The Playwright and the Professors: An Interview with Tom Stoppard

Abstract

On 15 October 1993, Tom Stoppard gave the Plenary Address at the South Central Modern Language Association Conference in Austin,Texas. In many ways, it felt like a reunion. On the one hand was a playwright whose works many in the audience had read and taught, and on the other hand, were the professors about whom the playwright had often written. In spite of this coincidence, the professors and the playwright appeared to know very little about how the other worked. This was, in fact, the subject of Mr. Stoppard's talk about the difference between drama as written and drama as performed. Many of the playwright's most lasting memories of the theatre had nothing to do with the spoken words and everything to do with performance. One anecdote involved Stoppard's first viewing of Shakespeare's The Tempest many years ago, an outdoor performance set in a garden before a small lake. Inches beneath the lake's surface, a narrow walkway had been constructed, upon which Ariel made an exit-walking on water. Later that evening, Stoppard picked up a text of the play, located the scene, and found only the directions, Exit Ariel, instructions that in no way foretold the theatrical event he had witnessed.

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