Tom Stoppard: The true voice of old England

Plays, politics and patriotism: Tom Stoppard's search = for=20 meaning in an uncertain present always takes him back into the past. The = playwright, now garlanded with an international award, talks to Ciar = Byrne

Friday, 14 March 2008

The clubby atmosphere of Duke's Hotel, just off London's Piccadilly, = seems an=20 appropriate setting for an interview with Tom Stoppard, as the = Czech-born writer=20 has a particular attachment to all things English. "I adopted England as = least=20 as much as England adopted me," explains Stoppard, now 70, who has lived = in this=20 country since the age of nine. "I became quite proud of England, because = it was=20 my language, my country. I thought it even had the best architecture, or = the=20 best landscape."

The playwright rarely gives interviews, finding the process of = introspection=20 uncomfortable. But he has agreed to talk now to mark his winning the Dan = David=20 Prize, an award from Tel Aviv University, which presents three annual = prizes of=20 $1m for outstanding cultural, social, scientific or technological = achievements,=20 within the three dimensions of time =96 past, present and future. = Alongside the=20 Israeli writer Amos Oz and the Canadian-Armenian film-maker Atom Egoyan, = Stoppard has been made a laureate for his "creative rendering of the = past".

In its citation, the Dan David Prize praises Stoppard for being "a = master=20 playwright whose plays return repeatedly to the past as part of his = ceaseless=20 search for meaning in a bewildering universe while demonstrating = farcical=20 cleverness alongside profound humanity".

The citation mentions Travesties, Stoppard's play based on the fact = that=20 James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and Lenin all lived in Zurich during the = First World=20 War; Arcadia, featuring a Cambridge contemporary of Lord Byron; The = Invention of=20 Love, which took for its subject the poet AE Housman; The Coast of = Utopia, about=20 the roots of political radicalism in 19th-century Russia; and his latest = stage=20 hit, Rock'n'Roll, which travels between Prague in the spring of 1968 and = the=20 present. "I'm attracted to the past," Stoppard says. "It doesn't = necessarily=20 have to be the distant past, and I certainly didn't think about it, but = looking=20 back on it, the truth of the matter is that for about 15 years = everything I've=20 written has got at least one foot in the past."

The reluctant interviewee is charm itself, ordering plentiful bowls = of bar=20 snacks, which he later insists on paying for, and giving his best shot = at=20 self-analysis, even though he insists: "I'm hopeless at looking into = myself and=20 trying to see how things are working and why."

Wary of looking "like a prat", he nonetheless speaks candidly about = how the=20 country he fell in love with as a boy has changed. He agrees with the = female=20 character in Rock'n'Roll who declares at a dinner party that England has = "lost=20 its nerve".

"People's freedom to use their own common sense has been taken away = from=20 them," he says. "I think that since September 11, this aspect of our = society=20 began to accelerate very quickly. We went a long way into the future, = much more=20 quickly than we would have done and the future is a place where, because = people=20 took over a plane using box-cutters, you mustn't have a fruit knife. = There's=20 nobody there to say, 'Well, obviously you can't take this bloody carving = knife=20 on board, but yes, this ridiculous 19th-century penknife for sharpening = quills,=20 of course you can have that.' The idea that anybody might be allowed to = use=20 their common sense when clearly no harm is being done is part of history = now."

What he fears most about this new world is the drive towards = homogeneity.=20 "The whole philosophy of modern times is to dissolve distinctions = between=20 individuals and deal with them as large collections of people. It's = essentially=20 self-interested on the part of authority."

Individual freedom was central to Rock'n'Roll, in which Jan, a young = Czech V=20 C lecturer at Cambridge University in 1968, returns home as members of = the=20 Warsaw Pact, led by the Soviet Union, invade Czechoslovakia. In contrast = to=20 Jan's increasing politicisation against the forces of Communism, back in = England, his mentor Max Morrow refuses to abandon his communist = principles.

Stoppard sees Morrow as "a rather moving, strangely sympathetic = figure. To me=20 he was an idealist with a strong sense of natural justice and social = justice and=20 all these things are admirable."

But the attitude of many on the left who persisted in their support = of=20 communist ideals irked him. "I felt myself out of patience with people = who, from=20 1968 onwards, would denigrate this country that adopted me, this country = that=20 I'd adopted, as some kind of fascist police state. It just seemed so=20 embarrassing that those countries that truly could be described as such = were=20 very, very different from Britain. It annoyed me that nobody seemed to = get the=20 obvious sense of contradiction in standing up in the street and = complaining=20 about the lack of free speech. I thought, 'Christ, they're so lucky = living=20 here.'"

Turning to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Stoppard refuses to pass easy=20 judgements, although he has in the past been a signatory to a letter = from Jews=20 for Justice for Palestinians. "If things were so cut and dried and easy = to work=20 out, they wouldn't be issues. They are problems because there are things = to be=20 said on both sides."

The playwright was born Tomas Straussler in 1937, in the town of = Zlin.=20 Stoppard's Jewish parents fled the Nazis when he was just 18 months old, = going=20 first to Singapore. When the Japanese invaded there, they were evacuated = once=20 again. His father, a doctor, stayed behind to help and was killed when = the boat=20 on which he was leaving was bombed. But his mother escaped to India with = him and=20 his brother, where she married Kenneth Stoppard, a major in the British = Army,=20 who brought the family to England.

University would have seemed a natural route for such a lively mind, = but at=20 the age of 17, Stoppard decided he had had enough of education and = joined the=20 Western Daily Press in Bristol as a journalist. As a young reporter, he = attended=20 local government meetings, magistrates' courts, took people's business = cards at=20 the church door at funerals and even covered the local pre-Wimbledon = tennis=20 tournament.

It was in Bristol that he got his first taste of theatre =96 the = newspaper was=20 given free tickets to the Old Vic in return for a couple of paragraphs = each=20 week.

Stoppard delighted in every aspect of the newspaper business, = including a=20 year spent on the sub-editors' desk on the 6pm to 3am shift. "I loved=20 everything, I loved dealing with copy, I loved working when other people = were=20 sleeping. I just loved ink and paper and pencils and loved the presses, = I loved=20 the vans taking the paper out."

On days off, he would take the train to London, often to see a play, = but on=20 the way he would visit Fleet Street, "rather as a pilgrim might go and = look at=20 St Peter's". Recently, arriving early for a meeting, he walked the = length of the=20 "Street of Shame", now deserted by the press, and found himself = "overtaken by an=20 intense feeling of my lost youth".

By 1960, Stoppard =96 who was then working on the now defunct Bristol = Evening=20 World =96 had done pretty much every job he could do on a regional = newspaper and=20 began to turn his attention to the theatre =96 which had been set alight = by Samuel=20 Beckett, John Osborne and Harold Pinter. He admits that his initial = attempts at=20 playwriting were highly derivative. "I tried to write a Look Back In = Anger, and=20 I probably got about five pages into it before I realised that 'this is=20 pointless, this has been done'."

His first play on the professional stage was Rosencrantz & = Guildenstern=20 Are Dead, performed at the London Old Vic in 1967. Still perhaps his = most famous=20 play, it revisits Hamlet from the point of view of two characters on the = sidelines of Shakespeare's tragedy, through the filter of Samuel = Beckett's=20 Waiting for Godot.

Even at that time, he admits, he had not yet found a distinctive = voice. "It=20 was so clearly taking from Waiting for Godot. Rosencrantz & = Guildenstern was=20 a combination of my own voice and what was in the air around me. I don't = even=20 know what my voice is to this day."

But it did teach him a valuable lesson, which he now passes on to the = many=20 aspiring young playwrights who send him their work in the hope that he = will=20 "somehow get it through security".

"Until that happened, it seemed to me that people who had plays on at = the Old=20 Vic represented a possibility only open to truly exceptional and gifted = people.=20 I never saw it from the other perspective, from the perspective of the = theatre,=20 a director or producer who depended on finding decent stuff to put on = and=20 grabbed it gratefully if they came across anything at all."

The exception to this rule, Stoppard says, is works of true genius = =96 "plays=20 that are ahead of their time have been missed and lost".

He finds it difficult =96 and unnecessary =96 to analyse his writing = in great=20 depth. He does not believe that his personal history and circumstances = affect=20 his work: "I write out of my intellectual experience." As a young man, = he was=20 much influenced by parody =96 treasuring a collection of Max Beerbohm = parodies=20 called A Christmas Garland, which he found on a barrow on Portobello = Road. For a=20 while, this had a disastrous effect on his journalism, as he tried out = his=20 humour muscles in his newspaper column.

The frequent allusion in his works brings to mind a line from TS = Eliot's The=20 Waste Land =96 "These fragments I have shored against my ruins". = Stoppard=20 considers this. "I think what I do isn't quite that. I like trying to = create a=20 spark through a collaboration between me and the audience. A lot of the = time=20 there are these ghost plays, ghost books and so on behind my plays. It's = not=20 that I'm looking into the past for it's own sake, it's just because I = love the=20 world of literature completely and rather sweetly expect my audience to = share=20 this love and therefore pick up what I drop." What if the audience do = not=20 recognise a reference? "They often do not, and it means I've made a=20 miscalculation."

This comes across as quite unashamedly intellectual. "It does, = doesn't it? I=20 plead unwittingness. It's not an ambition; it's just my character, for = better or=20 worse, coming out. I think of myself as being intellectual almost as a=20 biological fact. I simply like things that require thought."

He is careful to distinguish between being intellectual and being "an = intellectual" =96 "the noun as opposed to the adjective has different = connotations=20 for me" =96 he thinks of an intellectual as someone immersed in a = particular area=20 of study, which he is not. While his plays are erudite and well = researched, as=20 soon as he has made use of material, he casts it off.

He has, for example, turned down several requests to write pieces = about=20 Alexander Herzen, the "father of Russian socialism" and the subject of = his 2002=20 trilogy The Coast of Utopia. "It would be such a labour to get back into = all=20 that. I'm now trying to think of what I'm doing next, not what I did = three years=20 ago."

Stoppard isn't working on a new play at the moment, but he is far = from idle.=20 He has adapted Chekhov's Ivanov for the Donmar Warehouse (at Wyndham's = Theatre,=20 from September), starring Kenneth Branagh. Sam Mendes has asked him to = adapt The=20 Cherry Orchard for a round-the-world tour starting at the London Old = Vic. And=20 the National Theatre is reviving his Every Good Boy Deserves Favour in=20 August.

When he is not writing plays, Stoppard crafts film scripts. He wrote = the=20 screenplays for Shakespeare In Love and Enigma, and also wrote a script = for the=20 film version of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, which was abandoned = when=20 Chris Weitz took over as director and decided to use his own script = without even=20 looking at Stoppard's =96 "It's made me determined not to get involved = with a film=20 where there's no director attached," he says.

As we leave the hotel and part on a Mayfair street corner next to a=20 gentlemen's outfitters =96 it's a quintessentially English spot =96 = Stoppard=20 comments on how lucky we are to be here, of all the places in the world = we could=20 be, before disappearing off into the night.

Independent.co.uk

Tom Stoppard: The true voice of old England