Stoppard’s “Coast of Utopia”

I’m going to have to go see this. You know, there are some things that just have to be done. A 9-hour play about Russia spanning an entire century written by Tom Stoppard? Seriously, in my world, in MY crowd, this is not something you miss. Don’t be a jackass, you gotta go see it.

Interesting profile of Stoppard, by Daphne Murkin. Stoppard fans, you won’t want to miss it. It’s juicy – lots of good stuff. He’s an odd duck, just as he should be.

I liked this quote:

Stoppard appears to have had the habits of a squire rather than those of a subversive. According to his long-time agent, Kenneth Ewing, his client was always inclined to luxury. “When I first met Tom,” Ewing is quoted in Tynan’s profile, “he had just given up his regular work as a journalist in Bristol, and he was broke. But I noticed that even then he always traveled by taxi, never by bus. It was as if he knew that his time would come.”

I also found it very interesting that Stoppard appears to answer questions in quips, epigrams, anecdotes – and the profile there makes the point that some of these “quips” have been recycled by him, in interview after interview, for years.

I begin to understand, even before I try to draw him out, why everything I have read about Stoppard seems to recycle the same anecdotes and quips. (He tells me, for instance, that he writes poetry, but “only for domestic consumption,” a line that I appreciate a bit less after I come across it in an interview he gave more than a decade earlier.) The critic Clive James has called Stoppard a “dream interview, talking in eerily quotable sentences.” But it strikes me that it is precisely the acrobatically clever quality of those sentences that keeps real scrutiny at bay.

Makes a lot of sense. It’s a facade. An airy facade of cleverness which has the added purpose of leaving a lot of space around him, space that is necessary for him to work. Interesting.

When I asked him why he chose [theatre] as his medium — and why he stuck with it — he responded via e-mail: “The standing of the theater in 1960 did have a lot to do with it. But it’s not just that. I like the smell of it, and the immediacy. Also the danger: getting it wrong in public. Also the thrill when you get it right in public.”

Coast of Utopia is a big risk. And I love it, I love him for being that kind of playwright. He raises the bar. I’ll be there. So much theatre plays it safe nowadays. With ticket prices being what they are, and the public more interested in seeing Mary Poppins than serious theatre. But there MUST be a place for serious theatre, or challenging theatre, or even plays that have sad endings!! … and there always will be those who push the boundaries of the artform (sometimes they generate enormous hits, like Tony Kushner with Angels in America – and sometimes they are flops) … but it’s the atmosphere of RISK that appeals to me. I felt it sitting in the audience at Grey Gardens as well. That entire project was a risk. And it’s not perfect. But Christine Ebersole? She is transcendent. Her performance is triumphant – a personal triumph for her, to be sure … but more than that, it is unutterably RIGHT for the material. Things came together – material and actress – in a way I’ve rarely seen before in live theatre. Her performance aches with pathos, humor, grief, courage … Never seen anything like it. But it’s certainly not an EASY show, it’s not a happy ending kinda show … but again, there IS a place for that kind of story … because if I know that I hunger for it, then there are obviously others who do as well.

So bring it on, Stoppard … bring on the 9 hours … I love you.

Also – I’ve never seen Billy Crudup onstage and I’ve heard he is phenomenal – I’m still bummed I missed his Elephant Man. Ben Brantley says Crudup is “unmatchable in conveying the discomforts of self-consciousness.” Absolutely. I can so see that.

Here’s the review of Part 1 of the trilogy … eventually they will all run together. (Amazingly, Richard Easton, after collapsing onstage due to cardiac arrhythmia during previews – causing Ethan Hawke to stop his performance and shout out into the audience: “Is there a doctor in the house?” – is back up and running. Got a great review too. Amazing.)

Brantley writes in his review:

“Utopia” portrays people who, determined to pursue a life of the mind, keep discovering that life has a disruptive mind of its own.

Can’t wait.