From Library Journal
Tom Stoppard is perhaps our greatest living playwright, with over 25 plays produced since 1965 and a cornucopia of honors, including numerous Tony awards, an Oscar for the screenplay of Shakespeare in Love, and a knighthood. Yet Stoppard is and always has been a hard man to pin down, and noted critic and academic Nadel freely admits that "Stoppard in many ways resists biography." Fortunately, that does not keep him from trying and, 600-plus pages later, largely succeeding. Canadian critic/biographer Nadel (Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen) spends considerable time wending his way through the Stoppard chronology, dwelling on the linguistically lush plays like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers, Travesties, The Real Thing, and Arcadia, all of which are uniquely complex, comedic, and intellectual. This thorough and fresh text updates and surpasses Michael Billington's 1987 Stoppard the Playwright. The best and most complete Stoppard biography available, this is a no-brainer acquisition decision for all collections. Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Tom Stoppard is, arguably, the greatest living English playwright. His work, from the early Jumpers to the film Shakespeare in Love to the current Invention of Love has changed the landscape of drama. Witty, erudite, passionate, abstract, clever, his works are like no one else's. Who is Tom Stoppard-the Czech-born son of Jews who became the singularly English man of letters? In this vibrant, critical portrait, Ira Nadel weaves life and works into a fascinating chronicle of Stoppard's world on English and American stages. Peopled with such characters as Diana Rigg, John Wood, and Billy Crudup, the book untangles Stoppard's genius against the backdrop of Broadway and London's West End.
