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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Jumpers, and The Real Thing

Text and Performance

  • Textbook
  • © 1991

Overview

Authors:
  1. Robert Gordon
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Part of the book series: Text and Performance (TEPE)

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages 1-8
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  2. Text

    1. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

      1. Plays Within Plays: Stoppard on <i>Hamlet</i> and <i>Waiting for Godot</i>
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 9-17
      2. Wheels within Wheels: the Plot as Fate
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 17-20

    3. The Real Thing

      1. Stoppard and the Critics
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 42-46
      2. Love of Art and the Art of Love
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 46-55

  3. Performance

    1. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead — Old Vic, 1967

      1. Creating the World of the Play: Sets, Costumes and Effects
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 57-60
      2. Styles of Acting: Actors on the Art of Being
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 60-72

    2. Jumpers — Old Vic, 1972

      1. The Prologue in Performance
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 73-83
      2. Visual Aspects of Production
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 83-88
      3. Acting and Characterisation
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 89-92

    3. The Real Thing — Strand Theatre, 1982

      1. Playing with West End Conventions
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 92-94
      2. Visual Aspects: Set and Props
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 94-102
      3. Acting and Being: Text and Subtext
        • Robert Gordon
        Pages 102-105

  4. Back Matter

    Pages 106-110
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Keywords

About this book

Very few modern plays have generated as much excitement in the theatre as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Jumpers and The Real Thing. Are they merely witty entertainments or do they demand consideration as serious works of dramatic art? The metatheatrical form of each of the plays is shown to reflect Stoppard's view that the human race has suffered an irreversible fall from grace. Part I analyses how philosophical themes are articulated through the travesty of clichd literary and theatrical forms. Part II evokes a sense of the dazzling comic experience created by the first performance of each play.

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