Word: stoppard
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JUMPERS by TOM STOPPARD...
Seven years ago, in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, British Playwright Tom Stoppard turned Hamlet inside out and seemed to prove that even for bit players, great tragedy has no silver lining. When critics inquired about the play's message, Stoppard averred that this is no age for message in the theater. "One writes about human beings under stress," he said, "whether it is about losing one's trousers or being nailed to a cross." To risk a play whose primary level was philosophical, he added, "would be fatal." In Jumpers, that is just the gamble...
...REAL INSPECTOR HOUND by Tom Stoppard. A spoof of mystery thrillers and drama critics that is cleverer than Sleuth...
...musical comedy star, is concerned about the sudden obsolescence of moon lyrics and sees "great breakage" ahead. Her own has apparently already occurred. She is receiving questionable mental therapy (and even more questionable physical therapy) from the vice chancellor of George's university. It is to Dottie that Stoppard entrusts what may be his fundamental conviction: that a world without absolutes will shortly breed moral anarchy; witness the behavior of the astronaut. It is the Dostoevskian proposition that in a world that has no God, anything is permissible...
...Stoppard pushes this and related theses with antic wordplay, inspired zaniness and crackerjack wit. The evening would sag in spots if it were not for Hordern. What might have been simply a caricature of an absent-minded professor emerges as a warmly affectionate portrait of the last living humanist. And Rigg is lovely to look at, especially in the nude, and to listen to as she delivers her lines with a resolute intelligence that seems to unbend the pretzel twists of thought...