TOM STOPPARD

Tom Stoppard (original name Tomas Straussler, b. July 3, 1937, Zlín, Czech.), Czech-born British playwright whose work is marked by verbal brilliance, ingenious action, and structural dexterity. Stoppard's father, Eugene Straussler, was a company physician whose Czech company sent him (with his family) to a branch factory in Singapore in 1938/39. After the Japanese invasion, his father stayed on (and was killed), but Mrs. Straussler and her two sons escaped to India, where in 1946 she married a British officer, Kenneth Stoppard. Soon, the family went to live in England. Tom Stoppard (he assumed his stepfather's surname) quit school and started his career as a journalist in Bristol in 1954 and began to write plays in 1960 after moving to London. In 1965 Stoppard was one of five new writers whose short stories were anthologized in Introduction 2 (1964).

His first play, A Walk on the Water (1960), was televised in 1963. A stage version was produced in Berlin and Vienna in 1964; and, with some additions and a new title, Enter a Free Man, it reached London in 1968. His play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1964-65) was given an amateur performance at the Edinburgh Festival (1966), then entered the repertory of Britain's National Theatre in 1967. The irony and brilliance of this work derive from placing two minor characters of Hamlet into the centre of dramatic action, driving home Stoppard's theme that man is but a minor character in the greater scheme of things, controlled by incomprehensible forces. It became a sensational success, appearing on Broadway and in theatres as far apart as Tokyo and Buenos Aires.

Jumpers, a witty view of the academic world in crisis, was a popular and critical success of the 1972-73 London season, as was Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, with music by André Previn, in 1978-79. Night and Day was produced in 1978, and
Undiscovered Country (1980), an adaptation of a play by Arthur Schnitzler, was produced in 1979. The Real Thing (1982),
Stoppard's first romantic comedy, deals with art and reality and features a playwright as protagonist. Arcadia, set in a Derbyshire country house, premiered in 1993. Stoppard also wrote a number of radio plays and screenplays: among the latter were The Engagement (1970), The Romantic Englishwoman (1975), Despair (1978), The Human Factor (1980), Brazil
(1985), and Shakespeare in Love (1998). He directed the film version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1991), for which he also wrote the screenplay.

Source:  "Stoppard, Tom" Encyclopædia Britannica Online.   <http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?eu=71640&sctn=1>

The following material was obtained from Susquehanna University (PA) over the World Wide Web link http://www.susqu.edu/ac_depts/arts_sci/english/lharris/class/stoppard/rose.htm. The source of the information is Ronald Hayman's Tom Stoppard.

Until the Writing of Rosencreantz and Guildenstern are Dead :

1937 Born 3 July in Czechoslovakia, the son of Eugene Straussler, a doctor employed by Bata, the shoe manufacturers.

1939: The family moved to Singapore.

1942: Evacuated to India with his mother and brother before the Japanese invasion. His father, who remained behind, was killed. His mother became manageress of a Bata shop in Darjeeling. He went to a multi-racial English speaking school in Darjeeling.

1946: She married Kenneth Stoppard, who was in the British army in India. The family left for England, where [Kenneth] worked in the machine tool business.

1946: Educated at a prep school in Nottinghamshire, and a grammar school in Yorkshire.
- 54

ca 1950 The family settled in Bristol.

1954: [Tom] Employed by the Western Daily Press in Bristol and (from 1958) by the Bristol
  - 60 Evening World as news reporter, feature writer, theatre critic, film critic and gossip columnist.

1960: Finished A Walk on the Water - later called Enter a Free Man.

1960: Freelance journalism. Work included critical articles and two pseudonymous weekly
  - 62 columns.

1963: Drama critic for Scene. Within seven months he saw 132 plays. Wrote four short stories, three of which were bought by Faber. Commissioned by the publisher Anthony Blond to write a novel.

1964: May to October visit to Berlin on a Ford Foundation Grant. Commissioned to write two short plays for Radio 4 and five episodes of the serial The Dales for Radio 4. Wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, a one-act play in verse.

1965: Married Jose Ingle. The Royal Shakespeare Company bought an option on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Wrote regular weekly episodes of A Student's Diary (An Arab in London) transmitted in Arabic by the BBC.

1966: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead performed as a fringe piece at the Edinburgh Festival.

1967: Won the John Whiting award and an Evening Standard award.

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Last modified:  Friday, March 26, 2004 11:11 AM