A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

A profile of Tom Stoppard, one of my favorite writers. Naturally, I found the following passage to be of special interest:

And then, intriguingly, there is "Conservative Tom" - the bold exception to the arts world's monolithic Leftist orthodoxy, the admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and subtle baiter - most effectively in plays like Night and Day - of liberal vanities.

When Harold Pinter was lobbying to have London's Comedy Theatre renamed the Pinter Theatre, Stoppard wrote back: "Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?" His liking for Lady Thatcher appears to have a theatrical as well as ideological dimension, for he saw in her radicalism the seeds of great drama. "In the period before the arrival of Mrs Thatcher," he once said, "politics had been in such low esteem. Everything was so hedged, so mealy-mouthed. Then along came this woman who seemed to have no manners at all and said exactly what she thought. Everyone's eyes were popping and their jaws were dropping, and I really enjoyed that."

For all this, it might be fairer to call Stoppard a libertarian than a Conservative. In the 1970s, when the big names of British theatre - all of predictably uniform Leftist sympathies - reserved their denunciations for the United States and its supposedly nefarious doings in places like Nicaragua, Stoppard was quietly active among the dissident groups of the Eastern Bloc. In part this was attributable to his roots, but it speaks, equally, to the maturity of his thinking.

Let me once again recommend Travesties. It really is exceedingly good.