Utopian Histories: Transforming Past Ideals in Stoppard’s Plays
-
Christopher Innes
Abstract
In his recent plays Stoppard has tended to focus on ideologies of hope as a means of transforming the past and merging history with the present. The title of The Coast of Utopia trilogy (2002) – which derives from Wilde’s 1891 essay on socialism – questions the thrust of communism towards ideal social existence, setting the revolutionaries among the impressionists and against Bakunin’s anarchists. This is then picked up in Rock ‘n’ Roll (2006), where the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, as well as a leading Marxist in Britain are each undermined by The Velvet Underground and more pointedly by a band called ‘The Plastic People of the Universe.’ The arts in general and painting and music in particular become ideals that trump politics. An analysis of the manner in which Stoppard represents these ideals also allows for important insights into questions of historiography.
Works Cited
Billington, Michael. 2006. “Rock ‘N’ Roll”. The Guardian June 15. <http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/jun/15/theatre> [accessed June 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric. 2002. Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life. London: Allen Lane/Penguin.Search in Google Scholar
Jaggi, Maya. 2002. “A question of faith”. The Guardian September 14. <http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/artsandhumanities/story/0,12241,791760,00.html> [accessed June 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Stoppard, Tom. 1993. Arcadia, London: Faber & Faber.Search in Google Scholar
–-. 2006. Rock ‘n’ Roll. London: Faber & Faber.Search in Google Scholar
–-. 2002. The Coast of Utopia: Voyage; Shipwreck; Salvage. London: Faber & Faber.Search in Google Scholar
–-. 1997. The Invention of Love. New York: Grove.Search in Google Scholar
Kelley, Aileen. 2002. “Note to Salvage”. Program Note. Salvage: The Coast of Utopia, Part III by Tom Stoppard. London: National Theatre.Search in Google Scholar
Wilde, Oscar. 2001. The Soul of Man Under Socialism. Reprint [1891]. London: Penguin.Search in Google Scholar
© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Articles
- Introduction: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Anthropo-Scenes: Theater and Climate Change
- ‘Provincializing’ Post-Wall Europe: Transcultural Critique of Eurocentric Historicism in Pentecost, Europe and The Break of Day
- Utopian Histories: Transforming Past Ideals in Stoppard’s Plays
- A Historiography of Protest and the Politics of Commemoration in Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica
- Je Me Souviens – Re/Writings of History in Contemporary Canadian Drama
- David Greig’s The American Pilot and Earlier Dramatizations of Political Hostage Takings
- Time and Temporalities in Contemporary British War Plays – Roy Williams’s Days of Significance and Owen Sheers’s The Two Worlds of Charlie F.
- Women and Historical Agency in Contemporary British Plays
- From History to ‘Ourstories’ in Martin Crimp’s Metanarratives
- Locating History on the Contemporary Stage
- Reviews
- Vicky Angelaki. The Plays of Martin Crimp: Making Theatre Strange. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, x + 228 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback); available as eBook.Clara Escoda Agustí. Martin Crimp’s Theatre: Collapse as Resistance to Late Capitalist Society. CDE Studies Volume 24. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2013, xi + 336 pp., $ 140.00 (hardcover or eBook), $ 210.00 (hardcover and eBook).
- Sophie Bush. The Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, viii + 337 pp., £ 16.99 (paperback and eBook).
- Peter Fifield and David Addyman (eds.). Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies: New Critical Essays. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, 244 pp., £ 58.50 (hardback), £ 19.99 (eBook).Katherine Weiss. The Plays of Samuel Beckett. Critical Companions. London: Methuen Drama, 2013, 286 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 16.99 (paperback).
- Anne Cremieux, Xavier Lemoine and Jean-Paul Rocchi (eds.). Understanding Blackness Through Performance: Contemporary Arts and the Representation of Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 282 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback).
- Denise Varney, Peter Eckersall, Chris Hudson and Barbara Hatley. Theatre and Performance in the Asia-Pacific: Regional Modernities in the Global Era. Studies in International Performance. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xiii + 253 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback).
- Clare Wallace. The Theatre of David Greig. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, ix + 259 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 15.29 (paperback).
- Gareth White. Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, x + 224 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback), $ 29.00 (paperback).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Articles
- Introduction: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Anthropo-Scenes: Theater and Climate Change
- ‘Provincializing’ Post-Wall Europe: Transcultural Critique of Eurocentric Historicism in Pentecost, Europe and The Break of Day
- Utopian Histories: Transforming Past Ideals in Stoppard’s Plays
- A Historiography of Protest and the Politics of Commemoration in Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica
- Je Me Souviens – Re/Writings of History in Contemporary Canadian Drama
- David Greig’s The American Pilot and Earlier Dramatizations of Political Hostage Takings
- Time and Temporalities in Contemporary British War Plays – Roy Williams’s Days of Significance and Owen Sheers’s The Two Worlds of Charlie F.
- Women and Historical Agency in Contemporary British Plays
- From History to ‘Ourstories’ in Martin Crimp’s Metanarratives
- Locating History on the Contemporary Stage
- Reviews
- Vicky Angelaki. The Plays of Martin Crimp: Making Theatre Strange. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, x + 228 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback); available as eBook.Clara Escoda Agustí. Martin Crimp’s Theatre: Collapse as Resistance to Late Capitalist Society. CDE Studies Volume 24. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2013, xi + 336 pp., $ 140.00 (hardcover or eBook), $ 210.00 (hardcover and eBook).
- Sophie Bush. The Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, viii + 337 pp., £ 16.99 (paperback and eBook).
- Peter Fifield and David Addyman (eds.). Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies: New Critical Essays. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, 244 pp., £ 58.50 (hardback), £ 19.99 (eBook).Katherine Weiss. The Plays of Samuel Beckett. Critical Companions. London: Methuen Drama, 2013, 286 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 16.99 (paperback).
- Anne Cremieux, Xavier Lemoine and Jean-Paul Rocchi (eds.). Understanding Blackness Through Performance: Contemporary Arts and the Representation of Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 282 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback).
- Denise Varney, Peter Eckersall, Chris Hudson and Barbara Hatley. Theatre and Performance in the Asia-Pacific: Regional Modernities in the Global Era. Studies in International Performance. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xiii + 253 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback).
- Clare Wallace. The Theatre of David Greig. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, ix + 259 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 15.29 (paperback).
- Gareth White. Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, x + 224 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback), $ 29.00 (paperback).
