Reality Czech: Tom Stoppard Discovers Shakespeare behind the Iron Curtain

Play Review / 20 Min Read / Essay

Cantor, Paul A. “Reality Czech: Tom Stoppard Discovers Shakespeare behind the Iron Curtain.” The Review of Politics, vol. 78, no. 4, 2016, pp. 663–79.

SYNOPSIS

Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth offers fresh evidence of the universality of Shakespeare's genius. The play juxtaposes a perfunctory performance of Hamlet in an English boarding school with a courageous staging of Macbeth as a protest against Communist tyranny in 1978 Czechoslovakia. The play shows that, paradoxically, Shakespeare's plays have less of an impact in England than they do in foreign countries, where differing political circumstances, far from forming an obstacle to appreciating Shakespeare, actually bring his plays to life with a new power. By portraying the secret police interrupting the Czech Macbeth, Stoppard explores how artists can struggle against totalitarianism, and, in particular, how they can develop secret codes to express their dissidence, even under the watchful eyes of the surveillance state. Encountering Shakespeare behind the Iron Curtain, Stoppard developed a new seriousness as a playwright and a new interest in the relation of art and politics.

Shakespeare is as close to a universal author as humanity has produced. His plays are performed and read all over the world, and show no signs of losing their popularity. His dramatic and poetic genius is no doubt responsible for the widespread appeal of his plays, but they offer something more than mere entertainment or even aesthetic pleasure. In an era that has increasingly lost its reverence for the past, Shakespeare's centuries-old plays are still looked up to as a genuine source of wisdom. Many attribute his universal appeal to his profound understanding of human nature, which makes his plays speak to people of all times and all places. If we find Shakespeare's plays so compelling, the reason is that they teach us all something about ourselves

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