Alena Dvořáková writes: Writing means turning things into words. But when is it too soon to turn people into words? When the dead are prolific, hugely successful writers, this worry is easier to dismiss. After all, they have made a lifetime career out of turning things as well as people into words incessantly, obsessively and, not infrequently, also at a distinct cost to their own and others’ lives. ‘Words, words. They’re all we have to go on.’
Tom Stoppard died just a few days ago, on November 29th. Going over his oeuvre, the sheer size of it as well as the magnitude and staying power of his best pieces are astonishing. Reading the obituaries, however, it is frightening to see how quickly a human being, no matter how exceptional, begins to metamorphose into a handful of set phrases (you can take your pick between ‘a star in the playwriting firmament’, ‘a Wildean anomaly’, ‘the most cerebral of contemporary English playwrights’ and any number of brilliant minds, dazzling wits and intellects dauntless to plumb the depths of whatever).
This flattening effect is barely outweighed by the testimonies of those who had the opportunity to meet the man in person, who had the luck or privilege of working with him, or perhaps even received his help. Only they can truly appreciate him for things other than words: whether it be his looks, affability, wit or generosity. Many among his friends, colleagues, and acquaintances have testified to all four, including Jitka Sloupová, one of his Czech translators.
As is well known, the author was born in 1937 in pre-war Czechoslovakia and from the 1970s maintained a long-term connection with the place of his birth. Focusing on Czech responses to Stoppard’s death, three aspects of his life and work come to the fore.
First, among Czech theatregoers and drama lovers, he is most likely to be remembered for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – both the play first staged in 1966 and the film starring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, directed by the author himself in 1990. I watched the film again on hearing the news of his death and found it hasn’t aged at all, thanks to the quickwitted repartee as well as the chemistry between the two lead actors; in fact, it struck me as being both funnier and more poignant than ever. Apart from this early masterpiece, Arcadia (1993) has made a distinct impression, with Rock’n’Roll (2006) and Leopoldstadt (2020) getting an honourable mention. The film Shakespeare in Love (1998), for which Stoppard wrote the script (and won the Oscar for it), is frequently dropped into the conversation, but usually with significant qualifications – it has had more success in Czechia adapted into a theatre play. It is rather Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985) that seems the most highly valued of Stoppard’s film engagements.
Second, it should be noted these judgments are based on the availability of Stoppard’s collected works in three volumes of excellent Czech translations (not all English writers can count themselves so lucky!) along with a tradition of seeing his plays on stage that goes way back. The span of this theatrical acquaintance is surprising, given the interdict of the Communist period. I for one did not expect to see that a performance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was put on, albeit in a regional theatre, as early as 1971, followed by Enter a Free Man in 1978. Stoppard’s presence on the Czech scene has only increased from 1989 onward, with early post-Velvet Revolution stagings of both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Travesties (attended by the author), followed by multiple performances of Arcadia (from 1998) and later The Real Inspector Hound and The Real Thing (from 2004). Rock’n’Roll (2006) had its Czech premiere in 2007, while Leopoldstadt (2020) was first performed in Czech in 2021. On the Razzle (1981), Stoppard’s adaptation of Johann Nestroy’s play Einen Jux will er sich machen, remains one of the Czech favourites (first staged in 2008) and is currently being rehearsed again.
As for the author’s life, Czechs have been busy (for a while now) rewriting it, justly or not, into the story of Tomáš Sträussler (as he was born) or ‘one of our own’. A self-made boy who, in spite of early misfortune and great adversity (somewhat belatedly linked to the Holocaust), made it in the big world – spectacularly and against all expectation – as both Sir Tom and a kind of modern, lovably rambunctious Shakespeare-in-Hollywood figure; the key lesson being, that in spite of all the honours and riches heaped on this unlikely character, he did not turn his back on the place of his origin (though he could barely remember it and did not speak its language). At times, in fact, he even chose to give it a significant nod, lend it a hand, and allow it to bask in his fame.
Among the Czech cultural elite, Stoppard is widely perceived as having acted as a steady and highly valued ‘bridge’ between East and West since the early 1970s. This is true of his early and much appreciated support for Czech dissidents associated with Charter 77 and especially his friendship with Václav Havel (whose Largo Desolato Stoppard translated into English in 1986). But it is equally true of his later non-ostentatious support of Czech intellectual life: from attending the Czech openings of his plays (and being gracious and generous to his Czech translators) to setting up the Tom Stoppard Prize (first awarded in 1984) for outstanding non-fiction work by a writer of Czech origin.
‘In our experience, most things end in death,’ quips the Player in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, not long before Ros and Gull are put an end to by their maker. But in the words of the play, the three of them still live on and can be resurrected again and again, at our pleasure – just as much as any of the many characters, jokes and ideas from Stoppard’s other plays. We do have the words to go on.
3/12/2025
