shift from applying aesthetics of engagement to placing his work at the service of politics (Sammels 142).

On the other hand, the thesis vindicates Aydin Görmez‘s judgement of Stoppard as a writer who has always been interested in humanity and morality rather than just politics. In keeping with Anthony Jenkins, the work will show that the concept of sudden politicization of Tom Stoppard is inaccurate and only limiting Stoppard‘s complex work. Additionally, it will be argued that Stoppard‘s plays never promote any specific views or ideologies, as was suggested by Joan F. Dean. I will also claim, following Ileana Orlich‘s and Christopher Innes‘ observations, that Tom Stoppard uses his plays to present multiple contradictory perspectives and thus challenges and teases his audience. Moreover, his plays are no common theatre plays, but rather ‗plays of ideas‘. As Ileana Orlich argues, in the plays, Stoppard teases the problems of the twentieth century with humour and nonsense.

The first chapter of the work is dedicated to Stoppard‘s involvement in politics and his cooperation with the Amnesty International in his life. The rest of the theoretical part of the thesis focuses on Stoppard as a playwright. It discusses the question whether

Stoppard is a political writer or not by looking at his way of writing and analyzes the amount of space in the plays that is devoted to politics. Additionally, it questions the traditional concept of the politicization of Stoppard in time and argues for his using politics for its moral and humanistic aspects, and as a source of fun.

The following section closely deals with three of Stoppard‘s plays: Travesties

(1974), Professional Foul (1978) and The Real Thing (1982). The first of them is traditionally seen as a milestone in Stoppard‘s work indicating his new interest in politics. Professional Foul is then said to be the first of his plays to address political issues directly and radically. The following era of Stoppard‘s political radicalism is

6 embodied in the play The Real Thing. These three plays, all dealing with politics, are chosen as ideal sources of looking for the arguments about Stoppard‘s plays that are suggested in the theoretical part.

Finally, having analyzed the three plays and discussed the amount of politics in

Stoppard‘s plays, the thesis summarizes features of the so-called ‗Stoppardian play‘. If the thesis proves the claim that politics is not a unifying feature of Stoppard‘s plays, the author will try to come up with other ones. The work will try to generalize typical features of Stoppard‘s plays based on the findings from the analyses and other theoretical knowledge.

7 1. Stoppard’s Involvement in Politics

Although there is no general agreement whether Tom Stoppard is a political writer or not, there can be no doubt about him having been involved – to some extent – in politics personally. Not only does he write plays concerning human rights, freedom of expression or freedom of individuals in general (such as Professional Foul, Every Good

Boy Deserves a Favour and others), but also shows his concern in real life.

As soon as 1976 Stoppard spoke in public for the Committee against Psychiatric

Abuse in the Communist Bloc and then marched – though unsuccessfully – to the

Soviet Embassy in London with a petition on dissidents‘ rights. As Barbara Day observes, the original impulse for this action was his meeting with a Czech dissident,

Victor Fainberg, earlier the same year. Fainberg had been imprisoned in mental hospitals for five years for his protest against Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. This meeting also inspired Stoppard to write the play Every Good Boy Deserves a Favour

(1977) (Day).

In February the following year, Stoppard – supported by another thirteen British playwrights – wrote to The New York Times an article ‗Dirty Linen in Prague‘, which dealt with political repression of intellectuals and artists in Czechoslovakia (Stoppard‘s native country). In the article, he was asking for liberation of the imprisoned signatories of Charter 77, a document calling for respecting the conditions assured by the Helsinki

Agreement in 1975. Most attention was paid to the imprisonment of Václav Havel, a playwright, author of various absurd dramas. In an interview by John Tusa, Stoppard admits: ―[...] there was a personal element in this, I, I really, I really took to him and wanted to help in some way‖ (Tusa). This newspaper article by Stoppard had thus nothing to do with his plays; it was merely a political act with the aim at helping political prisoners in Czechoslovakia.

8 Stoppard was cooperating with Amnesty International (AI) in Britain in the

1970s and thanks to that he travelled to Moscow and Leningrad with assistant director of AI in February 1977. They were supposed to meet with Russian dissidents there. In an interview Stoppard says: ―It was a frightening trip. I was terrified all the time in

Moscow, to be honest‖ (Kačer, Oslzlý). He then travelled to Czechoslovakia in June and met dissidents there, among them Václav Havel, who then became a good friend of

Stoppard. Out of these visits came several newspaper articles, such as ‗Prague: The

Story of the Chartists‘ published in the New York Review of Books in August 1977.

Besides, the year 1977 was declared the ‗Prisoners of Conscience Year‘ by Amnesty

International and Stoppard promised to write a play for that occasion. Although he was thinking about a play concerning Russian dissidents at first, finally he wrote a play about Czechoslovakia: Professional Foul, a play about a professor of philosophy who comes to Prague and his ethical principles are confronted with the brutal realities of the

Communist regime.

In an interview by John Tusa, Stoppard talked about his involvement in politics.

In his opinion, he was not more active than anyone else; his reactions only reflected the general feeling in Britain at that time:

I think that, I mustn't overstate my involvement but I was involved

to some degree in dissident activities, supporting dissidents in

Czechoslovakia in around about the late seventies I think, but it was

certainly something to do with being Czech, but not entirely. It was a

time of course when we all felt well we have to engage ourselves at

some level somewhere in the world, and I chose Eastern Europe.

(Tusa)

9 Unless it is sheer modesty, it is clear that Stoppard does not see his political activities in the seventies as a breakthrough in his life, but rather a typical reaction of a person of his profession and position at that time. The question remains whether we can label Tom

Stoppard as a politically active person in general or not. Although he showed his interest in politics in the late seventies there is not much proof in his life of any major interest of his before or after this time.

In 1968 when Russia invaded Czechoslovakia, Stoppard‘s native country, he did not show any interest or effort to help. His reaction was, as he says, one of a liberal

English intellectual and a playwright: ―I‘d never much thought about Czechoslovakia, really. I wasn‘t going, oh my god, you know, the tanks are in my country. I didn‘t feel like that. I felt like an English Amnesty person‖ (Kačer, Oslzlý). At that time, he did not have any personal interest in what was going on in Eastern Europe. So why did he change his mind a few years later, in 1976 and 1977? Or did he change it at all? The answer to these questions is offered by John Bull in his article ‗Tom Stoppard and politics‘:

For Stoppard, State Communism is the ultimate embodiment of a

system that uses its rules to inhibit individual behavior rather than to

allow the expression of a free will. His involvement with the Charter

77 movement is, then, one with a profoundly philosophical base, and

not just an empathetic response to the plight of his one-time

countrymen. (Bull 142)

And he adds later in the article:

Stoppard‘s interventions into Eastern European politics were

unproblematic for him in political terms. [...] But it is important to

emphasize that the struggle was seen by him as precisely an

10 example of the freedom of the individual/constraint of the state

model. (Bull 149)

The same argument can be seen in the paper ‗Morality and Politics‘ by Aydin

Görmez:

Stoppard‘s sole aim is not only criticizing the Communist

country, but he is also against anything or anybody who tries to

restrict human freedom. Such violations occur mainly in the

communist countries and, that‘s why, he directs his criticisms

mainly towards the oppressions and cruelties in these countries.

Stoppard insists on what he sees as truth. (Görmez)

Both Görmez and Bull apparently see Stoppard‘s motivations as a part of his interest in human freedom – freedom of speech, personal or political freedom. Stoppard did not choose Eastern Europe because he would fear for his home land, but simply because it was a place where human rights were violated. Stoppard confirms that when he says:

―Till 1977 I wasn‘t regarded as, in any way, a political person or political writer, and in fact in a sense I never was actually because even when I was writing ostensibly about political subjects I always felt I was writing about moral issues more than political issues‖ (Kačer, Oslzlý). He does not feel to be a politically active person and as it seems, it would be an overstatement to label him so. Although he supported Czech dissent financially (he financed ‗Tom Stoppard Prize‘ given to independent Czech writers every year) and signed various petitions even after 1977 he never attempted to get involved in politics as actively as he did in the mid seventies. Therefore we can say that, apart from his involvement in Eastern Europe politics in the mid seventies,

Stoppard never became truly active in politics personally.

11 2. Tom Stoppard – Political Writer?

As has already been mentioned, there is no agreement in general about Tom

Stoppard being a political writer or not. The main reason for this uncertainty is probably the multiplicity of topics and subjects in each play which does not allow one to name it simply as a political piece. To find out the truth it is vital to compare the nature of Stoppard‘s plays to the characteristics of political theatre. By comparing these two it is possible to find out whether Stoppard‘s plays fit into the category of political literature and if not, whether we can find any other, more suitable one. Before we look at the way of Stoppard‘s writing, and the character and features of his plays, it is necessary to define what is meant by the term ‗political fiction‘ or, ‗political theatre‘.

The word ‗political, politics‘ comes from a Greek word ‗polis‘, which means

‗community‘ or ‗city—state‘. Today, ‗politics‘ is understood as ―the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area‖ (Oxford Pocket Dictionary

Online). ‗Political fiction‘ is then defined as a ―subgenre of fiction that deals with political affairs [...] It has often used narrative to provide commentary on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction often directly criticize an existing society or [...] present an alternative, sometimes fantastic, reality‖ (Oxford

Pocket Dictionary Online).

For the purposes of this work it is also necessary to define what is meant by

‗political theatre‘. According to the Dictionary of the Theatre, ‗political theatre‘ attempts to enforce the victory of a certain theory, social sentiment, or a philosophical design. In this case, ―aesthetics is subordinated to political fight so much that the theatrical form of a play almost disappears in ideological debate‖ (Pavis 306). In a political play, championing a certain political view or opinion is superior to everything else, even the theatrical form. The purpose of such a play is to transmit a message

12 about a new political vision or to strengthen the position of an existing political system.

As such, a political play becomes a political act.

a. Stoppard’s Way of Writing

From the definition of political theatre we can derive how political authors create their plays. As was mentioned earlier, the aim of political writing is to influence the reader or the audience. Although the so-called political plays vary in topics, there is one basic rule that is common to all of them: they are always written with a certain political aim, with an idea they want to spread. The sole essence of the play is the political topic; everything else is subordinated to it.

At this point it is inevitable to ask about the way Stoppard creates his own plays. Does he use the plays to spread his political ideas? Does he base the plays on certain ideas he wants to transmit or is the idea rather just an end product of the play?

In the introduction to an interview with TS, Maya Jaggi comments on Ira

Nadel‘s statement about Stoppard‘s inspirations: ―Nadel thinks his fuel is history. Yet he seems inspired not so much by any period as by the clash and tension of abstract ideas. He prides himself on being able to argue all sides, leaving the audience to judge‖

(Jaggi). This ability of Stoppard to argue on all sides and present many contradictory voices with the same weight and persuasiveness is typical of all Stoppard‘s plays. As he says in another interview, ―I‘m the kind of person who embarks on an endless leapfrog down the great moral issues. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation. Forever. Endlessly. I have strong opinions but an opinion and a policy are not the same thing‖ (Gussow 3). It thus seems that Stoppard does not favour any specific opinions; on the contrary, he presents more of them and lets the audience

13 judge. This manner, however, shows Stoppard‘s inclination to buck-passing, for he leaves his audience in chaos without showing them any way out.

As to the question of writing with a certain aim, Stoppard radically refuses to be doing so: ―One doesn‘t think it. One simply writes what one is impelled to write at that time, what one wants to write, what one feels one can write‖ (Hayman 6); and also:

―Some writers write because they burn with a cause which they further by writing about it. I burn with no causes. I cannot say that I write with any social objective. One writes because one loves writing‖ (Bigsby 1976: 5). In an interview by John Tusa,

Stoppard also talks about the type of plays he writes:

Well I was always writing plays that I wanted to write without

worrying about what kind of plays I ought to be writing [...]What

people tend to underestimate is my capacity for not bothering, not

caring, not minding, not being that interested. (Tusa)

It is thus clear form what Stoppard says about the plays that he does not have any social objective that he would be trying to propose in the plays. When asked about his inspirations for plays, Stoppard declared: ―I am a total bookworm and in most cases my inspiration for a new play was an abstract theme rather than a concrete story or character‖ (Čáp). On another occasion, in an interview by Tomáš Kačer and Petr

Oslzlý, Stoppard was – among others – talking about his most recent play Rock’n’roll, which takes place in the communist Czechoslovakia. His reaction to the question whether he planned to write a play about a communist country to show the negative aspects of communism, he replied as follows:

The main reason is that you have a merge to write any play.

Anything will do, you just want to…I‘m in this position now, I

would like to write a play, and I don‘t have a desire that I must

14 write a play about this or ‗bout that; anything is fine, anything

which makes, which is interesting, oh, that‘s a good, that‘s

interesting, I could get interested in this source, I can see story

there‘s a story there. [...] It wasn‘t a situation where I was thinking,

ha, now it‘s my time to write a play about Czechoslovakia in 1968,

70s, it wasn‘t like that, not at all. (Kačer, Oslzlý)

All the evidence given here shows that unlike political writers, Stoppard does not plan his writing in advance in the sense that he would be aiming at saying something specific by it. He does not write his plays with any social objective, but rather balances more contradictory views and leaves it up to the audience to make conclusions out of it

– he does not present any single viewpoint as his, or as the right one. It can thus be said that regarding the way Stoppard creates his plays and works with ideas, he does not behave as a political writer.

b. Politicization of Tom Stoppard?

In the preceding chapter, it was shown that Stoppard does not think of himself as a political writer. It is thus surprising that many scholars call him to be a playwright with great political concerns. J. F. Dean even claims that ―Stoppard‘s increasing willingness to address political questions is the most important characteristic of his evolution as a dramatist‖ (Dean 13). The fact that he is not the only one claiming that – but rather the opposite – indicates that politics definitely plays some role in Stoppard‘s writing. But what is it and to what extent does politics appear in his plays?

Stoppard‘s work is standardly divided into two distinct periods based on the prevailing topics in the plays. The earlier period dates until 1976 and is characterized by dominating absurd plays with extensive use of farce and clever jokes. The other

15 period, dating since 1977 till today, covers mainly political and social issues. The turning point in Stoppard‘s career is seen in publishing Travesties (1974), after which he is believed to have continually increased his interest in politics in his plays.

‗Politicization‘ of Stoppard‘s plays is thus often seen as one of the distinctive features of his writing.

Whereas Stoppard is relatively more detached in earlier works

such as Enter a Free Man and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are

Dead, he is far more involved in the later plays with their focused

treatment of problems like the communist repression of actors, the

sad state of journalism, or the responsibility of the artist. (Dean 71)

Nigel Farndale stresses the fact that politicization did not harm Stoppard‘s plays or lowered their qualities: ―He has never stopped having hit plays, though they have become less absurdist and more political over the years‖ (Farndale). The same view is shared by Michael Billington: ―What is fascinating about Stoppard is that he has gradually moved from stylish, apolitical disengagement towards an active involvement with current issues ...‖ (Billington 180). For what I will be trying to suggest later, it is now important to note that neither Billington sees Stoppard as someone involved in politics. On the contrary, he stresses Stoppard‘s involvement with current issues – meaning ‗liking, pleasure, or fondness of‘ current issues – rather than any active involvement with political affairs.

When Stoppard entered British theatre with his first plays, he was far from concerning himself with political topics. More likely, he preferred creating absurdist plays in the style of Samuel Beckett. His first plays (such as Enter a Free Man,

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead) were rich in farce, puns, absurd situations and dialogues, and comical characters. This choice to write uncommitted theatre was rather

16 unique in Britain at that time, as Michael Billington points out: ―[Stoppard] came to the fore in British theatre in 1967 at a time when dramatists were increasingly judged by their political commitment and approximation to social truth, by their willingness to tackle anything from the class system to Vietnam‖ (Billington 10). Due to his distinctiveness, unwillingness to deal with political topics and hence distancing himself from other authors of that time, Stoppard was often negatively criticised and labelled as an ‗apolitical relativist‘. An overwhelming majority of young playwrights were, as

Billington remarks, ―becoming increasingly certain in their political attitudes, critical of their environment and even didactic in their methods. As Cathy Itzen has written,

‗the significant British theatre of 1968-78 was primarily theatre of political change‘‖

(Billington 169). And the reasons for this were many:

The fascination of the young with radical politics throughout the

world; the growth to maturity of a generation that had benefited from

the 1945 Butler Education act; the speed of communication; the

disappointment in Britain with the slowness of changes instituted by

the Wilson Labour Government; and, in theatrical terms, the abolition

of the Lord Chamberlain‘s powers of censorship and the sudden

growth of small, experimental, unofficial theatres all over London –

all these made the late 60s in Britain a period of extraordinary artistic

ferment. (Billington 169-70)

Tom Stoppard with his absurdist plays must have been sticking out, indeed. Not only did he leave political issues out, but he even declared his disavowal openly when he claimed: ―I burn with no causes. I cannot say I write with any social objective‖

(Bigsby 1976: 5). And the beginning of his playwriting was entirely in accordance with this statement.

17 At the beginning of the seventies, Stoppard‘s work gradually started to show signs of politicization. ―Stoppard‘s plays had been drifting closer to engagement in the world of social and political realities,‖ J. F. Dean underlined, ―since he opted for intelligibility and causality over surrealism and fantasy in After Magritte‖ (Dean 84).

Somewhere else, he pointed out:

Artist Descending a Staircase marks a turning point in Stoppard‘s

career in that, first, the problem he considers here is more

specialized than those of his previous plays, and, second, a wide

variety of clues (ranging from his own statements to the particular

tone if this play) suggests he is moving toward firm commitment,

toward certain beliefs. (Dean 70-71)

Additionally, John Bull argues that ―Beginning in 1974 [the year of the publication of Travesties], Stoppard was slowly but gradually being drawn into taking a direct political stand‖ (Bull 142). It is evident that there is some disagreement about the exact point when actually political issues began to penetrate Stoppard‘s plays. Whether it was with Travesties, Jumpers, Artist Descending, After Magritte or even something else is, however, not as important. The crucial finding here is that it was in the first half of the seventies when Stoppard began to deal with social and political issues.

Although he became involved in the sphere of political and social issues, he never sacrificed his original style of writing. His plays remained full of clever wit, ingenuity, complexity and brisk dialogues.

Stoppard began to engage with public, political issues without

sacrificing his wit or legerdemain. He went on to write about press

freedom in Night and Day, about the self-cancelling absurdities of

the espionage game in The Dog It Was That Died, about the rise and

18 fall of Solidarity in Squaring the Circle. Stoppard became less of an

ideological fence-sitter and entered the great arena of public events.

(Billington 10-11)

As Michael Billington correctly remarks, it was not always politics that shaped his plays, but rather public events in general. Although he would touch on political issues in many plays, none of them was a political play in the sense that was explained earlier.

More likely, he was dealing with aesthetic and philosophical problems, not politics as such. All political issues were handled indirectly– in hints and allusions only, as will be shown with Travesties. In some cases, political realities intruded into security of the settings (Travesties, Jumpers or Night and Day). All in all, Stoppard‘s plays from this period deal with political issues in a very limited way only and hence cannot be called true ‗political plays‘. Any traces of politics are only hinted or stay on the margins of the story as a part of its setting.

The publication of Professional Foul in 1977 signified another turn in

Stoppard‘s writing. Since that moment, he is said to be putting direct political statements into his plays. He is no longer hiding them in hints or allusions, but openly claims his political views on various issues, such as the freedom of expression, press or dissident rights. Joan F. Dean identifies as the characteristic features of the plays from this period

the responsibilities of the press and the communist repression of free

speech and thought. Paralleling these thematic interests is Stoppard‘s

increasing concern with the political and artistic situation in his native

Czechoslovakia. Moreover, he has recently demonstrated at least a

reluctant willingness to state his opinions straightforwardly and to

discuss his work as an expression of his own view. (Dean 86)

19 As Dean points out, Stoppard was mainly concerned with human rights with Eastern

Bloc countries, especially Czechoslovakia and Russia. Given the fact that Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia, it is no surprise that he should be interested in fight for respecting human rights under the Communist oppression there. He was particularly interested in the Charter 77 movement that called for respecting the conditions assured by the Helsinki Agreement in 1975, as was already discussed earlier. ―The creators of the charter [Charter 77] were insistent that theirs was not a party struggle of any kind

[...] The disclaimer of any ‗party‘ intent would have appealed to Stoppard on top of its call for liberty‖ (Bull 142). Personally, he has never claimed any sympathies with any political party as such. Once he confided to Paul Delaney: ―I‘m a conservative with a small c. I‘m a conservative in politics, literature, education, and theatre.‖ John Bull commented on it: ―Stoppard, thus, both distances himself from the specifics of the

Conservative Party even as he claims an allegiance to some wider moral and cultural definition of ‗conservatism‘; his is a political ideology that is not, and could not be, wedded to any party‖ (Bull 151).

In spite of his uncommitted behaviour it has always been clear that Stoppard strongly disagrees with practices of the Communist party or, Marxism and Leninism in general. ―While tolerating the mistaken ideas of artists, he does not show the slightest sympathy for the political oppressors‖ (Görmez). In his plays, Stoppard openly criticizes the communist countries for oppressing freedom in all fields, corruption of language and immorality. Stoppard explains this shift in writing:

‗I take every possible side‘ - that was my at-rest mode for the first

few years, mostly because I didn't know the answer to these

conundrums. But in Eastern Europe in the 70s and 80s, I did take

sides. I wasn't up for any cause going; looking back, my focus was

20 very narrow. I was interested in the shadow thrown by Soviet

communism. (Jaggi)

It is important to remember that this was the time of Stoppard‘s personal involvement in politics; this is when he was actively supporting dissidents and writing newspaper articles in their favour. Therefore it is no surprise that he portrayed his active involvement in political issues in his plays, too.

This period of Stoppard‘s writing (in the second half of the 70s) is thus marked by an open criticism of distorted practices in communist countries in Eastern Bloc. As

John Bull remarked, ―In so doing, the dramatic tension in his subsequent plays becomes centred on the role of the playwright as mouthpiece for the ideas that the plays embrace, or at the least seek to discuss‖ (Bull 146). This attitude is seen as a dramatic change in the author‘s work and hence calls into question his earlier period of uncommitted writing. Despite all of that, Stoppard strongly restated his position in 1977: ―the most widespread misapprehension about playwrights [...] is that they set out to say something and then say it, in short that a play is the end product of an idea‖ (Bull 141). In his opinion, he has never subordinated his plays to any political credo. This is surely right – regarding the aesthetic sense of his plays; on the contrary, the plays of this period differ from all the others in the sense that they directly introduce a political dimension in themselves.

Since the 1980s (beginning with The Real Thing) and perhaps all the way until today Stoppard has shifted his attention. As he finished his active involvement in

Eastern European issues, he stopped using these topics in his plays, too. He has found a new object of criticism which is now Great Britain. For a long time, he avoided any critique of Britain in the plays at all, the reason probably being that ―He feels grateful to

Britain,‖ James Saunders speculates, ―because he sees himself as a guest here, and that

21 makes it hard for him to criticize Britain‖ (Sammells 142). With The Real Thing, however, a new shift comes. He is no longer afraid to judge the country he lives in and the conditions in English society and thus deals with up-to-date topics. Even his latest play Rock’n’roll, set in the communist Czechoslovakia, only appears to be dealing with

Czech history. As Stoppard admits, he has written this play mainly about Great Britain and its role in the world today.

The beginning of Stoppard‘s concern with politics thus dates back to the publication of Travesties (1974), a play that discusses the theory of Marxism and

Leninism, the causes of the Great War and other public issues. At this stage, however,

Stoppard still remains in the sphere of hints and indirect allusions on politics. The author focuses on philosophical issues rather than politics, which occupies only a minor part of the play. None of the plays written in this time can be called as political ones.

The publication of Professional Foul and Every Good Boy Deserves a Favour in 1978 signed a more direct addressing of politics in the plays. In the second half of the 1970s,

Stoppard openly criticises communist countries in his plays. As he was personally involved in cooperation with Amnesty International at that time, Stoppard wrote plays criticising political practices more openly than was typical of him until that time. In should be pointed out, however, that even during this stage, Stoppard never buried his wit and aesthetic qualities under any political intentions. More likely, he openly showed his interests in respecting human rights, most importantly the freedom of expression. In his latest plays, beginning with The Real Thing, Stoppard has shifted his attention towards the Great Britain, his home country. Most of his recent plays deal with current issues and show Stoppard‘s involvement with contemporary political events.

22 c. Morality and Freedom

In this chapter, I would like to point to Stoppard‘s concern with morality and freedom. In my opinion, these two concepts are more important for Stoppard than political issues themselves. When he deals with political issues in the plays, it is with the aim of investigating their moral basis solely. If Stoppard introduces political oppressions in communist countries into his plays, his focus is always on the freedom of an individual. Stoppard is never interested in politics for its sake; if he comes across it, it is only to look at the moral aspects of the political issues and the question of its respecting or violating basic human freedoms.

An important precondition for judging any Stoppard‘s interventions into politics is his belief that ―all political acts have a moral basis to them and are meaningless without them‖ (Bull 137). Although he would write about political issues from time to time, he claims he was always more concerned with morality rather than politics. The reason is the way Stoppard sees all political acts – that they should be ―judged in moral terms and in terms of their consequences they cause‖ (Görmez).

When describing Stoppard‘s development as a playwright, John F. Dean says about the period from the early seventies: ―With Jumpers, Artist Descending a

Staircase, and Travesties, he enters a new phase in his playwriting – one that witnesses the emergence of his specific concern with art, philosophy, and morality‖ (Dean 13).

Unlike others, Dean mentions morality, not politics; thus he reflects Stoppard‘s own feelings about his plays. In addition, Dean sees Stoppard‘s concern with morality as his virtue: ―Stoppard‘s carefully cultivated refusal to moralize in his early works later yields at least to a concern with specific political issues, yet he never envisions a political purpose to his art. His aim, surprisingly, is much higher – toward morality not just politics‖ (Dean 14). Although Dean admits that later on Stoppard started dealing

23 with political issues in his plays, he does not see a political writer in him either. In his opinion, Stoppard does not use politics for its political purposes – but to point at something else.

Stoppard‘s refusal of any political ideologies is rooted in his belief that individuals are more important than the society as a whole. According to him, the rights of an individual are always more important than the rights of the society because every society should be based on mutual agreement among its members: ―However inflexible our set of beliefs... however authentic their existence may be, the truth is that they owe their existence to individual acts between individuals, which themselves are derived from an individual‘s intuitive sense of what is right and wrong‖ (Delaney 138). If there were no individuals there would be no society – therefore if there is a conflict of interests between an individual and society, the law should stand on the individual‘s side. As Görmez points out, ―The impossibility to express oneself and the obstacles in front of the different and independent ideas and thoughts in Russia were the main reasons for his attacks on the Soviet regime. Stoppard has usually given importance to the individual freedom‖ (Görmez). In his plays, Stoppard has always stood on the side of the individual. In his plays, freedom of an individual has always stood above anything else:

He comes to realize how political interruptions can limit the

freedom of man and manipulate anything in life just for the sake of

the interests of ideologies. However, freedom or happiness of

humanity is of utmost importance, so when needed, any law should

be broken to achieve a more important achievement which is the

freedom of man. (Brater 128)

24 Oppression of individual freedom was thus one of the main reasons of criticism of communist regimes in Stoppard‘s plays. The same fact is observed by Michael Hinden when he says: ―Apparently his interest in the politics or his writing political plays derives from his humanistic world view, and shows his reaction against the abusing politics for tyrannical practices‖ (Hinden 405-406). When criticizing communist

Czechoslovakia or Russia for its immoral practices, Stoppard does it mainly because of his general disapproval of Marxism: ―The biggest wrong Marx did, Stoppard believes, was his insist on class solidarity, which should be human solidarity instead‖ (Görmez).

It is thus evident that Stoppard has been concerned with politics mainly for the moral principles connected to it, the most important ones being freedom and rights of individuals. In his plays, he never sacrifices individuals in favour of any greater good.

This was well explained by John Bull, who interconnects this to Stoppard‘s claim to be a ‗conservative with a small c‘:

Whilst sharing something of the ideology of Margaret Thatcher‘s

vision of how things would be, it is completely opposed to the

efforts of such as the ex-prime minister to impose order on the chaos

that is life to Stoppard or to deny the creativity of the individual in

the supposed cause of the greater good. (Bull 151)

To Stoppard, an individual is the most important element. Characters in his plays are never doomed and their individuality and distinctiveness stands above everything. This liberty given to them by the author brings, however, chaos to life, where no opinion or point of view can be taken as the right one. This uncertainty created by multiplicity of equal voices in plays is a result of Stoppard‘s focus on freedom of individuals. As John

Bull correctly remarks, Stoppard does not try to impose order on the chaos caused by

25 the multiplicity of opinions, but leaves it to the audience to make conclusions – if there are any at all.

Apparently, Stoppard does not create his plays with political purposes. His aim is much higher – towards morality and the basic human freedoms that should be respected in any society. Stoppard is always more concerned with humanity and freedom of an individual rather than just politics. He thus cannot be labelled as a political writer, since Stoppard does not use politics for its political purposes. More likely, he uses political issues so as to be able to explore their moral basis.

In the following chapter, it will be argued that due to their playful and noncommittal nature, Stoppard‘s plays can all be characterised as well-made plays: ones that playfully deal with topics familiar to the audience, which might be presented from original or shocking points of view, but never cover anything problematic or too difficult – the demands for the audience are minimal (Pavis 114). It will be shown that

Stoppard never introduces political issues in his plays so as to promote any views, but rather to play with it and handle it without any obligations. He never draws any conclusions, only illustrates the choices that contemporary people face. The reasons for this are Stoppard‘s liking to asking questions and the process of thinking. The characters in his plays always fiddle with various ideas, but never say anything fundamental. Besides, Stoppard challenges the facts that are usually taken for granted, and thus makes every truth and fact elusive. Furthermore, it will be shown that although the plots are rather complicated sometimes, the audience does not need any special knowledge to understand them, since all crucial facts are always provided.

26 d. Stoppard’s Well-Made Playing with Politics

By now it was more or less possible to come to a conclusion that could be summarized by words of Aydin Görmez: ―[Stoppard] is not a political writer and his power of comedy suppresses his ideological criticism‖ (Görmez). Although he uses political topics in his plays, he never does so to promote any concrete opinions. As

Stoppard once stated:

I‘m not impressed by art because it‘s political. I believe in art

being good art or bad art, not relevant or irrelevant art. The plain

truth is that if you are angered or disgusted by a particular injustice

or immorality, and you want to do something about it, now, at once,

then you can hardly do worse than write a play about it. That‘s what

art is bad at. (Dean 5)

This statement shows that from Stoppard‘s point of view, there is no use to write theatre plays so as to act against injustice or immorality. To write a play about it, on the contrary, seems to be the worst decision one can think of. If he really wanted to create any political acts, then following his principles he would definitely not write a play about it. In an interview by Mel Gussow, Stoppard admitted: ―I still believe that journalism, television journalism particularly, is the most efficient medium for changing the world – in the short term‖ (Gussow 58). Since Stoppard started his career as a journalist but soon decided to quit and become a playwright, the decision signals that he chose not to ‗change the world‘. Instead, he prefers to handle politics playfully, without any obligations or seriousness. As Joan F. Dean remarks, ―[Stoppard‘s] plays hardly inspire audiences to action outside the theatre; yet they illustrate the choices – political, philosophical, and ethical – that confront contemporary man‖ (Dean 108).

Here Dean gives a true picture of Stoppard‘s plays – they do not express any definite

27 ideas or opinions, but always ‗illustrate the choices‘. Audience is given free hand to draw any conclusions – Stoppard only presents all options possible. To be able to do this, he always picks up a contemporary issue, as Dean also pointed out. In the plays,

Stoppard shows new points of view or just views different from the traditional ones and thus catches attention of the audience. ―But it was often hard to tell,‖ Michael

Billington observed, ―where he himself stood on any single issue or what lay behind the mask of cleverness‖ (Billington 10). Stoppard would never lean a single inch towards any of the views – he would always present everything neutrally.

In his article ―Tom Stoppard and Politics‖, John Bull comments on Stoppard‘s early writing and gives us an explanation of Stoppard‘s avoiding dealing with politics:

―In his earliest work, Stoppard tried hard to avoid an intervention into the realms of political debate. It was not that he was uninterested in politics as such, but rather that he put more trust in the process of questioning than in attempts to create a fixed ideological position‖ (Bull 137). This liking to questioning can be spotted already in

Stoppard‘s first play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. The two main characters here play a game with questions that consists of asking questions which are not answered, but always initiate asking further questions. Here we see that from the very beginning of his writing, Stoppard tends to ask questions rather than seek any answers.

―Dialogue (in the sense of debating voices),‖ Bull argues, ―was not used by him to either promote the views of a single voice or to present a dialectical model in which a synthesis is to be arrived at‖ (Bull 139). Stoppard used dialogues for their own sake – and this has always remained true about his style. Characters in the plays brilliantly play with both language and ideas transmitted by it, but do not attempt to say anything fundamental or crucial. As Stoppard explains on the example of Travesties, he was often trying to say ‗nothing about anything‘:

28 I tend to overreact against the large claims of committed theatre

... I used to feel out on a limb, because when I started to write you

were a shit if you weren‘t writing about Vietnam or housing. Now I

have no compunction about that ... The Importance of Being Earnest

is important, but says nothing about anything. (Bull 139)

The same can be said about his later play Professional Foul – another play that will be analyzed here subsequently. The audience here must cope with the presented fact that certain behaviour being judged as ethical or unethical depends not on our set beliefs, but more on the conditions of certain situations. ―For example, although smuggling is unethical, sometimes and somewhere it could be the single way to reach the moral truth‖ (Görmez). Such a statement, however, messes up all values and principles of our society and assigns them only relative meaning. As such, it only adds to uncertainty and chaos which are often taken as characteristics of contemporary living. Görmez sees this as scepticism from Stoppard‘s side since he shows us that we cannot be sure about anything we formerly took for granted. In Stoppard‘s world, everything is relative and uncertain – even historical facts:

Stoppard questions the accuracy of historical events and

biographies of historical figures. He urges people to think over what

they had assumed to be true. He makes our minds confused, and we

are not sure of anything we formerly believed to be true any longer.

The scepticism of his plays brings about a radical change in the way

we begin to consider the world and its history. Historical events,

historical figures, great or notorious leaders have been displaced

from their unshakable thrones, and they have been put on an

ambiguous and slippery environment instead. (Görmez)

29 Amy Reiter observed that this process of questioning is crucial to Stoppard‘s work.

In her opinion, Stoppard questions everything and anything, without any need for absolute truths:

Whether on stage, screen or simply page, Stoppard questions

everything from the nature of love to the nature of the universe,

from the compulsion to act to the compulsion to act out, from the

impulse to create to the impulse to procreate. And while absolutes

are scant in Stoppard's work, interrogatives and insights abound.

(Reiter)

Reiter only confirms Görmez‘s observation that Stoppard‘s plays do not have a leading voice and through the multiplicity of equal voices, they present various contradictory views on certain issues and thus make the truth elusive. Apart from the process of questioning, John Carrington stresses Stoppard‘s excitement of thinking.

The multiplicity of issues depicted in the plays is – among others – a result of

Stoppard‘s liking to thinking.

There are ‗issues‘ in the plays, such as free will, the meaning of

meaning, the intersection of art and politics, and the nature of human

rights, but overall if there is a central earnestness in Stoppard's plays

it seems to be simply the excitement of thinking. As he has written:

‗The truth is always a compound of two half-truths, and you never

reach it, because there is always something more to say.‘

(Carrington 309)

The impossibility – or maybe just lack of interest – to catch the truth is a feature that is characteristic of Stoppard‘s plays. The author asks questions for the purpose of asking and uncovering the existing multiplicity of points of view – not to seek any

30 answers. Therefore Stoppard never aims at finding any truth; in his opinion, there are always too many different opinions and views on a single subject that it is then impossible to define the truth.

Although the themes of Stoppard‘s plays vary significantly, there is a feature common to all of them and that is a rather complicated and surprising plot. The reason for this, as Josef Kovalčuk noted in his speech about Stoppard, is Stoppard‘s intensive preparation that always precedes writing any play. ―Tom Stoppard is rather exceptional for the elaborate research of thoughts, time and setting that precedes writing his plays.

He uses themes and topics from various fields. In his plays, Stoppard always surprises again and again and his plays are hard to categorise‖ (Kovalčuk). Thanks to this, the plays are always intellectual and challenging – they present facts in new light and hence ask us to re-evaluate our notions. This research makes the plays also very complex and interweaved internally. Stoppard commented on this subject as follows:

―My plays are in no way exceptional. I write plays for people with intellectual curiosity; however, you do not need any special historical or literal knowledge to understand them‖ (Machalická). If there is any knowledge needed for understanding the play, the author would always provide it within the play itself. An extreme example of that is Cecily‘s lecture at the beginning of the second act in Travesties. In the lecture, Cecily familiarises the audience with the history and theory of Marxism and

Leninism in great detail. The amount of information given there is so large that the audience is barely able to absorb a single tenth of it. In a commentary to the play,

Stoppard argued his aim was to stop the play and make the audience aware of Lenin‘s thoughts and deeds (Hayman 10). In my opinion, there might have been one more aspect into it: Stoppard wanted to test how much information on a single subject he can include into a play to make it still bearable for the audience and at the same time not to

31 destroy the aesthetic part of the play. Since he claims that he always provides all necessary information within the play, Stoppard might have practised a little joke of his own – he included all crucial facts despite risking losing the attention and liking of the audience due to giving an unconventional amount of facts. It is apparent that Stoppard was aware of the unusual length of the lecture, since he included a note stating that it is not necessary to perform the lecture as a whole. He could not, however, digress from his credo, and thus Stoppard overloaded the audience with all information needed for understanding and at the same time played it as a little joke.

To conclude, it was shown that based on the features of Stoppard‘s plays it is possible to classify them as the so-called ‗well-made plays‘. The plays are always playful, witty, clever, and dealing with familiar issues from a shocking or unusual point of view. It is clear that Stoppard‘s plays have only little demands from the audience.

The plays never require any special knowledge of the subjects discussed, since all the information needed is always provided within the play. Additionally, Stoppard‘s plays are always of frisky, noncommittal nature, as they never handle anything too serious, or too seriously – not even politics. If the plays deal with political or social issues, they do so without saying anything fundamental. More likely, the characters only play with the ideas and present diverse points of view on a single subject, and leave it to the audience to make any conclusions out of it. The reason for this is, as Stoppard claimed, his interest in asking questions, not seeking answers. Beside his interest in questioning, he enjoys teasing the audience (by not providing them with any solutions) and playing jokes and tricks on them. As such, Stoppard‘s plays cannot be judged as political ones.

32 3. Analysis of plays

The following part of the work consists of an analysis of the three chosen plays by

Tom Stoppard – Travesties, Professional Foul and The Real Thing. I will take one after another – in the time sequence – and describe and analyze individual, concrete manifestations of the aspects discussed in the previous part of the thesis, concentrating on political, social and moral issues in the plays.

a. Travesties

Travesties, a play in two acts, was written in 1974 and published one year later. It was first performed already in June 1974 by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the

Aldwych Theatre, London (Stoppard 1975: 10). The play got all its awards within one year, 1976, and among the most significant ones were the ‗Tony Award for Best Play‘ and ‗Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy‘.

The story is set in 1917 Zurich, Switzerland, in the time of the First World War.

At that time, Switzerland was ―the still centre of the wheel of war‖ (Stoppard 1975: 26), as there was no fighting there. The story is based on historical facts, but the play itself is not a historical one (Gussow 11). It starts from the historical fact that Lenin, Tristan

Tzara and James Joyce were all living in Zurich round about the same time – during the

WW I. Besides them, it presents Henry Carr, who was a real person; Stoppard, however, created a fictional character around him. He placed Carr into the position of a British

Consul in Zurich. As the author notes in the preface to the book, he created an elderly gentleman, who married a girl he met in the Library in Zurich during the Lenin years, and now he is recollecting – although not always accurately – his encounters with

Tristan Tzara a James Joyce (Stoppard 1975: 12).

33 The play is divided into two acts, both taking place in the Zurich library and

Henry Carr‘s apartment. The beginning of the second act is marked by a lecture given by Cecily, which is often criticised for its complexity and demands on the audience.

This lecture, almost five pages long (Stoppard 1975: 66-70), explains the theory of

Marxism, Leninism and many other facts in great detail. The reason for this, as

Stoppard remarked, was to stop the play and illustrate to the audience Lenin‘s thoughts on art, politics and history, and then carry on with the play (Hayman 10). Besides, it was one of Stoppard‘s private jokes with the audience, as he describes in the same interview:

I thought, ‗Right. We‘ll have a rollicking act first act, and they‘ll all

come back from their gins-and-tonics thinking ‗Isn‘t it fun? What a lot

of lovely jokes!‘ And they‘ll sit down, and this pretty girl will start

talking about the theory of Marxism and the theory of capitalism and the

theory of value. And all the smiles, because they‘re not prepared for it,

will atrophy‘. (Hayman 9)

The lecture does not contain any jokes, since the topic of it is too serious to be made fun of. Stoppard always treats the objects of his criticism (here it is the communist regime) purely seriously without any direct jokes, as will be shown with the character of

Lenin later. Although the author does not include any jokes in the lecture, the lecture in itself is a joke on the audience played from Stoppard‘s side. The author is fully aware that the audience cannot be able to keep their attention for so long and thus they will be overloaded and shocked at the same time. As always, Stoppard is playing with his audience and teasing them.

As with most Stoppard‘s plays, writing of the play itself was preceded by a thorough research into historical background so as to ensure certain accuracy of the

34 facts presented. There is a clear evidence that Carr met James Joyce, who ―put on a production of The Importance of Being Earnest on April 29, 1918 at the Theater Zur

Kaufleuten in Zurich‖ (Billington 98), where Henry Carr played the role of Algernon.

On the contrary, there is no evidence about Carr ever meeting either Tristan Tzara or

Lenin, or about these two meeting one another (Billington 98). However, from the historical research, Stoppard discovered ―one short conversation between Lenin and a

Dadaist, recounted in the [Robert] Motherwell book, [The Dada Painters and Poets] and also the possibility of a meeting between Lenin and Joyce‖ (Hu 116). Additionally,

Stoppard used several historical books on which he based most of the characters‘ speeches, such as Lenin‘s Collected Writings or various books on James Joyce or

Dadaism (Stoppard 1975: 15).

Apart from presenting accurate historical information, Stoppard also includes some facts that are questionable. By that, he teases the audience and challenges their knowledge of history and makes them ask whether the facts they know are real or not.

When Carr and Tzara argue over the causes of the WWI, Tzara comes with a shocking claim: that the true reason for the war was a wish of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of

Austria to ride in an open carriage with his wife through the streets of Sarajevo. For that reason, Tzara argued, he decided to inspect the army in Serbia, so as to get the opportunity for the ride. This provoked the local people, who then decided to assassinate them (Stoppard 1975: 40). Such argumentation is, however, wholly made- up, as the true causes of the Archduke‘s visit were the uprisings and riots there after enacting Serbia a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Hora-Hořejš 220). This is another Stoppard‘s joke with the audience, since most of the people watching the play will not have enough knowledge of the subject to say that such argumentation is nonsense. More likely, the audience will think about the reasons for the war they were

35 told at school and then start wondering whether Tristan Tzara might not be right after all. At this moment, Stoppard‘s joke will start being effective and the audience will have swallowed the hook, which is exactly what Stoppard was aiming at. He does not include historical ―facts‖ only to educate the audience, but to challenge their knowledge and to entertain as well.

In Travesties, as well as all the other plays discussed here, Stoppard generously presents multiple perspectives on issues such as art, politics and what they have in common. These points of view are often contradictory; Stoppard, however, never shows any slightest inclination towards any of them: ―Stoppard, like a good dramatist, hurls the ideas at us and leaves us to pick our way through them‖ (Billington 100). In an interview, Stoppard admitted he found it hard to know on whose side he stood ―...in the argument on art between James Joyce and Tristan Tzara. Temperamentally and intellectually, I‘m very much on Joyce‘s side, but I found it persuasive to write Tzara‘s speech‖ (Gussow 35). If he comes to a conclusion, it is that political revolution is entirely different from an artistic one (Billington 103). On the contrary, it is not always necessary to come to any conclusions at all. When Joyce and Lenin present their views

– very different ones indeed – on an artist‘s role in the society, Stoppard is not trying to show that any of them is the right one. More likely, he is illustrating the complexity of the issue by presenting multiple points of view (Jenkins 119). Besides, this multiplicity teaches us how complicated history can be, as John Fleming observes: ―That these opposing ideologies can both be ‗right‘ points to the need to see historical events as being the result of many causes, and that even seemingly contradictory explanations of history may be needed to gain a fuller understanding‖ (Fleming 110). In presenting multiple contradictory points of view it is possible to see Stoppard‘s liking to thinking and not just asking questions and immediately giving the answers. Stoppard prefers

36 showing various possibilities to illustrate the complexity of the issues discussed and does not feel the need to seek any conclusions. This buck-passing attitude of Stoppard is a part of his tendency to not taking parts and remaining neutral. Not because he would not take any parts, but because Stoppard does not want to impose any views on the audience and leaves it to them to judge.

Another issue raised in Travesties is language conscripted to the use of various ideologies, freedom of expression, meanings of single words and its using for gaining one‘s aims. At the beginning of the play, the audience sees Tzara‘s method of making art: he picks up single words written on pieces of paper from a hat and puts them randomly into lines, and thus creates a poem (Stoppard 1975: 17). In doing so, he reverses all principles of logical language, which transmits meaning and aims at comprehensibility. The easiness of misusing language and twisting meanings of words is then portrayed in the character of Lenin, who conscripts it into the service of his communist ideology (Jenkins 117). During the play, the audience watches Lenin writing his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. In the book, he provides statistical facts showing that ‗capitalism is digging its own grave‘ and that the only way possible for the future is the socialist one. These facts are, however, collected with the aim of proving this and hence show only a reductive view of reality. ―Just as Lenin uses words in their limited, specialized, and therefore reduced sense and harnesses them into proving a biased view of reality, the vision of life which he offers with the help of these words is distorted, prejudiced and therefore essentially reductive‖ (Andretta 187). A good example of this is Lenin‘s concept of ‗freedom of literature‘ or, in general,

‗freedom of expression‘, which he understands as being free from capital, careerism, and above all, from bourgeois anarchist individualism (Stoppard 1975: 85). In the character of Tristan Tzara, the author thus shows how art can deprive language of its

37 original functions, such as transmitting meaning and mediating comprehension. Such doing is not, however, regarded as fatal, when contrasted to the way Lenin uses it. Lenin uses words in their curtailed meanings only to achieve his goals, and thus he commits an unforgettable crime against language. What Stoppard is trying to point out here is the fact that the reality Lenin presents with such words must necessarily be biased, reductive, and above all corrupt.

In an argument between Tristan Tzara and Henry Carr, Stoppard questions the meaning of words, which is always dependent on its use. Unlike his argument in The

Real Thing, that words are ‗innocent, neutral and precise‘ here he argues that the use of words is neither innocent, nor neutral. Though the definition of the meaning of a word can be relatively precise, the meaning can still be manipulated. As there is always a certain gap between denotation and connotation, the associations and interpretations can vary significantly (Fleming 109). The word ‗dada‘ with its various meanings in different languages clearly shows that the meaning of a word depends on the user and the situation. As Richard Andretta points out, ―There is no absolute, inevitable, or irrevocable relationship between the shape of a word or an utterance and its meaning‖

(Andretta 188). For that reason, language is very easily misused and meaning of words twisted. As Tristan Tzara with his controversial art shows that the word ‗art‘ means anything he wishes it to mean, he argues that people constantly do the same with words like ‗patriotism, freedom, or honour‘. Wars waged for expansion and self-profit are, as he claims, presented to the people ―in the guise of rational argument set to patriotic hymns‖ (Stoppard 1975: 39). Thus people at the top use words to advance their own interests and enforce the war for their profit. Here again, as well as in the previous example, Stoppard presents both artists and politicians manipulating the meaning of words. Though someone might dislike Tzara‘s controversial statements about what is

38 art and what is not, the play clearly shows that a manipulation of words for political purposes is always more wicked. An artist might raise a wave of protests, but he never affects the lives of other people. Misusing words for political reasons, however, has a much larger impact on the society and affects the lives of many people, no matter what their opinions are. People can choose what art exhibition to visit, but they cannot choose what war they want to fight or not. Therefore misusing the meaning of words by politicians always causes greater evil.

Another question penetrating the whole play is whether the artist and the revolutionary are totally exclusive or do not need to be. In the three main characters, the audience watches three different revolutionaries: James Joyce, whose Ulysses revolutionized the form of the novel and caused a radical revolution in the history of literature; Tristan Tzara, whose Dadaist manifestoes paved the way for coming avant- garde movements such as Surrealism; and finally Lenin, whose revolution had the impact on millions of people and who reshaped Russia into a ‗federation of standing committees of workers‘ deputies‘ (Andretta 182). What distinguishes an artistic revolutionary from a political one is that although he has no immediate effect on society, his work shapes people‘s ethics, because he refuses to submit to the State

(Jenkins 124). When Carr says that artistic revolution is not connected to class revolution (Stoppard 1975: 46), he expresses the view shown by the whole play. A political revolutionary, who is embodied in Lenin, implies exclusive commitment to his ideology and hostility to all other ones. ―It is propagandistic, narrow and therefore of limited validity and duration. It aims at destroying the present in order to create the future‖ (Andretta 208). An artistic revolutionary, on the contrary, does not confine himself to specific ideals or systems, nor does any harm to any other ones. More likely, it aims at promoting the universal perception (Andretta 209). Additionally, an artistic

39 revolution never limits or controls politics, while a political revolution, such as the one

Lenin promoted, clearly aims at overshadowing, or even controlling art (Brassell 158-

9). Through this distinction between artistic and political revolutionaries Stoppard shows that these two are totally different in both deeds and goals and thus an artistic revolutionary can hardly be at the same time a political one and vice versa.

Travesties also gives a clear distinction between artists and politicians in general. Although they have something in common – such as all the three revolutionaries (Joyce, Tzara, and Lenin) work from scraps of paper, where they glean facts during their research, and then all create fundamental works from it (Andretta 187)

– all their activities, attitudes and points of view, on the contrary, are radically different.

Throughout the whole play, the audience watches Lenin working on his book, planning a revolution and preparing for his secret return to Russia (Brassell 154). Tristan Tzara, on the other hand, creates poems from Shakespeare‘s twelfth sonnet cut into pieces and tries to impress Gwendolen. Despite being telegraphed by the British Government and ordered to watch Lenin and find out about his plans, Carr tries to impress Cecily and the only thing he does is drinking wine and having long discussions with Tzara. James

Joyce is hardly ever seen, as he is busy writing his book and putting on a drama play.

When Carr asks Joyce what he was doing in the Great War, Joyce‘s respond is ‗writing

Ulysses‘. When Joyce asks the same question to Carr, he, however, does not respond, as he realizes he was doing nothing (Stoppard 1975: 65). As it turns out, while Lenin works hard, the other ones only play (Brassell 157). Towards the end of the play, Tzara happens to read Lenin‘s manuscript, while Carr reads Joyce‘s. Both judge the works as

‗unreadable‘, or ‗work of a madman‘ (Stoppard 1975: 94). As Thomas Whitaker observed, these judgements clearly show ―an insuperable barrier of intellectual differences‖ (Whitaker 116) between the artists and the politicians.

40 Apart from the discussion over artist-revolutionary or artist-politician relationship, there are many other issues discussed, relating to politics or, political situation in Europe at that time. Most often, the play criticises absurdities of war and makes fun of it. In a discussion between Tzara and Carr, Tzara observes that ―causality is no longer fashionable owing to the war‖, which Carr finds illogical, since ―the war itself had causes‖. Carr, however, has already forgotten what they were. He guesses it was something about brave little Belgium or Serbia though, as he immediately adds, it cannot have been Serbia, since ―the newspapers would never have risked calling the

British public to arms without a proper regard for succinct alliteration‖ (Stoppard 1975:

36). In Tzara‘s view, the public never knows the true reasons for anything political, as

―the causes we know everything about depend on causes we know very little about, which depend on causes we know absolutely nothing about‖ (Stoppard 1975: 37). It is always only a very little group of clever people, who decide these big issues and try to

―impose a design on the world and when it goes calamitously wrong they call it fate‖

(Stoppard 1975: 37). Ordinary people, who then go to fight, fight for reasons they know nothing about, which is one of the absurdities about politics Stoppard presents here.

Later in the play, when the argument with Carr intensifies, Tzara states that war is just ―capitalism with the gloves off‖ and the true reason is always gaining profit:

―wars are fought for oil wells and coaling stations; for control of the Dardanelles or the

Suez canal‖ (Stoppard 1975: 39). When Carr opposes that wars are fought for ―the love of freedom and to make the world safe‖, Tzara comes up with his argument about Franz

Ferdinand wanting to have a ride in carriage with his wife in Sarajevo. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant; the point that Stoppard makes here is, as Tzara said, that

‗causes we know everything about depend on causes...‘ As Richard Andretta observed,

―[Tzara] thinks that real causes can never be ascertained and if a particular effect can be

41 traced to an ultimate or original cause, this cause will be found to be absurd‖ (Andretta

194). To demonstrate that war has made everything meaningless, Tzara created his new form of art, Dadaism, which takes absurdity as its credo. This inability of common people to get to know the true reasons for what goes on in politics – and what then affects their lives as well – is another absurdity of political practices that Travesties points out. Such finding, however, is not limited to the WWI only; on the contrary, it questions the reliability of politicians and their statements in general. The play challenges the audience in the way it asks them whether they believe they are always told the truth by politicians or, if it is rather as Tristan Tzara says. Stoppard thus asks about the true reasons for political decisions and whether it is ever possible for common people to learn about them.

In the same conversation, Carr plays down the seriousness of war injuries. Last season, he says, it was in fashion to suffer from nerves, which allowed him to drink a lot of wine to soothe it. This year, however, trench foot has become fashionable; however, he keeps drinking anyway (Stoppard 1975: 36). Elsewhere in the play, Carr ridicules the situation in Switzerland, since though there is no war being fought there, it is full of spies spying on one another. ―...a gentleman is hard put to find a vacant seat for the spurious spies peeping at police spies spying on spies eyeing counter spies what a bloody country even the cheese has got holes in it!!‖ (Stoppard 1975: 28-9). This is, of course, no serious critique of war. It is rather an attempt to lighten the seriousness of the topic, play with it and make fun of it. As the title of the play indicates, it presents a travesty rather than a serious critique or a political paper. ―The overall purpose of the play,‖ Andretta notes, ―is to offer a travesty of art, history, and politics by parodying a great variety of styles and techniques, and disturbing its dramatic integrity‖ (Andretta

204). Stoppard confirms this in an interview, claiming he aims at writing plays that are

42 ―entirely untouched by any suspicion of usefulness‖ (Hayman 10). However, the audience might ask whether they should take any serious issues really seriously since they are always immediately presented with something that plays it down. In my opinion, this effect is caused by Stoppard‘s witty, playful direction of the play and belongs to his aims.

Another source of fun in the play is the national stereotypes and British ignorance of other countries. When talking about James Joyce, Carr reveals his ignorance of Irish affairs due to the rules of high society: ―...it would be considered a sign of incipient vulgarity with radical undertones‖ (Stoppard 1975: 42). Later on, Carr explains to Cecily that Bulgaria and Rumania are only one place – that they are identical: ―Some people call it the one, some the other.‖ Though the audience might expect Cecily to oppose him, she does the very opposite – she admits she had always suspected it to be so although she was not sure. (Stoppard 1975: 73). On the top of it,

Stoppard criticises the British, too, when through the character of Cecily he claims that

―the British are among the most determined, but the least competent‖ (Stoppard 1975:

72). He supports his argument by revealing Henry Carr‘s incompetence as a consul, since while he was rehearsing for Earnest, Bennett, his butler, would be receiving and passing his [Carr‘s] correspondence to Tristan Tzara, who – being a communist – would then show them to Lenin (Stoppard 1975: 73). Stoppard thus makes fun of and ridicules the British consul, who was ordered to watch Lenin‘s activities and not let him leave

Switzerland, but he did nothing and let Lenin get to his own papers instead. ―This underscores how inefficient the British Consulate is not only in coping with important world events but also in keeping its own correspondence secret‖ (Andretta 201). The author here again teases the audience and makes fun of cultural unawareness by presenting characters with little cultural knowledge.

43 As was already argued, the play cannot be judged as a serious political one, but rather as a travesty of it. Moreover, Stoppard is as always more concerned with morality rather than politics. The author does not give us all the information about Lenin and

Marxism to increase our knowledge on that topic – he aims at showing how immoral and corrupt the whole system was. In Stoppard‘s opinion, it is necessary to judge all political acts in moral terms – to look at their consequences. ―The repression which for better or worse turned out to be Leninism in action after 1917 was very much worse than anything which had gone on in Tsarist Russia‖ (Fleming 115). In showing Lenin‘s love for Appassionata, Chekhov, and Pushkin, although they were, in Lenin‘s terms, all bourgeois and their work and politics unacceptable (Dean 80) – Stoppard demonstrates the paradoxical, absurd, and two-faced nature of Lenin‘s politics.

The last feature to be looked at is the two characters that have something to do with politics – the would-be British consul, and also the narrator Henry Carr; and, above all, Lenin.

Lenin, the most politically active character of all, is treated in a sharp contrast to the other characters. The audience watches him, unlike others, working throughout the whole play. He also disappears for a significant part of the first act only to appear at the end of it, getting ready for their departure from Switzerland (Brassell 154). Besides,

Lenin is treated with a considerable amount of seriousness when compared to other characters – as someone on a mission ―that radically changed the history of the world, a mission in which the nature of his own character has been recognised as decisive‖

(Brassell 155-6). This seriousness of Lenin‘s portrayal does not allow any jokes or lightening of his deeds. The audience is shown Lenin‘s very brutal side – a man, who did nothing during the famine, because he understood it was good for Russia, socialist revolution, and the Communist society (Stoppard 1975: 77). Such an approach is ‗a cold

44 hearted, ends-justifies-the-means‘ one, as Stoppard makes sure ―that the audience does not forget the violently repressive nature of Lenin‘s views in action‖ (Fleming 119).

Throughout the play, the author keeps reminding us of Lenin‘s brutality and underscores the fact that in the real world, ―we don‘t have the luxury of a Henry Carr to filter and make it fun‖ (Fleming 116).

Apart from Lenin‘s brutal side, Travesties shows the absurdity and contradictory nature of both Lenin‘s thinking and ideology. As Dean aptly sums up, ―Lenin preferred

Pushkin to Mayakovski and changed his mind only after being told that Pushkin was bourgeois. He favoured Chekhov‘s Uncle Vanya over Gorki‘s The Lower Depths even though he recognized Gorki‘s politics as acceptable and Chekov‘s as inappropriate‖

(Dean 80). It is thus obvious that Lenin‘s own taste contradicts his call for tight political structures to govern artistic expression (Hu 129). Furthermore, Joan F. Dean argues that this depiction of Lenin‘s contradictory aesthetic statements is here used as an instrument of travesty (Dean 79). Unlike other characters, whose travesties lie within their portrayals, Lenin is portrayed realistically and his travesty then lies rather in his statements about art. Not only does Stoppard show by that the absurdity of Lenin‘s words and deeds, but also the paradoxical nature of the whole Marxist philosophy, which would later on repress and persecute all artists that do not conform to the party line (Dean 80).

Henry Carr, who is presented over the most of the play as the British consul, is a traditionalist, who ―believes in patriotism and the old values‖ (Andretta 194). He also sees himself as the most important person of all, as he regards the others as ―a group of artsy charlatans and political nobodies‖ (Jenkins 121). As a consul, he is, however, absolutely incompetent. It is always his butler Bennett, who gives him latest information on the war events in great detail. Carr himself never reads the papers and

45 has only a vague image of what is going on in the world. When Bennett announces a social revolution in Russia, Carr, as a British politician, should naturally be alarmed.

However, he only makes fun of it, asking: ―A social revolution? Unaccompanied women smoking at the Opera, that sort of thing?‖ (Stoppard 1975: 29). From a person in such a position, this is a great underestimation and incomprehension of the situation. He also demonstrates, as Andretta points out, how ―hopelessly bourgeois [he is] in his prejudices and blindness to the nature of the changes taking place in the world‖

(Andretta 192). Moreover, Carr has had a communist spy in his own office (his butler

Bennett) without knowing about it. As a result, all the important information was always handed to Lenin immediately (Stoppard 1975: 73). At the top of all of that, when

Carr is told to stop Lenin, he does not do anything. His reasons, considering his ‗being‘ a consul, were rather ridiculous, as he explains: ―Here‘s the point. I was uncertain.

What was the right thing? And then there were my feelings for Cecily. And don‘t forget, he wasn’t Lenin then! I mean who was he?‖ (Stoppard 1975: 81). However, at the end of the play the audience gets to know the truth thanks to Cecily. She denies most of the crucial facts, such as that her husband worked as a consul or that she would help Lenin with his research. This looks like a joke from Stoppard‘s side, since the audience realizes they had been watching something that never happened – everything was mixed up and confused due to Carr‘s erratic memory. Since the story of the play was presented as a true record of historical events, it also questions the accuracy of historical facts. As

Richard Andretta observes, ―The writing of history is also subject to temperament, prejudices and limited memory of the historian as well as the inaccessibility of certain details and facts which he is therefore obliged to assume‖ (Andretta 184). In this way,

Travesties offers a travesty of the historians‘ claims to absolute objectivity and reliability. Besides, it also shows how even the most significant historical events look

46 preposterous when seen from the margins (Billington 98). Through the character of

Henry Carr, Stoppard questions reliability of historical facts, work and competence of politicians, causes of wars, and also importance of a single person for history.

As a whole, Travesties offers a plentiful number of travesties – a travesty of war, politics, art, history, and morality, but also politicians and artists as such. The overall tone of the play is rather eased, playful and noncommittal. Travesties plays with historical facts, and questions their accuracy by offering a narrator, whose erratic memory twists and mixes all facts together. The play also questions plausibility and genuineness of the official historical facts that are presented to the public by arguing about shocking causes of the Great War, such as Archduke‘s ride in the carriage through

Sarajevo. By giving false ‗facts‘ about historical events, the play both questions and challenges the knowledge of the audience. The play also argues that people are never told the true reasons – since those are always corrupt – and are presented nice, official ones. Stoppard thus questions the possibility of common people to get to know the true reasons for single political decisions and questions the general trust in politicians and their statements. Besides, it presents, criticises and makes fun of all the absurdities that war created; moreover, Tzara argues that war has made everything meaningless.

Travesties ridicules war injuries and chains of spies in Switzerland during the war, and points out that anything is hardly ever as it seems to be (such as various injuries coming into fashion each season). It also makes fun of the audience by questioning their prejudices and cultural knowledge (Bulgaria and Rumania being one country only) and making fun of the British, when comparing Britain to a fascist country.

Travesties often presents multiple contradictory points of view regarding a single issue to point out the complexity of any historical events or political issues. It also resembles Stoppard‘s liking to questioning anything rather than asking questions

47 and seeking answers. The play warns against language being conscripted to the use of various ideologies, which twist and change meanings of words only to achieve their goals. This easiness – but also danger – of manipulating a language for one‘s purposes is embodied in the character of Lenin. Due to the use of words in their limited meanings, the play points out that Lenin‘s ideology, too, must then necessarily be biased and corrupt. Travesties also clearly shows the difference between artists and politicians misusing words: it proves that misusing words for political purposes has greater impact on the society and imposes rules on other people without their consent, and thus it is much more dangerous than the artistic one. Unlike other characters, Lenin is depicted realistically, with no jokes or travesties about his personality. The author shows the sheer brutality, immorality, corruptness and two-faced nature of Lenin and his ideology, which is described in great detail. Lenin‘s travesty lies within his contradictory statements and tastes, when his personal choices in art contradict the commands of communist ideology. Lenin as a political revolutionary also shows his fundamental difference from an artistic revolutionary, whose art does not impose hostility and control upon other manifestations of art.

48 b. Professional Foul

This play – as the only one among the three discussed plays – was written with the aim of making a political statement. It is, too, generally regarded as a clearly political play (unlike the others). For that reasons, it is vital to look at its background first before moving to the play itself.

i. Background

In February 1977, together with his friend and Amnesty International colleague Peter

Luff, Stoppard went on a journey to Moscow and Leningrad. ―While they occasionally partook of the tour‘s sight-seeing events, they also went off on their own to meet with

Russian dissidents and add signatures to an Amnesty petition‖ (Fleming 128). Their journey was one of all the events connected to the ‗Prisoners of Conscience‘ Year 1977 pronounced by the Amnesty International. Apart from travelling to communist Russia,

Stoppard promised to write a play to mark this year. Originally, his plan was to write a play about Russian dissidents (as a result of his journey). However, ―when Václav

Havel and a group of Czechs were arrested for trying to deliver Charter 77 to the Czech government on January 6, 1977, it was not long before Stoppard was able to make the switch‖ (Fransen). In the end, Stoppard wrote a play about Czechoslovakia, a play called Professional Foul. ―I‘m as Czech as Czech can be. So you can see that with my desire to write something about human rights, the combination of my birth, my trips to

Russia, my interest in Havel and his arrest, the appearance of Charter 77 were the linking threads that gave me the idea for Professional Foul‖ (Page 59).

Professional Foul, a play for television, was first shown on BBC television in

September 1977. It was published in London, by Faber, one year later. The play quickly gained popularity and success. Already in 1977, ―It was nominated the best play of

49 1977 by the British Television Critics and chosen for the best-play-of-the-year award by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts‖ (Andretta 244).

Publication of this play followed soon after another Stoppard‘s play, mainly concerned with political issues – Every Good Boy Deserves a Favour (EGBDF). Unlike his previous plays, these two confront social and political issues directly and very critically. This made most drama and literature critics label this era of Stoppard‘s work as a new one – very serious and politically engaged one. Stoppard, however, immediately distanced himself from these claims: ―I was always morally if not politically involved ... I haven‘t the faintest idea what my main preoccupation will be this time next year‖ (Fleming 121). He refused to be writing with any political objective or plan. Apart from that, he did not see it as a dramatic change in his work:

There was no sudden conversion on the road to Damascus ... It was

really only a coincidence that both of these plays about human rights

should have been written about the same time. For some time I had

been involved with Amnesty International, the worldwide human

rights organization. The BBC had been asking me to write a TV play

for them ... [And when Amnesty made] 1977 Prisoner of Conscience

year, I thought a play on TV might help their cause. ... On a subject

like this a TV play would have more impact than a play for the stage.

(Fleming 128)

Based on Stoppard‘s self-observation and knowledge of the fact that his following plays (such as The Real Thing, Hapgood or Arcadia) abandon this political commitment, it is possible to say that Professional Foul is rather exceptional in

Stoppard‘s career. The play was written for the purpose of helping the Amnesty Int. to promote the ‗Prisoners of Conscience‘ Year and therefore necessarily had to be a

50 political one. This fact, however, was no ‗conversion on the road to Damascus‘, as

Stoppard says, but rather a result of his willingness to help and natural interest in human freedom. Additionally, Professional Foul only fitted in the overall mood prevailing in

Western Europe at that time. As Irving Wardle points out in his Theatre Criticism, there has been a clear tendency in western theatre to include political topics into the plays. As he further stressed, the quality of a play slowly became to be judged depending on the amount of contemporary issues mentioned in the play – and the more political the play, the better it is. No serious political treatise is, however, expected – the play should only flirt with politics and other issues familiar to the audience and thus be more attractive and ‗reader/spectator-friendly‘. Professional Foul perfectly fits this description and thus it proves that its political commitment is not as serious as it might have seemed at the first sight.

It is important to stress that even here, in one of his most political plays,

Stoppard‘s concern in morality and freedom still dominates over his political commitment. Richard Andretta aptly points this out:

He is not interested in political intrigues or political theories per

se, but in the inalienable rights of the individual such as freedom of

speech. He thus creates situations that can be judged in terms of

moral absolutes and not merely in terms of particular political

incidents or situations. He is aware of the price art has to pay when

it is used as a vehicle for political propaganda: that it seldom

survives the specific occasion or the particular evil it was meant to

address. (Andretta 229)

51 Stoppard thus does not fight against political situation in communist countries as such, but rather against an ―immoral infringement upon universal human rights‖ there

(Fleming 135).

In 1977, when Stoppard finished writing Professional Foul, he visited

Czechoslovakia and for the first time in his life, he also met Václav Havel. Many critics see this as a proof of sudden politicization of Stoppard, especially as this was his first return to his home country after leaving it as a child: a return in the times of difficult political situation there, added to his writing political plays and meeting with dissidents.

However, critics like Anthony Jenkins see these events in a different light:

Yet although this literal return to his roots might have looked in

1977 like the culmination of the interior journey he had traveled after

Travesties, the three plays which belong to that period will not support

a theory of ‗The Sudden Politicization of Tom Stoppard‘. The politics

of undeniable human truths and inalienable human rights begins with

Jumpers and continues to define the roles of Joyce and Lenins in

Travesties. What is new about Stoppard form that point on is the

simplicity with which he formulates those ideas dramatically. (Jenkins

142)

Neither Andretta sees Professional Foul as a milestone in Stoppard‘s writing, but rather as a continuation of his interest in human rights and truths. To sum up, despite being written as a political act and openly dealing with political and social issues,

Professional Foul does not mark any dramatic change in Stoppard‘s work. More likely, it is a continuation of his omnipresent concern with human rights and freedoms and a result of that time itself. Additionally, it is necessary to remember that even here questions of morality and freedom prevail over political engagement.

52 ii. Professional Foul

Professional Foul, a play dedicated to Václav Havel, is set in Prague in 1977, during the communist era. Professor Anderson, a Cambridge don of philosophy, comes to the

‗Colloquium Philosophicum Prague 77‘ to deliver a lecture on ‗Ethical Fictions as

Ethical Foundations‘ and to see a qualification match for the world football cup. During his visit, he encounters political persecution of his former student Pavel Hollar and witnesses many other violations of human rights only to find out that practice can sometimes be very distant from theory and that even moral and ethical principles are not always as straightforward as they might seem to be.

Unlike other Stoppard‘s plays, Professional Foul lacks traditional easiness and humour. The reason for this is probably seriousness of the topic discussed. Anthony

Jenkins argues that the reason might also be Stoppard‘s personal experience with what he writes about: ―Having seen repression firsthand, he was unable to dress it up as a comic fable (however carefully managed) or as disguised myth (like Neutral Ground)‖

(Jenkins 136-7). Although it is not difficult to spot various little jokes – such as

Anderson being caught red-handed reading an erotic magazine – the overall nature of the play is rather serious. As well as Lenin in Travesties, serious characters (such as the police or Hollar‘s family) are not made jokes about. Humour is here associated with the professors of philosophy – mainly McKendrick – who is certainly not portrayed with any deep respect or credit, as it is expected with a professor of philosophy; or Anderson, who comes to Czechoslovakia with his naive ideas about respecting ethics and morality and thus creates comical situations when confronted with reality – such as his conversation with Hollar about his job as a cleaner.

One of the main concerns of this play is freedom of expression, its respecting and violating, and language as such. Richard Andretta sees it even as the most important

53 feature of the whole play: ―The major theme is the right of the individual to freedom of expression in a totalitarian society and the supremacy if this right over any claims is put forward by the State aiming at curtailing such a right‖ (Andretta 228). This issue is predominantly embodied in the character of Hollar, who has no right to publish his thesis in Czechoslovakia due to its content and thus is forced to seek help in Anderson.

Apart from that, the audience directly witnesses an act of violation of free expression when Anderson‘s lecture is abruptly ended by a fire alarm (Stoppard 1978: 91). Pavel

Hollar and Professor Anderson thus portray the problems of violating basic human rights in totalitarian systems, such as the freedom of speech and freedom of publication.

Through these situations, the play points at the immoral nature of communist system and shows that the rights of individuals are violated in favour of the rights of the State.

Another aspect of speech, which is discussed in Professional Foul, is the meaning of individual words. The play presents an argument that words such as

‗justice‘ or ‗freedom‘ gain their meaning based on a general consensus, as there is nothing real behind them. This meaning is then enshrined in Declarations of Rights of all civilised, democratic societies, which then act on the basis of that (Billington 151-2).

For that reason, it is an unforgettable crime against its own laws and principles when a state regime twists and misuses such words. For both Anderson and Hollar, however, words and their meanings are given and no political regime or anyone can change them.

This argument is, however, later challenged in another play by Stoppard, The Real

Thing.

Elsewhere in the play, Anderson has a conversation with McKendrick and here it is possible to spot Stoppard slightly contradicting himself and playing tricks with the audience. In that conversation, Anderson is talking about erotic magazines, whereas

McKendrick‘s topic of conversation is politics. Although talking at cross purposes, they

54 seem to be able to understand each other and create sense from the conversation – until they discover their misunderstanding (Stoppard 1978: 48). The same situation repeats later, when McKendrick thinks they are talking about politics, whereas Anderson is describing football: ―He‘s what used to be called left wing. Broadbend‘s in the centre.

He‘s an opportunist more than anything‖ (Stoppard 1978: 50). In these comical situations it is shown that although the meaning of words is given, it does not always secure comprehension in communication.

As was already mentioned in the previous section, the author is concerned with morality and ethics more than with politics itself. Through the character of Anderson, the audience watches the question of what ethical and unethical behaviour is put into praxis. Although he comes to Prague for the purpose of giving a lecture at the

‗Colloquium Philosophicum Prague 77‘ (and at the expenses of the Czech government), he admits that his true motive for coming is a football match in Prague (Stoppard 1978:

46). Moreover, he admits – although indirectly – that this is not the first time he is doing that: ―I‘ve seen him twice. In the UFA cup a few seasons ago ... I happened to be in

Berlin for the Hegel Colloquium, er, bunfight. And then last season I was in Bratislava to receive an honorary degree‖ (Stoppard 1978: 59). As it turns out, Anderson accepts invitations to various countries only to be able to go and see football, which is very unethical indeed. However, when he is asked by Hollar to smuggle his thesis out of

Czechoslovakia, he refuses him for ethical reasons, as he presents it: ―Oh, Hollar ... now, you know, really, I‘m the guest of the government here. [...] I‘m sorry ... I mean it would be bad manners, wouldn‘t it?‖ (Stoppard 1978: 54). Anderson uses the argument of unethical behaviour as his excuse for not helping Hollar; on the other hand, going to a football match instead of being at the Colloquium does not seem to be such a problem

55 for him. Moreover, as Joan F. Dean points out, Professional Foul gradually makes a strict distinction between ‗bad manners‘ and ‗unethical behaviour‘:

Professional Foul indicates a clear distinction between bad manners

(speaking with one‘s mouth full of food) and bad morals (ignoring

political oppression). The irony here is compounded by the fact that as

linguists and philosophers these men can confuse manners and morals;

their discipline should lead them to precision rather than slovenliness in

using language. (Dean 92)

Although it is smuggling that Anderson sees as the unethical option, Richard

Andretta claims the very opposite: ―The truly ethical behaviour, in this case, would consist in helping individuals retrieve their rights and doing one‘s utmost to combat or boycott such a regime‖ (Andretta 251). When individuals‘ rights are violated by the state system, it can never be unethical to try to help the individual against the oppressing state. The play here presents the character of a professor of ethics who is confronted with unethical practices of the communist regime and in reality, everything plays against the principles of his ethics and he is forced – by the circumstances – to re- evaluate his moral and ethical principles. This pattern of the play – when a character is confronted with a setting that plays against him and his principles and beliefs – is very typical of Stoppard‘s plays. The same pattern is used in both of the other plays, too:

The Real Thing argues against Annie, Charlotte and Max that public postures are shaped by private motivations and wins; and Travesties shows, among others, that reasons for wars and other political decisions are never noble, as Henry Carr believes, but always absurd and aimed at profit of the politicians involved.

The whole question of the ethics of the State being against the ethics of the individual is at the core of Professional Foul. As Hollar tries to describe the situation in

56 the communist Czechoslovakia to Anderson, he explains that ―individual correctness is defined by what is correct for the State‖ (Stoppard 1978: 54). Although Anderson disagrees with Hollar at the beginning, he soon changes his mind – especially after witnessing the police search in Hollar‘s flat – and presents Hollar‘s ideas at the philosophic conference in his lecture.

Echoing Matthew Arnold‘s point that the State is simply the

individual raised to the highest power, he suggests that when the State

ethic finds itself in conflict with the individual ethic then the results

are illogical, embarrassing and an exposure of the totalitarian fallacy.

(Billington 121)

This statement, however, as it might seem at first sight, does not destabilise the whole concept of ethics and morality; it only argues that ‗correct behaviour‘ always depends on a certain situation, as Richard Andretta aptly remarks:

This, however, does not mean that morality is a relativist matter: it

only means that its manifestations vary and that therefore the kind of

moral action required varies according to the situation, but the

ultimate moral value aimed at remains the same. Such absolute values

as ‗goodness‘, ‗virtue‘, ‗honesty‘, ‗justice‘, and others, are monolithic

and unchangeable but cannot be attained or realized by adhering to

one type of behaviour or action. (Andretta 257-8)

In this polemics over the rights of the individual in contrast to the rights of the State it is not difficult to see one of the examples of Stoppard‘s open critique of communist regime. Personally, Stoppard is always on the side of an individual, since his concerns lie within respecting human rights and freedoms. Here again, the author points at the importance of respecting them. At the same time, however, the play shows that even

57 moral and ethical principles cannot be generally valid, but always need to be judged on the basis of single situations. This finding indicates that it is not always possible to take principles for granted, but it is necessary to re-evaluate them when judging individual situations. Although this might bring certain uncertainty and chaos into the world, the aim of the play is different: it tries to educate the audience and show that they can not always simply rely on the general principles, but need to consider individual circumstances as well.

Although there is a considerable space given in the play to the affairs concerning Pavel Hollar, there can be no doubt about Professor Anderson being the main character of the play: ―The dramatic focus of the play, however, is Anderson who in the course of the play undergoes a spiritual change by coming into close contact with human suffering and getting a first-hand experience of totalitarian injustice‖ (Andretta

244). On his flight to Prague, Anderson is described as giving a ―fastidious expression‖

(Stoppard 1978: 43) and is portrayed as a classical English gentleman. During his visit to Prague, however, he undergoes a lot of conflict situations with the totalitarian state and thus changes both his principles and personality.

Professional Foul poses the case of an English intellectual,

protected by his own social expectations and code of good manners,

who, while at a conference in Prague, comes to see what frail

protection they offer and feels compelled to act against injustice. The

play is about being wrenched from a self-contained world into

another, less comfortable one. (Jenkins 137)

Despite his claim that ―There are some rather dubious things happening in

Czechoslovakia‖ (Stoppard 1978: 46), he backs out when he is asked by Hollar for help, because he is too afraid to put his words into action. ―The initial impression of

58 Anderson is as a likable but ineffectual man who does not wish to get involved; he can speak about moral and ethical issues, but he does not wish to engage them in practice and action‖ (Fleming 130). He changes his mind only after he experiences the cruel practices of the police:

[Hollars‘] are being thoroughly searched, and obviously have been

in this process for hours. [...] [The police is] going through the books,

leafing through each one and looking along the spine [...] sorting out

the fluff from a carpet sweeper [...] looking under floorboards [...]

examining the inside of a ventilation grating. (Stoppard 1978: 67-8)

After a conversation with one of the policemen, Anderson realizes how dangerous the police are. Hollar has been arrested for a trumped-up crime and when the police did not find anything suspicious in his flat, they invented the evidence, too (Stoppard 1978:

69-73). ―The Czech authorities have, in this way, committed a professional foul.

Anderson can thus perceive the difference between football and real life‖ (Andretta

255). ‗The straw that broke Anderson‘s back‘ was then his meeting with Hollar‘s little son Sacha and his mum – both being victims of the political regime. After a short conversation with them, Anderson decides to change his mind about what is ethical behaviour and what is not. Stoppard comments this as follows: ―I wanted to write about somebody coming from England to a totalitarian society, brushing up against it, and getting a little soiled and a little wiser‖ (Page 58-9). This statement expresses the same as what was argued earlier – that the play creates situations that challenge views and principles of the characters, which are then forced to change them due to the conditions.

Anderson is thus forced to admit that his ethical principles are not as universal as he always believed them to be. On the contrary, Anderson is forced by the circumstances

59 to act unethically, which is something that no one would expect from a Professor of ethics.

When Anderson undergoes his internal change of personality, he decides to commit a professional foul of his own. In the play, the audience has already watched a professional foul made by the Czech football team (which guaranteed them a victory), and one more later on by the police, as was mentioned above. Instead of giving the lecture he said he would do, Anderson decides to change his topic and talk about the same as Hollar in his thesis – ―the conflict between the rights of individuals and the rights of the community‖ (Stoppard 1978: 87). He attacks the Czechoslovak political system – although indirectly – and calls for respecting human rights as stated in the

Constitution of Czechoslovakia. He adds his own experience from the search in the flat and criticises invasions into privacy, too (Stoppard 1978: 88). By giving a different paper, however, Anderson commits a professional foul and thus acts unethically (at least theoretically) and against his former principles. ―This calculated gamble,

Anderson‘s ‗professional foul‘, raises its own moral ambiguities and suggests the difficulty of narrowly reducing ethics to being simply either morally relativistic or morally absolute‖ (Fleming 16). The fact that Anderson hit the nail on the head in his speech was shown immediately, when the chairman of the Colloquium played a foul of his own – by sounding a fire alarm and thus interrupting Anderson‘s speech (Stoppard

1978: 91). At the very end of the play, Anderson commits one more professional foul by smuggling Hollar‘s thesis in McKendrick‘s suitcase. By doing that, he puts McKendrick into great danger and his behaviour is again unethical. His argument, however, is that

McKendrick was very unlikely to be searched (Stoppard 1978: 93). When McKendrick furiously replies that that was not the point, Anderson responds half knowledgeably, half ironically: ―Ethics is a very complicated business. That‘s why they have these

60 conferences‖ (Stoppard 1978: 93). Anderson‘s decisions cannot, however, be judged as unethical ones – for it was already argued earlier, that even ethical and unethical behaviour always needs to be judged depending on a certain situation.

As was already suggested in the previous chapters, Professional Foul differs from other Stoppard‘s plays in its direct criticism of a political situation. The play both shows and criticises – in great detail – the practices of the communist police as they search Hollar‘s flat. Besides, it points out the corruptness and immorality of the whole system as such: the audience sees Hollar, a university graduate, working as a toilette cleaner who, after visiting professor Anderson, is arrested in a trumped-up crime and his flat is thoroughly searched; moreover, all rooms in the hotel are bugged and when

Anderson leaves his room it is searched, too; and when Anderson gives a different paper from the one he was supposed to, they abruptly stop him by sounding a fire alarm

(Stoppard 1978: 52-89). These and several other aspects openly criticise the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. What is interesting here – and repeats the situation from

Travesties with Lenins – is the fact that the characters that are criticised (such as the police or the chairman of the colloquium) or the characters that are victims of the communist regime (namely Sacha Hollar and his mother) are never treated with a slightest trace of humour. No jokes, no puns or double entendres are used when talking about them (Stoppard 1978). The reasons are the same as with Lenins – the situation is too serious to be made fun of. This open criticism of communist regime is a result of several factors. Firstly, it is a result of Stoppard‘s concern with human rights and freedoms, which are violated in such regimes. For that reason, the author brings up situations when human rights are violated and thus draws attention to the fact. Secondly, the topic fits Stoppard‘s general involvement with public issues, as John Bull pointed out. Finally, these political concerns discussed in Professional Foul are a result of the

61 time of publication and the tendencies in western theatre at that time. As Irving Wardle pointed out, at that time theatre was dominated by plays dealing with political issues. If a playwright wanted to write a successful play, he needed to include some contemporary issues in it. This fact, however, became more and more true in time. The requirement that a play should include contemporary issues and thus be more attractive and accessible for the audience is still valid even today. Professional Foul thus only fulfilled the requirements of the time (and the audience).

Finally, it is important to say a word or two about the other two philosophers in the play – Bill McKendrick and Andrew Chetwyn. It is right on the plane to Prague when the audience first encounters McKendrick. The initial impression is a talkative, friendly man, who is rather keen on what he does – philosophy. Besides, he seems to be fairly interested in politics – he‘s aware of Chetwyn‘s political activities and admits his interest in Czechoslovak politics: ―... if it‘s political in any way I‘d really be very interested [...] One is naturally interested in what is happening in these places‖

(Stoppard 1978: 47). He also claims to be a communist whose philosophical work is political: ―My work is pretty political. I mean by implication, of course [...] Marxists are a terrible lot of prudes. I can say that because I‘m a bit that way myself. [...] I sail pretty close to the wind, Marx-wise‖ (Stoppard 1978: 46; 48). On the other hand, he seems to have ulterior motives for coming to Prague, too: ―I expect there will be a few others going for the free trip and the social life. [...] I wonder if there‘ll be any decent women?‖ (Stoppard 1978: 46; 49). Moreover, he reveals his working for a girly magazine despite his former claim about being a communist and writing political stuff:

―The Science Fiction short story. Not a bad life. Science Fiction and sex‖ (Stoppard

1978: 49). McKendrick is thus portrayed as a man whose actions are far from his words when, instead of politics, his main concerns lie within ‗decent women‘ and drinking. As

62 Richard Andretta observes, ―McKendrick is thus seen as a man whose actions belie his professed beliefs and is exposed as a hypocrite and an opportunist‖ (Andretta 260).

There is not much the audience knows about Andrew Chetwyn. From what

McKendrick said about him, it is known that he has written several letters to The Times about persecuted professors in Czechoslovakia. During the play, he is rather overshadowed by other characters and we only get to know about him when he is held at the airport for smuggling letters for the Amnesty Int. and the U.N. (Stoppard 1978:

93). The audience thus comes to know that this invisible man has done – although unsuccessfully – for the Czech dissidents more than McKendrick, who was obviously only boasting, while his true interests lied elsewhere: ―[McKendrick] identifies himself as a Marxist but through most of the play pays little attention to the social or political situation in Czechoslovakia. Instead, he directs his energies toward reviewing jazz recordings for girly magazines, location easy women in Prague, getting drunk, and insulting everyone within earshot‖ (Dean 90).

In the three professors of philosophy, Professional Foul shows three different attitudes towards the oppressing communist regime. McKendrick embodies a person, who talks a lot about political commitment and the need to act against the injustice under the totalitarian regime, but who does nothing in reality. Andrew Chetwyn, on the contrary, talks very little, but acts in secret and tries to help the persecuted victims of the regime. Anderson represents a very naive, idealistic person, who comes to realize the true face of the regime only after being confronted personally. The play thus offers a picture of a man who changes his personality and attitude after experiencing the brutalities of the communist regime. During his visit to Prague, Anderson realizes that even the question of a certain behaviour being judged as ethical or not always depends

63 on a certain situation – there is nothing like universally ethical behaviour, since it shows up that sometimes even smuggling might be the ethical option.

Compared to Travesties, this play investigates in detail the immoralities and injustices caused by a totalitarian regime, which were only suggested in Travesties through the character of Lenin. Here the author openly shows machinations of the police, bugged rooms in the hotel, spies following ‗suspicious‘ people, violations of freedom of speech and many other negative aspects. However, it is necessary to note that even in this play, Stoppard is still more concerned with moral impacts of politics rather than politics as such. His concern actually lies within the basic human freedoms and moral aspects of politics. The play presents a professor of ethics who, under the influence of his experience with the immoral practices of the communist regime, is forced to act unethically despite his ethical and moral principles.

Due to the central topic of the play, the overall mood of Professional Foul is more serious than of the other plays analyzed here. As has already been observed about the character of Lenin in Travesties, the negative characters here are treated humourlessly, too. Jokes and puns are associated with the professors of philosophy only.

When the rights of an individual are in the opposition to the policies of the State, the play shows that it is the individual who should come out as the winner. Since the

State is formed by individuals, whose rights are inalienable, the state should always treat the rights of individuals as sovereign and thus alternate the rights of the State so that they no longer interfere. In totalitarian regimes, however, the right is on the side of the State and the rights of individuals are broadly violated. A clear example of this is given by the character of Hollar, who is not allowed to publish his thesis publicly, since it deals with the rights of individuals.

64 c. The Real Thing

The last play to be discussed, The Real Thing, was published in 1982. The play was first performed the same year, in November 1982, at the Strand Theatre in London, directed by Peter Wood and presented by the commercial manager Michael Codron

(Stoppard 1982: 8). Since then, it has received many awards, such as Tony Award for

Best Play (1984) or Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play (also 1984).

The play is divided into two acts and uses the construction of a play within a play or, as Mel Gussow described it, a play outside the one audience watches. ―The image is that of an endless series of Chinese boxes or an exercise in recursion‖ (Gussow viii). As most of Stoppard‘s plays, The Real Thing is also set in the present time – in

London during the 1980s – and deals with current issues.

The play is centred upon two main characters, Henry and Annie. Henry is a successful playwright, who leaves his wife for love to an actress from his plays, Annie.

His lover Annie, apart from being a successful actress, actively takes part in fighting for freeing Brodie, a soldier who was imprisoned for protesting against American missiles and burning a memorial wreath. Apart from these two, we see Charlotte, Henry‘s wife and actress, and Max, the husband of Annie and also an actor playing with Charlotte in one of Henry‘s plays. In The Real Thing, we see the collapse of the two marriages due to Henry and Annie‘s relationship and also following events going on between these four people. Moreover, we follow Brodie‘s case through Annie‘s effort to get him out of prison, but also through Henry‘s ironic and sceptical comments. In the character of

Brodie, we encounter the political issues dealt with in the play.

One of the main political issues discussed in the play is the question of political commitment. Is Henry right when he says that public postures have the configuration of private derangement? (Stoppard 1982: 34). Or can it be disinterested and honest as

65 Annie and Max claim? The discussion of commitment circles round the character of

Brodie, as ―Brodie himself is the catalyst for the play‘s examination of political commitment‖ (Fleming 173).

The character of Henry – seen by many critics as the mouthpiece for Stoppard‘s opinions in the play – presents a rather shocking and provocative view on people‘s reasons for political commitment. In his opinion, all public postures always have private, personal motivations. For that reason, as Charlotte describes, ―When Henry comes across a phrase like ‗the caring society‘ he scrunches up the Guardian and draws his knees up into his chest‖ (Stoppard 1982: 33). According to Henry, motivations are totally unimportant, as they are always insincere, and thus nothing like ‗the caring society‘ truly exists. Henry argues as follows: ―I don‘t see that my motivation matters a damn. Least of all to Brodie. He just wants to get out of jail. What does he care if we‘re motivated by the wrong reasons‖ (Stoppard 1982: 33). By that he suggests that many people are motivated by ―the desire to be taken for properly motivated members of the caring society‖ (Stoppard 1982: 33). For these statements, he is largely criticised by all the other characters and literary critics, too. The play, however, shows that Henry might as well be right.

Apart from Henry, everyone else – that is Annie, Charlotte, and Max – seem to care a lot about Brodie‘s future and are very keen on helping him. For that reason, they try to persuade Henry to change his mind and join them at a meeting of the Brodie

Committee. As it turns out, however, none of them goes to the meeting in the end. How does that happen? Max, the keen promoter of the Brodie Committee, does not want to let down his squash partner; Charlotte likes to keep her Sundays free for entertaining friends (although, when they later come, she looks annoyed); and the keenest of them,

Annie, exchanges it for an opportunity to have secret sex with Henry (Stoppard 1982:

66 33-6). When Henry hears all that, he makes fun of them: ―Squash partner? An interesting moral dilemma. I wonder what Saint Augustine would have done?‖

(Stoppard 1982: 34). Each of them – in spite of all their previous arguments and persuading – when the going gets tough, backs out and shows the ‗why me?‘ attitude and thus try to pass the buck to someone else. On the top of that, we have already seen

Max earlier in the play admit that his real motivation for fighting against the missiles is the fact that he has a cottage in that area: ―Pure moral conscience, you see – I mean,

[Brodie] didn‘t have our motivation. [...] Owing property in Little Barmouth‖ (Stoppard

1982: 32). It is thus revealed that Max was only worried about his cottage and this made him fight for American missiles being located somewhere else. This is just another clear example of the ‗why me?‘ attitude, as Henry observes: ―Well, yes. Little Barmouth isn‘t going to declare war on Russia, so why should Little Barmouth be wiped out in a war not of Little Barmouth‘s making?‖ (Stoppard 1982: 32). This discovery only proves

Henry‘s claim that public postures are a result of private motivations. Moreover, the audience may come to the conclusion that all characters except Henry are hypocrites as they say one thing but act differently. This pattern of the play – that the play works against the honest characters, while the statements of the provocative characters are vindicated by the play – is similar to other Stoppard‘s plays, as was already argued in

Professional Foul.

There are many people, however, who do not simply admit that Henry would be right and everyone else be hypocritical. Such people then disagree with Stoppard and defend the idea that some people have honest and pure motivations:

I would argue, some people are scrupulously motivated in

their political protests. Were Stoppard and the artists and

political prisoners who inspired his 1970s political plays

67 motivated by private derangement in their opposition to human

rights abuses and suppression of free expression in Eastern

Europe? (Fleming 174)

The very same opinion is given by another critic, Michael Billington:

I happen to think Stoppard is wrong: that there is such a thing as

scrupulously-motivated political protest. I do not believe that those

who campaign against Cruise missiles, Apartheid or (in Stoppard‘s

case) the suppression of human rights in Eastern Europe are

motivated by ‗private derangement‘. (Billington 148)

These two arguments stand for the very many shocked and irritated viewers and readers who strongly disagree with Henry. They believe that not everyone dissembles like Annie or Max and that there would always be someone to support Brodie. Such people, in my opinion, have simply swallowed the hook. This strategy, so typical of

Stoppard, to present controversial or unpopular opinions as if they were the most common ones is exactly what Stoppard is using here. He presents negatives of today‘s society through the hypocritical talks of Max, Annie and Charlotte. Moreover, he masters the play so as to make it seem that all Henry‘s unpleasant statements are right in the end. In doing so, he teases his audience as usual and leaves it up to them to decide whether what they always believed to be true is actually true.

Beside the question of political commitment, Stoppard is also concerned with the meaning of words such as politics or justice. As Billington correctly points out,

Stoppard asks a question whether concepts like politics, justice, and patriotism have any existence outside our perception of them (Billington 146). In Henry‘s opinion, ―There‘s nothing real there separate from our perception of them‖ (Stoppard 1982: 54). As

Jenkins remarked about Henry, ―The stylist, in his seeming detachment, knows that

68 words like ‗politics, justice, patriotism‘ are abstract entities which ought not to be twisted from angle to angle as one can move a concrete thing like a coffee mug‖

(Jenkins 164). For that reason, Henry does not approve of Brodie, as he twists the meaning of words:

I can‘t help somebody who thinks, or thinks he thinks, that

editing a newspaper is censorship, or that throwing bricks is a

demonstration while building tower blocks is social violence, or

that unpalatable statement is provocation while disrupting the

speaker is the exercise of free speech ... (Stoppard 1982: 55)

Through Henry, Stoppard stresses that abstract notions gain their meaning only through our perception of them. As there is no real, concrete object behind these notions, it can be very dangerous (and easy at the same time) to twist their meaning in favour of their user. Such misuse of words is shown in Brodie, who twists meanings so as to achieve his goals. Henry criticises him for that and explains the true essence of words: ―Words don‘t deserve that kind of malarkey. They are innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos‖ (Stoppard 1982: 55). This, however, was not what Brodie was trying to do.

The same which can be said about words is valid for the arrangement of a society, too. When Brodie rebels against the so-called ‗class system‘ by travelling first- class train without a first-class ticket and hence shows his disapproval of it, Annie opposes him:

There‘s no system. People group together when they‘ve

something in common. Sometimes it‘s religion and sometimes

it‘s, I don‘t know, breeding budgies or being at Eton. [...] It‘s a

69 cultural thing; it‘s not classes or system. There‘s nothing really

there – it‘s just the way you see it. Your perception. (Stoppard

1982: 58)

Here Annie evidently shares Henry‘s view that it is our perception alone that creates meaning. Nothing like a ‗class-system‘ exists in reality – but if we want to see it in a society, we will always be able to do so, as its existence is not bound to any real objects and is wholly abstract. As Michael Billington remarks, The Real Thing, however, overlooks a point made in Professional Foul – that ―there is a consensus about the meaning of certain words like ‗justice‘ and ‗freedom‘ on which civilised, democratic societies act and which they enshrine in Declarations of Rights‖ (Billington 151-2); if the meaning relied on our perception only, Stoppard would probably not have acted against human rights violations in the Eastern Bloc. Billington thus concludes: ―But this is a play not a pamphlet and the key point is that Stoppard is once again asking us to consider what ‗the real thing‘ is in matters of art, life and politics‖ (Billington 151-

2). I would only add that this can also be seen as another example of Stoppard‘s teasing the audience – as well as when, at a different place in the play, Brodie compares Great

Britain to a fascist country and speculates of the freedom of people there: ―So you think it‘s a free country. This is it; we‘re all free to do as we‘re told. [...] People used to say about Mussolini, he may be a Fascist, but at least the trains run on time. Makes you wonder why British Rail isn‘t totally on time, eh?‖ (Stoppard 1982: 49). This is a rather provocative statement, since it was Britain (besides other countries) that fought against fascists in the WWII, not with them. Moreover, Britain has always held for a democratic country, while fascism is a form of totalitarianism – one of the most evil ones.

70 Towards the end of the play, Henry is finally willing to re-write Brodie‘s play and thus make it a higher quality one, possibly to catch people‘s attention and interest in Brodie‘s case again. However, not everything goes as planned and although Brodie is released from jail, it is not for Henry‘s doing, but for the government‘s cuts in state budget:

Henry has re-written Brodie‘s play for the box but the result is not

―the real thing‖ artistically and has not even been the cause of

Brodie‘s release from gaol: he‘s out because the missiles he was

marching against require money that would have been used on the

prison system. That‘s a bit glib since government spending does not

work in that way; but it nudges home the point that art is rarely

socially useful and also that you cannot, in art, fake an indignation you

don‘t feel. (Billington 155)

What follows from that? Neither in life, nor in politics can pretending do any good.

If you do or say something you do not believe, it is never ‗the real thing‘ and in the end it never works as desired anyway. Despite his disapproval of Brodie‘s play, Henry is willing to re-write it in the end, since Annie urges him to do so. Though Brodie is released from jail, it is not thanks to Henry‘s doing, but rather due to government‘s cuts in the state budget.

Through Henry, Stoppard claims that public postures always have private motivations and that in the end, everyone cares just for their own good. Max and

Annie, two very keen opponents of the American missiles, protest against them only for the sake of their cottage, which stands in the missiles‘ way. Brodie, the imprisoned opponent of the missiles, admits his motivations were purely his affections for Annie.

71 As it turns out, none of the characters had sincere reasons for their actions and everyone chased their own good only.

When the going gets tough, no one supports the Brodie Committee, as everyone prefers their own interests to public engagement. Max backs out as he does not want to let down his squash partner, Charlotte wants to keep her afternoon free, and Annie decides to have sex with Henry instead. The ‗why me‘ attitude always prevails and no one cares in the end. Through these statements, Stoppard presents the negative aspects of today‘s society, which is generally indifferent to the people in need. Moreover, he teases and provokes his audience and makes them ask themselves where they stand:

Are they like Max or Charlotte, or are they different? Unfortunately in the real world, as The Real Thing shows, everyone is more like Max and Charlotte in the end.

Meaning of abstract words such as politics, freedom, or justice, as Henry argues, is dependent on our perception of them only. As they do not stand for any real objects, their meaning is constructed on the abstract level only, and it entirely arises from a general consensus. For this reason, it is very easy – and dangerous though – to twist their meanings so as to achieve what the users wish to. By these arguments,

Stoppard indirectly points at and criticises various political regimes that twist the meanings of words so as to reach their goals. There is no use trying to find out whether Stoppard is stating his own opinions in The Real Thing or not. More likely, it is his typical way of generously presenting various unconventional points of view. The author, however, never shows any inclinations towards any of the views presented; he always leaves it up to the audience to judge. Besides, Stoppard challenges their own experience and attitudes by questioning their own public postures and motivations.

72 4. A Stoppardian Play

After having outlined the background of Stoppard‘s plays and analyzed three of them (those that were chosen as the most important ones regarding Stoppard‘s dealing with politics in his plays) I would like to sum up Stoppard‘s plays and define the so- called ‗Stoppardian play‘. Since it was already shown that Stoppard‘s plays cannot be judged as political ones, the aim of this chapter is to try to generalize their features in a different way.

Tom Stoppard‘s plays have always been highly praised mainly for their complexity, mastery of language, and clever style of humour. When Toby Zinman tried to summarize Stoppard‘s plays he gave up, saying: ―Stoppard‘s plays seem to be as unlike each other as like, taking up now Hamlet, now philosophy, now chaos mathematics, now Eastern European politics, now India, now journalism, now visual art, now poetry, now nineteenth-century Russia‖ (Zinman). The range of topics he covers in the plays is really immense. And the same can be said about vocabulary used in the plays. Zinman speaks highly of Stoppard‘s complex sentence structures which shape both brilliant dialogues and characters in the plays. Thomas Whitaker then sees the origin of Stoppard‘s mastery of language in his not being native English when he says: ―Stoppard shares with Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov a brilliantly detached mastery of English‖ (Whitaker 3-4). His excellent knowledge of English enables Stoppard to play with it and create irony, ambiguity, various puns, jokes and contradictions. Although Stoppard has sometimes been criticized for his commitment to farce and parody, he has never changed his mind about it but rather did the very opposite when he claimed: ―I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself‖ (Bigsby 1976: 24). There are, however, other voices, too, which do not reproach Stoppard‘s wit but find it a crucial part of his writing – such as

73 Thomas Whitaker, who stresses as the most important features ―Stoppard‘s wit, his talent for pastiche and parody, and his ability to shape intellectual debate into a dazzling three-ring circus‖ (Whitaker 2).

The word ‗Stoppardian‘ embraces the style and characteristic features of

Stoppard‘s plays. Over time, it has become, as Maya Jaggi observed, a trademark. The reasons she mentions are again mainly his wit and complexity of subjects covered:

―"Stoppardian" has become a trademark, not least for rapid-fire wit and bathetic juxtaposition, whether moral philosophy with gymnastics, as in Jumpers (1972), or the collision of Lenin, Joyce and Tristan Tzara with Wildean pastiche in Travesties

(1974)‖ (Jaggi). Another suggestion to what ‗Stoppardian‘ means was given by Nigel

Farndale: ―Stoppardian seems to mean dealing with philosophical concepts in a witty, ironic and linguistically complex way, usually with multiple timelines and visual humour‖ (Farndale). Despite a few slight differences, it is agreed that Stoppard‘s style is characteristic for its wit, and complexity of both language and topics used in the plays. All of this is always mixed and served in an intellectual way.

So where is politics hidden in all of this? None of the previously mentioned has listed politics as a crucial feature of Stoppard‘s plays. It does not mean, however, that its role in the plays is unimportant; on the contrary, this fact could suggest that politics is only one of the many topics covered. Joan Fitzpatrick Dean sees politics as a frequent topic of Stoppard‘s plays; he, however, also points out that ―Wilde‘s art for art‘s sake aesthetic often counterbalances Stoppard‘s social or political commentary, especially in his more recent works‖ (Dean 8). Where Neil Sammells believes criticism to be the integral aspect of a Stoppardian play, Aydin Görmez adds the main criticized subjects, too: ―Sheer rationality, immorality, cruelty, political oppression, selfishness, cuckoldry, positivism and indifference are the main criticized subjects in his plays‖

74 (Görmez). Based on the analyses of the plays, and also on what was argued in the previous chapters, we can conclude that politics is one of the very many subjects discussed in the plays – not the main one, but not the least important one either. What

Stoppard always does is that he combines political issues with other funny ones and never lets the political ones dominate. In Travesties, the author combines James

Joyce‘s law suit with Carr over his theatre production with the First World War and

Lenin‘s preparations for a revolution; in Professional Foul the author combines violations of human rights in the communist regime with a football match; and finally, in The Real Thing, the audience watches a fight against American missiles and imprisonment of Brodie, mixed up with a love triangle, hypocrisy and generation gap troubles. The reason is Stoppard‘s aim which he writes his plays with: to educate and entertain at the same time.

To cover all important characteristics of Stoppardian plays it is vital to look at the characters acting in the plays, too. Usually, stress is put on minds of characters rather than their visual appearance or relationships. As Mel Gussow notes: ―Not since

Shaw has there been a British playwright as concerned with man‘s mind and morality, although, in contrast to Shaw, Stoppard is not a social reformer‖ (Gussow x).

Stoppard‘s main concern lies within the opinions, thoughts, and knowledge of characters. What is most striking about them is the way these characters are presented:

―To his detractors,‖ Jane Montgomery notes, ―his plays are devoid of feeling and sensibility: improbably shallow people saying improbably deep things in an emotionally sterile context‖ (Montgomery). This element of surprise, when the audience does not expect certain characters to dispose of such capacities and hence is caught by surprise, is just another wheeze of Stoppard, who always wants to catch us off guard. These characters are aptly called by Toby Zinman as ‗word-intoxicated‘.

75 As was already mentioned earlier, Stoppard is a master of dialogues. In his plays, different characters stand for different ideologies or points of view. It is never, however, possible to say whether the author‘s sympathies lie with any of them. All characters are presented with equal credibility and persuasiveness. In Travesties, we see a conflict of Tristan Tzara‘s Dadaism, Lenin‘s communism, James Joyce‘s innovative literary approach, and finally Henry Carr‘s comments to all of these. These four men are all equally able to support their opinions despite being contradictory – and none of them comes out as a winner. When John Bull notes that ―No single viewpoint can be taken as the author‘s‖ (Bull 147), he hits the nail on the head. This feature is actually the most typical one that can be said about Stoppard‘s characters in general.

Joan Fitzpatrick Dean gives the same opinion in his book on Tom Stoppard when he explains: ―His characters may serve as mouthpieces for specific ideologies, but none speaks with Stoppard‘s own voice. His real talent in characterization lies in restraining himself from idealizing those characters with whom he sympathises and from undermining those with whom he does not‖ (Dean 10). And Gussow adds to this:

―Given enough tightrope, he can argue on both sides of an issue‖ (Gussow x). This ability to detach himself from his characters and construct them neutrally is surely one of Stoppard‘s greatest. It requires considerable skills to master the dialogues and together with the element of surprise it proves Stoppard‘s mastery of language.

Besides, it also shows his detachment from the opinions presented by his characters.

So what do all the ‗Stoppardian characters‘ have in common? One of the most obvious common features is that they are always intellectuals: playwrights (The Real

Thing), Professors of ethics (Professional Foul), politicians, world-wide famous artists or writers (Travesties) and many others. These characters are always mouthpieces for various ideologies. They express complicated ideas and stand for different opinions and

76 views. These ideas fully shape their characters and are often the only thing the readers

(or the audience) know about them. These characters are not very true to life – they do not resemble real people. More likely, they work as embodiments of the individual ideas, which they then promote in the plays.

These ideas are then at the very core of the play. As Christopher Innes points out, Stoppard‘s plays are not true plays, but rather a means of transmitting ideas to the audience. Stoppard uses plays, where he always presents multiple perspectives and views, as a means of challenging the audience: he wants them to re-evaluate their assumptions and question facts they always took for granted. As Innes further argues, these ideas or issues in the plays are of metaphysical nature rather than social or political (Innes 325). Stoppard‘s plays are thus no ordinary theatre plays, but rather

‗plays of ideas‘.

The ideas embodied in the characters are always presented indirectly. As

Christopher Innes stresses, Stoppard‘s credo is that art can only work obliquely (Innes

335). The messages for the audience transmitted through the plays are often presented indirectly. In Stoppard‘s opinion, drama that introduces ideas openly is ineffective.

This is shown in The Real Thing on the example of Brodie. This young soldier, only semi-literate, writes a drama play about his own story. In the story, he describes himself as an anti-nuclear protester. The arguments he uses, as was shown in the analysis of the play, are of left-wing orientation. His play is then a piece of left-wing drama, which criticises the political system. The play, however, lacks credibility because of its one-sided nature. Stoppard thus shows that ―open commitment makes drama socially ineffective‖ (Innes 342). In doing so, the author obliquely criticises the trend to use direct political criticism in theatre, which was so popular in the 1970s. At the same time, this critique of Brodie‘s left-wing play shows Stoppard‘s disdain of

77 political theatre and thus eliminates Stoppard from this ‗category‘ of direct political writers.

Characters and playing with ideas are both closely related to the whole structure of the play or, the basic frame. Stoppard‘s plays are frequently related in their inner structures. The main characters, such as Professor Anderson in Professional Foul, personify certain positive, traditional ideas (ethical behaviour is of utmost importance).

His arguments are, however, confronted with and limited by the setting of the play (a

Professor of ethics coming to an unethical environment). The author always masters the play so that he shows that although the character in the play embodies the traditional point of view, he does not necessarily need to be right. On the contrary, the author forces the characters admit their assumptions were wrong and thus they change their opinions (a Professor of ethics behaving unethically). No matter how controversial or unusual the presented ideas are, they always win over the common ones embodied by the main characters. In doing so, the challenge and question the opinions of the audience, which is usually on the side of the main characters. Although the characters stand for individual perspectives, they are always defeated and shown that the issues discussed are too complex to be described by a single view only. The result of it, however, shows that hardly anything follows from the play. The plays, as was already shown, never give any opinions or show any views – they only play with ideas and do not show any possible ways out.

The facts that the ideas are presented obliquely, and that the plays always introduce multiple ideas and opinions, build up the overall complexity of the plays.

This complexity is one of the features common to all Stoppard‘s plays, as was argued at the beginning of the chapter. Beneath this complex surface there is, however, always a single basic issue. This issue is the message transmitted by the play. Since it is hidden

78 under the surface structure, the audience always needs to look for it. As Christopher

Innes observes about Stoppard‘s plays in general, ―the marginal becomes the major focus [and] the frame turns out to be central‖ (Innes 346). To give an example from

Professional Foul once again, the idea that even unethical behaviour can be judged – in certain circumstances – as ethical, is hidden under the surface issues such as football, philosophical colloquium, or a police search of a flat. Therefore it is clear that there is always a simple idea hidden under the complex surface structure of each Stoppard‘s play.

Last but not least to be mentioned, there is one more element common to most of his plays – something that could be called ‗pretence‘ or maybe ‗delusion‘. It is not uncommon to meet characters pretending to be someone else; in Travesties, for example, Henry Carr pretends to be Tristan Tzara and Tzara, on the other hand, pretends to be his own imaginary younger brother Jack – both men shamming their identities in quest for search of love.

In addition, his characters can also be confused unintentionally from their side when they are ―constantly being addressed by the wrong name, with jokes and false trails to do with the confusion of having two names‖ (Jaggi). This has, as Stoppard admits, something to do with him being not native English: ―I fairly often find I'm with people who forget I don't quite belong in the world we're in,‖ he says. ―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‖ (Jaggi). By addressing characters by wrong names, Stoppard portrays something from himself into them. In general, Stoppard, however, refuses to be using his life in the autobiographical sense in his writing. He admits to be inspired more by reading and abstract ideas rather than concrete persons or stories. Most scholars see this as one of the strong points of his,

79 such as J. F. Dean, when he observes: ―The important distinction between [metafiction writers] and Stoppard, however, is that Stoppard deliberately and selflessly distances himself from his work. He never indulges in the narcissism of the autobiographical impulse in his characterizations‖ (Dean 105). Apart from addressing characters by wrong names, Stoppard avoids narcissist portrayals of himself and rather distances himself from his work.

This process of pretending and confusing is not, however, limited to characters only. We can often see the whole structure of the play itself double or even triple. In other cases, we are presented with a false front first (such as The Real Thing) and only later do we realize we were deluded. ―In the plays,‖ Mel Gussow points out, ―things are never quite what they seem to be. There are plays within plays, and in The Real Thing, a play outside the one we are watching, the image is that of an endless series of

Chinese boxes or an exercise in recursion‖ (Gussow viii). The same opinion is shared by Toby Zinman, who notes that ―a Stoppard play begins with a false front, a scene the audience takes to be ‗real‘ but later discovers to have been a ‗trompe-l‘audience‘ ploy‖

(Zinman). Zinman also adds a second rule governing most Stoppardian plays, and that is multiplying structure:

Second, the structure always doubles (or trebles or quadruples)

itself within the play; this is quite separate from, but certainly

connected to, his predilection for doubling, mirroring, or twinning

characters which is, in turn, quite separate from but certainly

connected to his predilection for all the devices of linguistic

twinning: puns, foreign languages (translated and not), invented

language (translated and not), double entendres, and

malapropisms. (Zinman)

80 It seems that the audience can never be sure about what they see – Is it reality we are watching now? Is this character really who he claims to be? And is he actually telling us the truth? With all the complexity, doubling, mirroring, pretending, deluding and surprising, linguistic malapropisms and double entendres, Stoppard never lets his audience stop pondering about what is happening and requires their full attention to apprehend the meaning of his plays. The aim of his plays is simple – to entertain and educate at the same time.

81 Conclusion

This thesis has dealt with political aspects of the plays written by the British playwright Tom Stoppard. One of the aims of this thesis was to find out how important a part politics plays in Stoppard‘s plays and whether he can really be called a political author, since many literary critics regard him so. It was shown that in Stoppard‘s plays, moralistic and humanistic concerns always dominate over political issues. When introducing the problems of communist countries, it is not for the purpose of either criticising or praising the systems. Stoppard‘s focus lies within the basic freedoms of an individual and the question of respecting or violating them. When the author includes a five-pages-long speech on the theory of Marxism, Leninism and value in Travesties, the reason is not to give the audience more information on the communist regularities. On the contrary, Stoppard tries to show the corruptness and immorality of the regime which suppresses the rights of people.

Another goal of the thesis was to find out for what purposes Stoppard uses politics in his plays. The analyses showed that the author is neither trying to enforce any political views on his audience, nor to promote any single opinion. Stoppard rather uses current political issues to make his plays more attractive for the audience and thus he deals with topics they are familiar with. Additionally, the plays present multiple contradictory views to show the complexity of problems and also to challenge the opinions of the audience: in Travesties, the author presents shocking reasons for the

Great War or, in Professional Foul, the audience is shown that ethical behaviour does not have any general validity, but always depends on a certain situation. As such,

Stoppard uses politics as a source of fun – he introduces various contradictory points of view on a single issue, challenges the facts generally taken for granted, questions the reliability of information and teases the audience by presenting shocking and

82 uncommon opinions on politics and other notions. His plays are never serious, but rather easy, uncommitted, and witty.

This work also discussed the concept of a gradual politicization of Stoppard. It was argued that the plays most concerned with political topics were written during

Stoppard‘s personal engagement with the Amnesty International affairs during the late

1970‘s. At that time, Stoppard wrote several plays concerning human rights in the communist countries. Since then, the author shifted his focus on Great Britain and its current issues. His plays, however, are no longer addressing political issues as directly as they did around the time of the publication of Professional Foul. The thesis showed that the concept of the sudden politicization of Stoppard is thus too generalizing and simplifying and therefore inaccurate.

The author himself also claims that he is always concerned morally, not politically, in the issues discussed. His interests are much higher than just politics – they lie within the basic human freedoms and moral principles of human behaviour. Stoppard does not write with any programme; he writes because he loves writing, and he does not try to promote any opinions or political views. His plays never offer any answers to the issues discussed, since Stoppard enjoys the process of questioning, and leaves making any conclusions to the audience. From the comparison of political theatre and

Stoppard‘s plays it is clear that his are by no means political plays, but rather clever and witty ones only playing with politics. His plays are too complex to be called ‗political‘ – such label would be too limiting. Therefore it would be rather inaccurate to call

Stoppard a political writer.

The concept of the politicization of Tom Stoppard does not fit his work and is thus too limiting and simplifying. Stoppard uses politics for its moral and humanistic basis, and also as a means of making his plays more attractive, accessible and

83 entertaining to the audience. For these reasons, it would be rather inexact to call him a political writer.

84 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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88 Czech Resume

Tato práce se zabývá politickými aspekty divadelních her Toma Stopparda, současného Britského dramatika. Tom Stoppard bývá často označován za dramatika, jehož hry se v čase staly více a více politickými. Tato práce se snaží ukázat, že takové tvrzení je příliš zjednodušující a nepřesné a do značné míry tak omezuje Stoppardovu komplexní tvorbu. Přestože se Stoppard v mnoha hrách nevyhýbá politickým či sociálním tématům, nelze jeho hry nazvat politickými. Jak tato práce ukazuje, Tom

Stoppard užívá politických témat, aby zkoumal jejich morální a etickou podstatu. Jeho hry neberou politiku vážně, ale jako nástroj hry, zábavy a poučení. Historická a politická fakta jsou pak ve hrách zpochybňována, aby donutila diváky přemýšlet nad skutečnostmi, které jinak berou za samozřejmost.

Teoretické předpoklady a tvrzení, které jsou přeloženy v první části práce, jsou následně zkoumány v analýze Stoppardových her Travestie, Profesionální faul a To pravé. Na základě těchto analýz je následně vymezena tzv. „Stoppardovská hra― a zobecněny typické prvky Stoppardových her.

89 English Resume

This thesis focuses on the political aspects of the plays of Tom Stoppard, a contemporary British playwright. Many literary critics point out Stoppard‘s increasing political engagement as one of the crucial features of his plays. This work argues that such statement is rather simplifying and inaccurate, and thus limiting when describing

Stoppard‘s work. Although Tom Stoppard deals with political and social issues in many of his plays, they can by no means be called political ones. As this work shows, these political topics are used with the aim at exploring their moral and ethical bases.

Stoppard‘s plays use politics as a means of play, entertainment, and education, rather than a serious topic. The plays frequently challenge the knowledge of the audience by presenting false historical facts and introducing unknown, controversial points of view.

The theoretical assumptions and facts presented in the first part of the thesis are then explored in an analysis of three Stoppard‘s plays – Travesties, Professional Foul and

The Real Thing. Finally, the work also defines the so-called ‗Stoppardian play‘ and looks for general features of Stoppard‘s plays based on the findings from the previous analyses.

90