The famed, British-born playwright, Tom Stoppard, has died at 88. He was equally famous for his sparkling repartee and conversational brilliance. Tomáš Straussler was born in Czechoslovakia to a Jewish family. In 1939, they escaped the German invasion, and Stoppard eventually went on to become one of the most important playwrights of his generation. He has left an extraordinary legacy. His more than 30 plays, tv/radio works, and screenplays formed the bedrock of what contemporary theatre and film is today.
Stoppard’s work is known for its unusual combination of genres and ideas. His ability to weave together seemingly disparate elements such as philosophy and gymnastics in “Jumpers,” early 19th-century landscape gardening and chaos theory in “Arcadia,” and rock music with dissident Czech academics and Sappho’s love poetry in “Rock ’n’ Roll” has earned him a distinct place in literary history. He’s one of the very few gifted writers whose name has successfully become an adjective. Full credit to Stoppard for earning “Stoppardian” into the Oxford English Dictionary, proof of the influence of his playful but deep aesthetic.
His formative years would have a profound impact on his perspective and artistic proclivities. Having fled one day after the Nazi invasion, his mother ultimately married an Englishman, but personal loss marked Stoppard’s wartime experience when his father died in action during WWII. His English-born mother did eventually remarry a British army major, Kenneth Stoppard, who adopted him and his brother. This English formation shaped his later self-definition as a “timid libertarian” and “an honorary Englishman.”
Stoppard’s career took off when he was still 17 years old. He soon left education behind, plunging into the journalism world as a local reporter for the Western Daily Press in Bristol. After several years experimenting with short radio plays, his first stage play garnered attention, leading to productions in Hamburg and the UK.
Over the course of his storied career, Stoppard worked alongside many other creative luminaries in the film community. Perhaps the most memorable of these incidents came with director Steven Spielberg. Perhaps most famously, he once burst into the shower to discuss a set issue on the film “Schindler’s List” with the writer Tom Stoppard. A playwright, she co-wrote, with Tom Stoppard, the Oscar-winning screenplay for Shakespeare in Love. This success contributed to establishing his legacy as an innovative multi-media artist.
For, as with all of Stoppard’s plays, these communications were not only about global warfare and local spies. He also revered former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In 1984 he, along with many of his fellow travelers, signed a letter expressing their support for US invasion of Grenada. In his writing where humor and satire thrived, his leftist political inclinations were intertwined with a broad collection of cultural references.
Simon Gray, a fellow playwright, once remarked on Stoppard’s enviable qualities:
“It is actually one of Tom’s achievements that one envies him nothing, except possibly his looks, his talents, his money and his luck. To be so enviable without being envied is pretty enviable, when you think about it.” – Simon Gray
Many adoring geniuses like me profoundly admire Stoppard for his cleverness. They’re blown away by the warmth of his presence and his humility.
Since word of his death came out, obituaries and reminiscences of his deep contributions to American culture have drizzled in from journalists, colleagues, fans and cultural observers. There’s no doubt that Stoppard’s impact on theatre and literature is monumental. He pushes audiences with advanced concepts but maintains it light-hearted and understandable. It is his talent and the standard he’s set that’s inspired generations of playwrights to come.