Tom stoppard, p.116
Tom Stoppard, page 116
His best sellers: Rose Cobbe to HL, 4 July 2019.
“This is why”: PM to TS, 7 December 2002, 17 July 1999, JM archive. All quotes re. PM’s T: TS, conversation with PM, Faber, 11 March 2019. PM and TS, interview Rupert Christiansen, Daily Telegraph, 4 October 2016. TS and PM interview, Menier Chocolate Factory, T programme, 2016. TS, interview HL, 29 June 2016. TS, Preface, T, 2017. TS, interview Samira Ahmed, Front Row, BBC Radio 4, 3 October 2016. PM, WhatsOnStage, 1 March 2017.
new solutions: T, 47, T, 2017, 37. TS to HL, T rehearsal, September 2016.
Audiences and critics alike adored it: Reviews of T, 4–5 October 2016, by Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph, Michael Billington, Guardian, Ann Treneman, The Times, Paul Taylor, Independent, Kate Kellaway, Observer.
“A playtext is not”: TS, Preface, T, 2017.
resisted attempts to be drawn: TS, interview Michael Brandman for Blu-Ray reissue of R&G, 29 September 2015.
In 2017: HL notes, R&G in rehearsal, National Theatre, January–February 2017; TS, interview HL, 14 October 2017; David Leveaux, interview HL, 4 February 2017. R&G programme, National Theatre, 2017. David Leveaux, WhatsOnStage, March 2017. TS, interview Andrew Dickson, Guardian, 11 February 2017. R&G, revised edition, Faber, 2017.
rewrites: R&G, 1967, 48; 2017, 58; R&G, rehearsal text, 2017, 45.
“Ah mine own Lord”: R&G, rehearsal text, 2017, 78.
“I’m sitting in a room”: TS, interview Andrew Dickson, Guardian, 11 February 2017.
“the question isn’t”: PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award, Natural History Museum, New York, 12 May 2015.
“The idea that the writer”: TS, Weidenfeld Humanitas Lecture, Oxford University, 18 May 2016.
“Professing”: TS, Cameron Mackintosh Lecture, St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, introduced by Roger Ainsworth, 11 October 2017. Previous holders of the Chair included Ian McKellen, RE, Diana Rigg, Nicholas Hytner, PM, Michael Frayn, TN and Simon Russell Beale.
public celebrations: BA Honorary Fellowship, Annual General Meeting, 21 July 2017. Mark Lawson, AF and TS speeches, David Cohen Prize for Literature, 8 November 2017.
He took care: Carey Perloff retirement party, San Francisco, 9 April 2018. Clive James publication party, Cambridge, 14 September 2018. Julian Barnes to HL, September 2018. Tom Gatti, “I’ve Got a Few of These Stories: An Afternoon with Clive James, Tom Stoppard and Julian Barnes,” New Statesman, 3 October 2018.
brought mortality to mind: TS, interview HL, 2 December 2016. TS, Today, BBC Radio 4, 1 July 2017.
35. A Charmed Life
“So what’s the first thing”: L, Scene Nine.
“How is this”: SiL, 149–50.
“charm was like a moat”: Philip Roth, The Ghost Writer, Cape, 1979, 58. TS in conversation with HL, “Words in the Square,” London Library, 6 May 2016. SiL, 23.
She tells Stoppard’s story: Daša Drndić, Trieste, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursac, Maclehose Press, 2012, Houghton Mifflin, 2014, 84–6. TS, interviews HL, 20 March, 19 July 2018.
memory was changing: TS, interviews HL, 2 December 2016, 20 March, 19 July 2018.
“bridled”: Bryan Appleyard on TS, “But What Else Will I Be Doing?,” Sunday Times, 19 January 2020.
“colluded”: TS, interview John Wilson, Front Row, BBC Radio 4, 11 February 2020.
“I think about God”: Appleyard, “But What Else Will I Be Doing?”
believed in prayer: TS, interview HL, 29 June 2016.
set himself to read: TS, interview HL, 17–18 June 2019. “Author’s Note,” L, Faber, 2020.
His reading on the Holocaust: Selected reading: Martin Amis, The Zone of Interest, Cape, 2014. Nikolaus Wachsmann, K.L.: A History of Nazi Concentration Camps, Little, Brown, 2015; George Clare, Last Waltz in Vienna: The Destruction of a Family (1842–1942), Macmillan, 1982, Pan, 2007; Marjorie Perloff, The Vienna Paradox, New Directions, 2003; Daniel Kehlmann, Geister in Princeton, 2011, trans. 2012 by Carol Brown Janeway as Ghosts in Princeton (unpublished), collected (in German) in Daniel Kehlmann, Vier Stücke, Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2019; Ernst Lothar, The Angel with the Trumpet, 1942, trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood, Harrap & Co., 1946; Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday, 1943, trans. B. W. Huebsch, University of Nebraska, 1961; Arthur Schnitzler, The Road into the Open, 1908, trans. Roger Byers, University of California, 1992; Alexander Waugh, The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War, Bloomsbury, 2008; Saul Friedländler, When Memory Comes, trans. Helen Lane, University of Wisconsin, 1978, 1979; Gregor von Rezzori, Memoirs of an Anti-Semite, 1868, trans. J. Neugroschel and G. von Rezzori, New York Review of Books, 2008; Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, 1896, trans. Sylvie D’Avigdor, Dover, 1988; Edmund de Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes, Chatto & Windus, 2010; Karl Sabbagh, Dr. Riemann’s Zeros, Atlantic Books, 2003.
“We count as Jews!”: Waugh, House of Wittgenstein, 216.
“been granted full civil rights”: L, press release, June 2019; Mark Brown, “Stoppard Returns to West End, with His Most Personal Play” Guardian, 26 June 2019.
The family in Leopoldstadt: All quotations from L, Faber, first edition, published 6 February 2020.
“rediscover what it means”: Brown, “Stoppard Returns to the West End.”
It’s about a Viennese mathematician: TS, interview HL, 19 July 2018.
Riemann’s hypothesis: Grateful thanks to Graeme Segal, James Maynard and Harvey Brown for information. Markus Shepherd, “Tossing the Prime Coin,” http://www.riemannhypothesis.info/2014/10/tossing-the-prime-coin, 12 October 2014.
as if, he thought, he had worked: TS, interview HL, 17/18 June 2019.
“comfortable national superiority”: TS, Circumspice: The PEN/Pinter Lecture, Faber, 2013.
“I like them to sit”: TS to HL, January 2020.
“resonances”: ES, interview David Jays, “My Surname Was an Albatross,” Guardian, 29 January 2020.
often tears: HL, notes, TS in L rehearsals, 14, 16, 17 January 2020. TS, interview John Wilson, Front Row, BBC Radio 4, 11 February 2020.
News items: Mark Brown, “Stoppard Returns to West End with His Most Personal Play,” Guardian, 26 June 2019; Nicholas Daniels, “Tom Stoppard’s First Jewish Play Leopoldstadt to Run at Wyndham’s Theatre,” Londontheatre, 27 June 2019; Dominic Cavendish, “Will Tom Stoppard’s Latest Play Be His Most Personal Yet?,” Daily Telegraph, 27 June 2019. Appleyard, “But What Else Will I Be Doing?.” Douglas Murray on TS, “I Aspire to Write for Posterity,” Spectator, 21 December 2019. TS, interview John Wilson, Front Row, BBC Radio 4, 11 February 2020.
another Jewish story: TS, adaptation of Daniel Kehlmann, The Voyage of the St. Louis, produced by Sasha Yevtushenko, BBC Radio 4, 9 May 2020.
assumed too much ignorance: Mark Lawson, “Honour and Courage,” Standpoint, March 2020.
Reviewers: Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph, 12 February 2020. Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out, 12 February 2020. Clive Davis, The Times, 13 February 2020. David Benedict, Variety, 12 February 2020. Arifa Akbar, Guardian, 12 February 2020. Ben Brantley, New York Times, 12 February 2020. Sarah Hemming, Financial Times, 13 February 2020. John Nathan, Jewish Chronicle, 12 February 2020. Susannah Clapp, Observer, 16 February 2020.
“Deeply, achingly moving”: Inna Rogatchi, “Leopoldstadt: Tom Stoppard’s Kaddish,” Times of Israel, 9 February 2020. Michael Billington, World at One, BBC 4, 13 February 2020.
noted the connections: Ben Brantley, New York Times, 12 February 2020. Tim Bano, The Stage, 12 February 2020. Sarah Hemming, Financial Times, 13 February 2020.
“You know the writer who said”: TS and HL, platform interview, 92nd Street Y, September 2018.
mixed feelings about biography: TS, London Library Lecture, 29 October 1997; “Live Theatre and Dead People,” Chalke Valley History Festival, 30 June 2013. TS, interview HL, 14 October 2017.
a story Stoppard has often told: Delaney 1994, 200. Revised by TS, interview HL, 1 November 2019.
Illustration Credits
Unless otherwise stated, images listed below are from the Tom Stoppard archive held at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
1A family album: the Beck children in 1914.
2Marta Becková in the 1930s.
3Marta and Eugen Sträussler on their wedding day, 23 June 1934.
4Dr. Sträussler with colleagues and patients, Bata hospital, Zlín, 1938.
5Baby Tomik, Zlín, 1937.
6In flight from Europe, 1939: by ship to Singapore.
7Tomik (l) and Petr Sträussler (r), 1940.
8The Bata mothers and children in Naini Tal, 1942. Marta and Tomik far right.
9Peter and Tom Stoppard, English schoolboys, early 1950s.
10The English game: cricket in Bristol, mid-1950s. Tom Stoppard wicket-keeper, Peter O’Toole batting.
11Isabel Dunjohn, Stoppard’s first love, in the 1950s.
12The aspiring writer in his mid-twenties.
13Wedding day, 26 March 1965, with his mother and stepfather.
14Married life: Tom and Jose Stoppard.
15Fatherhood: Stoppard with his first son, Oliver, 17 December 1967. Jane Bown/Guardian News & Media.
16Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Old Vic, 1967: John Stride and Edward Petherbridge. Photo by Anthony Crickmay © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
17The Real Inspector Hound first production programme, 1968. Design by Russell/James Associates. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
18After Magritte, 1970. Photo courtesy of Unfinished Histories.
19Jumpers, 1972: Diana Rigg and Michael Hordern. Donald Cooper/Alamy Stock Photo.
20Lecturing at the University of Notre Dame, 1971. Joseph Raymond Collection (RMD), University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556.
21Faber covers of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Travesties, courtesy of Faber & Faber.
22Babysitting, 1972.
23The Stoppard family at Fernleigh, 1975: Ollie, Barny, Miriam, Will, Ed, Tom. © John Claxton.
24The playwright’s study, Fernleigh, 1977. © The Terence Spencer Archive.
25The Stoppards’ Fernleigh book-plate, designed by Glynn Boyd Harte.
26English family life: fishing with Will.
27Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, with John Wood, André Previn and orchestra, Ian McKellen, Royal Festival Hall, 1 July 1977. © Donald Cooper/Photostage.
28Illustration to Kenneth Tynan’s profile, “Withdrawing with Style from the Chaos,” 1977. Drawing by Mark Boxer (courtesy the Boxer family).
29Tom Stoppard with Harold Pinter, 1980. © Arnold Newman/Getty Images.
30Undiscovered Country, 1979, with Emma Piper, Dorothy Tutin, John Wood and Sara Kestleman. © Donald Cooper/Photostage.
31Stoppard and director Peter Wood on the set of Rough Crossing, 1984. Michael Ward/The Times.
32The Real Thing, New York, 1984: Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close. Photo © The Shubert Archive. Playbill cover used by permission. All rights reserved, Playbill Inc.
33The Stoppards: a much-photographed couple, 1979. Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis via Getty Images.
34Iver Grove: “a very impressive house”.
35Jane Bown/Guardian News & Media.
36The film director: Stoppard on the set of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, 1990, with Tim Roth and Gary Oldman.
37The Czech friends: Tom Stoppard with Václav Havel. © Petr Našic Photography.
38Hapgood, 1988: difficult rehearsals, with Felicity Kendal and Peter Wood. Aldwych Theatre Archive.
39In the Native State, 1991: Stoppard with Felicity Kendal and Peggy Ashcroft. © BBC Photo Library/Collection of Stephen MacKay.
40Felicity Kendal as Hannah in Arcadia, 1993. NT Archive/© Richard Mildenhall.
41Rediscovering his mother’s Bata shoe shop in Darjeeling, January 1991. Photo by Karan Kapoor.
42In his study at Chelsea Harbour, early 1990s.
43In rehearsal for The Invention of Love, 1997.
44Working with Mick Jagger on Enigma, September 1995.
45Jacky Matthews in July 1997.
46With his brother, Peter, and their guide, Emil Máčel, outside the family home in Zlín, May 1998.
47Outside the theatre where Ed Stoppard is playing Hamlet, 2016.
48The Invention of Love, 1997, Paul Rhys and John Wood as young and old A. E. Housman. © John Haynes/Bridgeman Images.
49Rock ’n’ Roll, Faber cover. Courtesy of Faber & Faber.
50Sinéad Cusack and Alice Eve in Rock ’n’ Roll, Royal Court Theatre, 2016. Photo by Robbie Jack/Corbis via Getty Images.
51Stoppard’s Cherry Orchard, 2009, with Sinéad Cusack as Lyubov Ranevskaya and Simon Russell Beale as Lopahin. © Joan Marcus.
52The Coast of Utopia, Russian style, 2007. © RAMT/designed by Andrey Bondarenko.
53The Coast of Utopia, English cartoon, 2002. © Steve Fricker/Telegraph Media Group Limited 2002.
54With agent Kenneth Ewing at his retirement party, 28 June 2007.
55Tony Award winner, 10 June 2007. Jason Szenes/EPA/Shutterstock.
56Among the OMs at Buckingham Palace, 20 May 2009.
57In Tokyo, meeting Japanese actors, for the Praemium Imperiale Prize, 22 October 2009.
58Cartoon-fodder: Private Eye, 2017.
59Visiting the refugee camp the Jungle at Calais, with others, 23 February 2016. © David Soutta/Guardian News & Media
60Tom and Sabrina on their wedding day, Dorset, 7 June 2014.
61The Hard Problem at the Wilma Theater, Philadelphia, with Sarah Gliko and Michael Pedicin, January 2016. Photograph by Alexander Iziliaev; Leopoldstadt, Wyndham’s Theatre, January 2020: Scene One, the company. © Marc Brenner.
62Leopoldstadt, Wyndham’s Theatre, January 2020: Scene One, the company. © Marc Brenner.
63Stoppard during Leopoldstadt rehearsals, 19 January 2020. Bryan Appleyard/The Sunday Times.
* * *
—
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher would be pleased to rectify any omissions that are brought to its attention at the earliest opportunity.
A Note about the author
Hermione Lee was president of Wolfson College (2008–2017) and is emeritus professor of English literature at Oxford University. Her work includes biographies of Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, and Penelope Fitzgerald (winner of the James Tait Black Prize and one of the New York Times Best 10 Books of 2014). She has also written books on Elizabeth Bowen, Philip Roth, and Willa Cather. Lee was awarded the Biographers’ Club Prize for Exceptional Contribution to Biography in 2018. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2003 she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and in 2013 she was made a Dame for services to literary scholarship. She lives in Oxford.
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.
Hermione Lee, Tom Stoppard
