Rock´n´roll reviews

This international dramatist has written a play about Czechoslovakia! Stoppard's latest play is set alternately in Cambridge and Prague within a timeframe ranging from 1968 to 1990. Stoppard investigates the world of armchair Marxism in Cambridge in confrontation with the post-August Normalisation reality in Czechoslovakia. The frequent merging of the settings - England and Czechoslovakia - creates an interesting perspective not only on our domestic problems of the period, but also on the development of the communist ideal in the West. The author, born in Zlín in 1937, has projected himself into the fate of a Czech intellectual who is a kind of author. As the name suggests, rock music plays a pivotal role in Stoppard's play. It is not merely an illustration of the period, but a kind of direct medium of life: a bearer of energy, a subject of debate, a common experience, the possibility of self-determination and an area of freedom. It is remarkable how Stoppard, who did not live through Normalisation, has managed to authentically evoke its reality. Rock 'n' Roll displays the typical features of Stoppard's poetics: a depth of ideas, impartiality and, above all, intelligence and wit.

 

Dates of performance