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Contextualizing Stoppard’s Early Plays in Relation to British Theater of the 1960s and 1970s

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2012, 25(3), pp.81-113
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama

Heebon Park-Finch 1

1계명대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper places the first productions of Tom Stoppard’s early literary/theatrical adaptations and appropriations in their historical and cultural contexts, in order to position Stoppard’s work in the development of modern British theater of the 1960s and 1970s. The study covers three aspects of contextualization. The first part, in relation to Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967), looks at changes in the staging of Shakespeare’s plays in England in the 1960s and takes Edward Bond’s Lear (1971) as a point of reference and comparison with Stoppard’s (re)creative re-writing of Shakespeare. The second part, in relation to Stoppard’s Travesties (1974), considers how the British theatrical comedy continued to develop alongside (and despite) the dominant political theater of the 1970s in England. Stoppard’s choice of the genre of intellectual comedy is contrasted to the Brechtian epic dramaturgy used by social-political dramatists such as David Edgar and David Hare. Similarities and distinctions are also drawn with another comedic playwright, Alan Ayckbourn, who also established himself as an astute social commentator while avoiding overtly political content. In the third part of this study, key notions of adaptation or appropriation theories are applied to a reading of Stoppard’s early stage adaptations, demonstrating that they preserve and at the same time revitalize his literary and artistic heritage.

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