Perhaps you have never heard of the Czechoslovakian playwright Tomas Straussler.  That’s all right; neither have I.  But I am familiar with Tom Stoppard, a unique playwright who is consistently accused of being English.  And here is my website, or shrine, as you will, devoted to the talents of both dramatists.

    Born Tomas Straussler in Zlin, Czechoslovakia on July 3, 1937, Tom Stoppard   quickly tired of the rural life and convinced his family to relocate to Singapore.  Even though he was only 2 at the time, Stoppard was already displaying remarkable verbal prowess.  In 1942, Tom, his mother, and his older brother fled to Darjeeling, India in order to escape the Japanese invasion of Singapore.  Sadly, however, his father was killed during this invasion.

In India, Tom received an English education, which came in handy when his mother married Kenneth Stoppard, a major in the British army who moved the family to India in 1946.  Apparently, there was nothing left to do in India since the war was over.

The Stoppards moved around England a bit, hitting all the major attractions such as Derbyshire and Yorkshire, before hitting the jackpot in Bristol in 1950.  By hitting the jackpot, I mean that they decided to stay there.  While living in Bristol, Stoppard attended the Dolphin School in Nottinghamshire before switching to Yorkshire’s Pocklington School.  After finishing school at the age of 17, Stoppard fulfilled every disillusioned youth’s dream and decided to skip college and get a job instead.  The Western Daily Press enabled this young man to throw his life away and gave him job; perhaps if Stoppard had gone to college, he might have eventually made a success of himself.

In 1958, Stoppard said “sayonara” to the Western Daily Press and “where you been all my life” to the Bristol Evening World.  This job was a great improvement over the old one:  the pay was still lousy, he still had to live at home with his family, and now he had the chance to write.  And write he did… three short stories that, as far as I’m concerned, no longer exist.  I hope, or I’ll look like a fool for saying that.

Stoppard’s pseudo-journalist years were not a waste however.  Maybe he saw his dreams of being a world famous foreign correspondent fade to dust.   Maybe he had to live with his Mommy.  Maybe he had to suffer every indignity heaped upon the modern journalist.  But, through all this, he discovered his love of theater.  I guess there wasn’t much else to do in Bristol in the 60s, because Stoppard spent his time frequenting the theater instead of learning to crochet or planting perennials.  However, his overexposure to culture inspired Stoppard to write plays.  This drove him to leave the Bristol Evening World in 1960 to pursue his latest dream (don’t forget, originally he wanted to be a journalist; but that’s okay…I used to want to be a veterinarian). 

Modest success followed this gamble, as A Walk on the Water, Stoppard’s first play, was performed on television in 1963.  One could argue that this was the greatest television event second only to the moon walk in 1969, but one would be wrong.  So, Tom retooled the play and renamed it Enter a Free Man.  Evidently, this helped since the new and improved version was produced in the West End, five years after its televised debut.  Even so, Stoppard decided to disown this particular bastard child, and has since then claimed that The Gamblers is actually his first play.  Protest all you want, Tommy, the internet never lies.

Being a playwright, however, failed to pay his bills.  So, in 1962, Stoppard decided to supplement his income by becoming a drama critic for London’s Scene.  He continued to write and began work on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, a play you’ve never heard of because it doesn’t exist.  It did however spawn Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which, frankly, sports a better title.

In 1966, Stoppard swallowed the creative equivalent of Viagra and established himself in modern theater.  London’s Aldwych Theatre presented his adaptation of Slawomir Mrozek’s Tango, while Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was being presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  For Rosencrantz, Stoppard  won the Plays and Players award for Best Play, the John Whiting Award, and the Evening Standard’s Award for Most Promising Playwright.  Meanwhile, Stoppard was hoping that his first and only novel, Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon, would cement his career as an author.  It didn’t.  He overlooked the fact that no one really wants to waste time reading anymore.  He didn’t waste time moping, though, as Rosencrantz went to New York in 1968 and won the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critic’s Award.  Stoppard’s dramatic career continued to skyrocket as his plays Jumpers and Travesties became huge successes on both the London and the New York stage.  In fact, the latter play won him yet another Tony.

In 1972, Stoppard married Dr. Miriam Moore-Robinson after conveniently divorcing his wife of seven years, Jose Ingle.  Together, they raised Stoppard’s two children from his first marriage.  Moore-Robinson wrote several self-help books and became a celebrity herself.  But this site isn’t about her.  Their relationship was so picture-perfect that Stoppard dedicated The Real Thing to her after ten years of matrimonial bliss.  Of course, they divorced nine years later in light of Stoppard’s affair with the popular British Actress Felicity Kendal, who, ironically, had starred in the original production of The Real Thing.  In truth, Kendal had been a regular player in a few of Stoppard’s plays, including the title role in Hapgood, which he had written for her.  Well, it was his own fault his second marriage ended, after all his dedication to In the Native State read :  “For Felicity Kendal.”  Not exactly subtle.  Shortly after this happened, Miriam and Tom divorced.  Oh well, when God closes a door…I’m still single, Tom.  The dissolution of his marriage failed to impede Stoppard’s creative output.  He proceeded to write Arcadia and The Invention of Love.  Not to mention a little known movie called Shakespeare in Love.

Here ends my modest little biography.  Perhaps I will never write as well as Tom Stoppard, but at least I can write in complete sentences.