Tom Stoppard is a leading exponent of philosophy in theater and is considered by many to be Britain's greatest living playwright — but is that as much a blessing as it sounds? Stoppard said he has to "dumb down [his] jokes" and that is not very comforting for the 77-year-old.
A celebrated figure in literature, sure, but is his intellectual prowess truly a curse or is he simply behind the times? As he says to Sir Nicholas Hytner about his latest play, The Hard Problem, "It's very rare to connect an audience except on a level which is lower than you would want to connect them on."
He continues, "You could raise it a notch and you might lose an eighth of them. It's to do with reference and allusion."
As The Telegraph U.K. notes, Sir Tom explained that he had to change a scene in The Hard Problem three times between the previews, having to make an allusion more obvious each time.
Stoppard cites a specific moment in 1974 where an allusion to Shakespeare's King Lear seemingly landed on the entire audience. But, over the years, it's gone further over the audience's heads.
"In 1974 everybody in the audience knew who Goneril was and laughed," he recounted. "In about 1990 when the play was revived maybe half knew [who she was]."
So while Stoppard feels his genius is simply too great to handle, ironically, his work was met with mixed reviews despite the anticipation. Dominic Cavendish, fittingly then, labeled the play a "major disappointment."
In the meantime, take a quiz to see if you can keep up with Stoppard and his infinite wisdom or check out an excerpt of his below.
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