Writing Politics in Tom Stoppard's Plays
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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