Tom stoppard, p.108
Tom Stoppard, page 108
Later productions: Billington 2007, 224. Brassell, 115. Billington 1987, 87, 92. Gussow 18.
Olivier and Peter Hall wanted: HR 36.1, Laurence Olivier to TS, 2 April 1973.
“agony”: HR 36.1, TN to TS, 26 February 1973. TN, interview HL, 2 October 2017.
ambition also played: Hunter 2005, 200; Gussow, 24.
13. The Home Team
“One tried”: TS, funeral speech for John Wells, 30 April 1998, TS archive.
his new play: HR 124.5, Ronald Bryden to TS, 26 September 1972. Janet Watts, interview, Guardian, 21 March 1973, Delaney 1994, 46–50; Gussow, 22.
good-natured baby: TSL, nd [June 1972].
dedicated: TS to FP, 8 August 1974; T publication details, Biblio, 66.
Miriam was now: HR 34.1, “Welcome to the World,” Evening News, 29 September 1974. Colin Barnes, interview with MS, 1975.
“have a go”: MS, interview HL, 8 April 2014. Family life descriptions drawn from interviews with TS, MS, JM, ES, WS, BS and OS, and TSL. TSL, nd [September 1970, November 1971], 12 March 1976. Profile of MS by Adrienne Oates, nd. MS to TS’s parents, 12 March 1976.
“bashing tennis balls”: TS, JE I, 15 July 1979.
noted grimly: TS, JE I, 8 April 1977.
“Know thyself”: TS, JE I, 9 May 1977.
Stoppard writes: TS, JE I, 12 November 1976.
When he is away: TS, JE I, 7 May 1977, 29 September 1976.
“I miss you”: TS, JE I, 11 October 1979.
took pleasure in noting: TS, JE I, 20 January 1976, 13 June 1976, 17 December 1976, 20 July 1977, 7 November 1977, 20 January 1979, 15 March 1979.
“not entirely a preparation”: TS, JE II, 23 September 1982.
described the fishing: TSL, nd [September 1977].
got exasperated: TS, interview, in Hayman 1977, 141.
her first book: MS, Miriam Stoppard’s Book of Babycare, Weidenfeld, 1977, dedicated to “Oliver, Barnaby, William and Edmund.” Re. Weidenfeld, TS, interview HL, 1 November 2019.
cashflow: TS to PS, 6 March 1974, 10 December 1975, 22 January 1976, 13 February 1976, 2 September 1977, 16 September 1973, 25 July 1978, 2 August 1978, 11 February 1979, PS archive. TS, JE I, 2 February 1978.
The House of Bernarda Alba: TS, interview HL, 2 December 2016. HR 36.1, FP to TS, 23 March 1973. Michael Leech, “The Translators,” Plays & Players, April 1973. Biblio, K 43, N 8. TSL, 5 February 1976.
Born Yesterday: TS, interview HL, 2 December 2016. TSL, nd [summer 1973].
“precious bore”: TSL, nd [spring 1973].
Naked Without a Gun: Hunter 2005, 127. HR 96.1–4, 96.5–8, 16.2, drafts and correspondence. Screenplay, TS archive. Hare called the TS screenplay “putrid” in a letter to his agent Peggy Ramsay, but later withdrew this. DH, The Blue Touch Paper, Faber, 2015, 221–2; Richard Brooks, Sunday Times, 8 August 2010, on Peggy Ramsay’s letters.
suggestion from a TV company: HR, 13.10, “Hendrick’s America.”
Another plot: HR, 85.4, Notes for “The Grapefruit Millionaire.” TS, interview HL, 14 October 2017.
quirky or personal: HR 124.6, Neil Hornick to TS, 5 August 1974. Hornick, ed., Forwards! A Phantom Captain Book, Unexpected Developments, Aloes Books, 1977. Biblio, F5. TS, Introduction, Glynn Boyd Harte catalogue, Thumb Gallery, 1976. Biblio, F4.
The Romantic Englishwoman: HR 23.10, 107.11, drafts and correspondence. HR 23, 10, French review of The Romantic Englishwoman, Le Point, 9 June 1975: “les dialogues, brillants, sinon de Pinter, sont de Tom Stoppard.”
Three Men in a Boat: HR 119.3, 7, 9, drafts and correspondence. Delaney 1994, 161. Stephen Frears, conversation with HL, 1 July 2017.
“If my arithmetic”: TS to PS, nd [spring 1974], PS archive.
Jacky Chamberlain: JM, interview HL, 6 June 2014; JM, email to HL, 16 September 2016. Writing methods: TS, interview, Huffington Post, 26 January 2015.
thank-you notes: Undated notes and cards from TS to JM, JM archive.
“Not bad”: Peter Nichols, interview HL, 29 June 2015.
jovial letter: TS to Jon [Bradshaw], 29 November 1976.
John Wells: TS, funeral speech for John Wells, 30 April 1998. Teresa Wells, interview HL, 30 September 2014. TSL, nd [February 1975]. AF, interview HL, 23 September 2014.
described him, privately: TS, JE I, 27 June 1976.
“my gymnasium”: TS, JE I, 25 January 1977.
Paul Johnson: AF, interview HL, 23 September 2014. PJ to TS, nd [mid-1980s]. MJ to TS, 30 April 1991. PJ to TS, 24 November 1990, 10 February 1990. MJ to TS, nd. MJ and PJ, joint interview HL, 9 September 2014. TS, JE I, 14 July 1977. “But for the Middle Classes,” Times Literary Supplement, 3 June 1977, 677. Mark Lawson, interview HL, 26 September 2014. Max Hastings, interview HL, 4 September 2014. New York Times, 13 November 1983.
“Pinter and Pasta?”: HR 35.5, American Express Company request to TS, 22 February 1978.
Betrayal: TS, JE I, 17 November 1978.
changed the rules: TS, interviews HL, July 2014, 10 August 2014, 18 March 2015. TS, PEN Pinter Prize speech, 7 October 2013. “Harold Pinter, Poet of No-Man’s-Land,” Sunday Times, 7 October 1990.
“The angel”: TS, PEN Pinter Prize speech, 7 October 2013.
cricket: Tim Rice, interview HL, 23 July 2015. AF, interview HL, 23 September 2014. Michael Billington, The Life and Work of Harold Pinter, Faber, 1996, 385. John Lahr, ed., The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan, Bloomsbury, 2001, 340. Tynan 1977, Show People, 51–3.
typical match: AF, Must You Go? My Life with Harold Pinter, Anchor Books, 2010, 98.
“Bohemian class”: AF, Must You Go?, 7.
“What a nice man!”: AF, interview HL, 23 September 2014.
clerihew: TS, JE I, 14 July 1977.
“Dinner with Tom”: AF, Must You Go?, 58.
place-card: AF, Must You Go?, 148.
Stoppard’s version: MS, interview HL, 8 April 2014. TS, JE I, 13 April 1976.
relished the story: TS, interviews HL, 10 August 2014, 1 November 2019. There are numerous versions of the “Harold Comedy” joke, e.g.: “Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?” in William Langley, Profile of TS, Daily Telegraph, 11 June 2006.
the 92nd Street Y, 2014: http://92yondemand.org/75-at-75-tom-stoppard-on-harold-pinter-1964-and-1989.
“I always sign”: AF, Must You Go?, 167.
“more right-wing”: AF, interview HL, 23 September 2014.
Belarus: TS, “Accidental Tyranny,” Guardian, 1 October 2005. PEN Pinter Prize speech, 7 October 2013. HP to TS, 2 October 2005, JM archive.
Pinter’s mantra: Michael Billington, Harold Pinter, Faber, 1996, 79.
Alan Ayckbourn: http://research.alanayckbourn.net/styled-20/styled-29/index.html.
“called the director Sir”: Trish Montemuro, interview HL, 24 September 2014.
retrospective exchange: DH, interview HL, 26 February 2016. DH, The Blue Touch Paper, Faber, 2015, 222–3.
powerful riposte: HP to PW, 30 March 1958, in HP, Various Voices, Faber, 1998. Michael Billington, Pinter, Faber, 1996, 83.
“wasted”: MS, interview HL, 8 April 2014.
“I’ve known him”: Ronald Harwood, remark to HL, 7 November 2014.
14. Travesties
“If there is”: T, 1975, 62; 1993, 41. T is much changed between 1975 and 1993 editions; editions cited are identified in notes. Changes made for the 2016 production are in T, 2017.
idea for a play: Delaney 1994, 24 (1970).
“revolutionary” and “artist”: AS, interview HL, 31 May 2014. Wordsmith, 59. Delaney 1994, 32, 81.
final speech: T, 1975, 99.
“commemorate”: Hunter 2005, 113 (1968).
comic swirl: T, 1975, 24–6.
“Leninism and Fascism”: Delaney 1994, 64 (1974).
no time for Tzara: Delaney 1994, 105.
antics of Tzara: Gussow 1995, 35. Claude Arnaud, Jean Cocteau, trans. Bridget Patterson, Gallimard, 2003.
“superb biography”: T, 1975, 11.
“Joyce…was always”: T, 1975, 50. Richard Ellmann, James Joyce, Oxford University Press, 1959, 1966, 430, 435–9, 460.
absurd little story: Ellmann, “The Zealots of Zurich,” Times Literary Supplement, 12 July 1974, typescript in Ellmann Papers, Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.
“some trousers”: T, 1975, 12.
friendly exchanges: TS to Richard Ellmann, 6 March 1974, 19 May 1974, Ellmann Papers. T, 1975, 12–13. Biblio, 66, 340, 12 September 1993.
“Great days!”: T, 1975, 41.
Carr’s presence: T, 1975, 12. TS and PM interview, Menier Chocolate Factory, T programme, 2016. T, 1993, 11. T, undated typescript, ii.
Carr concocts: T, 1975, 22.
“a memory play”: HR 94.14, 15 February 1994.
Carr and Joyce: T, 1975, 47.
Henry Carr’s second wife: T, 1975, “Henry Wilfred Carr, 1894–1962,” 13. Ellmann, James Joyce, New and Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, 1983, 459, n. 26, 784.
“J. F. Shade”: Hayman 1977, 117. TS, speech at Althorp Literary Festival, June 2015; “I Invented a Professor and Made Up a Quote, Stoppard Admits,” The Times, 13 June 2015. John Hinderaker, Books, 13 June 2015, spotted the reference to Pale Fire.
sleight of hand: Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Oxford University Press, 1995, 254. T, 1975, 32.
“What are your politics?”: Wilde, Earnest, 266. T, 1975, 94.
“Memory, my dear”: Wilde, Earnest, 273.
Stoppard said of Wilde: Delaney 1994, 99.
“The pleasure”: TS and PM interview, Menier Chocolate Factory, T programme, 2016.
“The passing show”: Gussow 1995, 107.
“I was writing”: TS and PM interview, Menier Chocolate Factory, T programme, 2016; TS, Front Row interview, BBC Radio 4, 3 October 2016.
Tzara cuts up: T, 1975, 54.
“An artist”: T, 1975, 62.
“out of it”: T, 1975, 38.
“lucky man”: TS, interview Janet Watts, Guardian, 21 March 1973; Delaney 1995, 50.
“When I was at school”: T, 1975, 46.
“Why don’t you”: TN, interview Hunter, 2004, in Hunter 2005, 200. TN, interview HL, 2 October 2017.
“big parts”: HR 124.5, Ronald Bryden to TS, 26 September 1972. TS interview, Evening Standard, 24 May 1974. TN, interview HL, 2 October 2017.
all about height: Gussow 1995, 29; Delaney 1994, 32, 86.
“interlocking curves”: John Wood, interview Hunter, 2004, 235.
one of the greatest: Billington 1987, 105; “Great Performances,” Guardian, 1 June 2015. TS on JW as Carr, JE I, 21 February 1976.
joked to his mother: TSL, nd [spring 1976].
enthused: Delaney 1994, 104. Time magazine, Biblio, 71; Delaney 1994, 80. New York Times, 19 October 1975, Biblio, K 65, 326. Marowitz, Confessions of a Counterfeit Critic, Methuen, 1973, 123–4.
heartless, overloaded: Robert Cushman, Observer, 16 June 1974, John Barber, Daily Telegraph, 11 June 1974.
“Audiences do think”: Carey Perloff, interview HL, 5 October 2015. Nadel, 250, on falling ticket sales in New York.
biggest difficulties: HR 124.6, HP to TS, 10 July 1974. Hayman 1977, 125. Fleming 2001, 276. TSL, nd [summer/autumn 1975].
one occasion: “Real Books, Real Authors,” Author, Summer 1984. “The Event and the Text,” 1988, Delaney 1994, 207.
in the script: T, undated typescript, 71.
“timidity”: TS and PM interview, Menier Chocolate Factory, T programme, 2016. TS, interview HL, 10 September 2014.
rewritings: see Philip Gaskell, From Writer to Reader, Clarendon Press, 1978, 245–62, examining changes between script, performance text and first Faber publication of T; PW, interview Hunter, 2005, 184; Fleming 2001, 103–7. T, 2017 edition, incorporates changes in the 2016 Marber production.
changes continued: T, 1993, 58, 60. “Leftover from Travesties,” Adam International Review, Nos. 431–3, 1980, 11–12.
Tynan comments: Tynan 1977, Show People, 112. Quoted in Delaney 1994, 151.
value of art: Janet Watts, “Tom Stoppard,” Guardian, 21 March 1973, in Delaney 1994, 46–50; Delaney 1994, 67, 69 (1974). Nadel, 259, 263, n. 3.
“One can see”: Delaney 1994, 65; TS, Front Row interview, BBC Radio 4, 3 October 2016.
“I think I enlist”: Gussow 1995, 30.
15. Terra Firma
“Right and wrong”: StC, 84.
acute appraisal: Hayman 1977, 144. Clive James, “Count Zeno Splits the Infinitive,” Encounter, 45, November 1975. Clive James, “To Tom Stoppard: A Letter from London,” Fan Mail: Seven Verse Letters, Faber, 1977. TSL, nd [summer 1975].
“important truths”: PF, 63. All quotes from PF from EGBDF&PF.
“too serious”: TS, JE I, 1 December 1975, 13.
Have You Any Washing: A possible influence on DL; Brassell, 284, and Billington 1987, 107.
“too Stoppardian”: The Boundary, BBC TV, 19 July 1975, with Clive Exton, Samuel French, 1991. See Brassell, 172–7.
speeded-up Hamlet: “Fifteen-minute Hamlet,” 1976, produced for BBC Radio 4, 30 June, 1 July 2007.
“Before being carried”: TS, interview Jon Bradshaw, January 1977, Delaney 1994, 98.
“crime passionelle”: TS, JE I, 15 October 1975.
“Toujours la politesse”: DL and NFL, 1976, in Plays 1, 73–137.
“close to sexism”: Ed Berman, interview HL, 8 July 2015.
“inconsequential adequacy”: TS, JE I, 10 January, 31 January, 17 February 1976.
Brian Rix: Biblio, H 197, “Twelve Years Without Trousers,” Scene, 21 September 1962.
“Whitehall farces”: Grateful thanks to Mark Lawson for his encyclopaedic knowledge of British sex farces.
“Samuel Beckett would never”: TS, interview HL, 28 June 2014.
“And her drawers”: The Boundary, BBC TV, 19 July 1975, with Clive Exton, Samuel French, 1991, 16.
“All my ideas”: TS, JE I, 17 December 1975.
“rather more topical”: Interview, BBC Tonight, 16 June 1976, in Brassell, 284.
no love lost: Ed Berman, interview HL, 8 July 2015; FP, interview HL, 2 May 2014.
As Berman had warned: Ed Berman, interview HL, 8 July 2015. Hunter 2005, 64.
“Miss Common Sense”: Hayman 1977, 144.
had to cajole: Ed Berman, interview HL, 8 July 2015. John Leonard, “TS Tries On a ‘Knicker Farce,’ ” New York Times, 9 January 1977; “Stoppard in a Minor Mode,” Boston Phoenix, 6 November 1979.
“proclaiming Socialist principles”: TS, JE I, 21 May 1976.
“grisly first night”: TS, JE I, 13 October 1976, 11 January 1977.
“Tom, as he does”: Ed Berman, interview HL, 8 July 2015.
endless travelling: TSL, MS to M[B]S and KS, 12 March 1976. TS, JE I, 7 November 1979.
organisation: TS, JE I, 9 September 1977, 7 November 1979, 30 September 1976. TSL, nd [autumn 1978].
missed his family: TS, JE II, 11 May 1977, 5 July 1982.
“a credit balance”: TS, JE I, 19 January 1977, 2 June 1978, 19 July 1978, 5 January 1979.
“Don’t think”: TS, JE I, 29 December 1978.
He liked the society: KT, The Diary of Kenneth Tynan, ed. John Lahr, Bloomsbury, 2001, 21 October 1976, Ch. 7; lightly revised in Tynan 1977, and Show People, 103. TS, JE I, 19 July 1977, 13 November 1976, 18 August 1976, 1 November 1976, 6 November 1976, 24 July 1977, 16 September 1977, 31 July 1977, 6 March 1978. TSL, nd [September 1977]. TS to Simon Gray, nd [2006], with thanks to Victoria Gray.
In his letters: TSL, nd [1984; May 1994].
encounters with the famous: TSL, nd [July 1974]. TSL, 14 February 1974, nd [spring 1976], nd [October 1976].
Buckingham Palace: TS, JE I, 19 November 1977, 9 March 1978, 30 December 1977. TSL, nd [spring 1976], 22 November 1977. TS, interview HL, 14 October 2017.
Success was good: TS, JE I, 29 December 1975, 13 November 1976, 2 December 1978.
Worry: TS, JE I, 25 December 1975, 11 August 1977, 9 September 1977, 29 December 1978, 2 December 1978.
“My typical bad dream”: TS, JE I, 2 February 1978.
“Today I received”: TS, JE I, 25 August 1976.
“the only thing that matters”: TS, JE I, 11 January 1978.
invented epitaph: TS, JE I, 12 November 1977.
moral accounting: TS, JE I, 14 February 1978.
Hemingway is an example: TS, JE I, 1 December 1977.
useful quotations: TS, JE I, 17 December 1975 (W. H. Auden, A Certain World, A Commonplace Book, Faber, 1970), 16 October 1976.
prayer interests him: TS, JE I, 25 December 1975, 2 November 1975, 23 October 1979, 3 July 1978.
feelings about his mother: TS, JE I, 21 May 1976, 11 July 1976.
long journal entry: TS, JE I, 11 July 1976, 28 January 1977, 6, 9 February 1979.
“British democracy”: TS, JE I, 21 January 1977.
to write “politically”: TS, JE I, 2 November 1975, 9 February 1977.
“the acts are ordinary murder”: TS, JE I, 1 April 1979, 5 September 1979.
capital punishment: TS, JE I, 12 September 1976.
breached the boycott: HR 34.1. TS to Hibernia, 20 January 1978. DL was playing at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin when the Hibernia journal published an attack on him headed “Boycott Breached,” accusing him of profiting “from racism.” TS replied: “This could be ‘actionable’…I donate the author’s royalties from South African productions to Amnesty International and other causes.”
American foreign policy: HR 37.3, TS, 3 March 1977. TS, interview HL, 18 March 2015.
instincts were conservative: HR 37.3, TS for “Dramatists’ Sub-Committee for the Society of Authors,” 26 May 1977, opposing the Writers’ Guild’s and Theatre Writers Union’s “closed shop clause.” TS, JE I, 12 December 1978, 9 September 1977, 3, 4 December 1978, 3 May 1979. Cf. PEN speech, 2013, for later views.
