A Study Guide for Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Literary News For Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Literary News For Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Mar 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535841375

Book preview

The Coast of Utopia

Tom Stoppard

2002–2006

Introduction

In the three plays that compose the epic trilogy The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard demonstrates his style as a playwright on an impressive, elaborate scale. Stoppard specializes in complexly structured plays that explore philosophical and political ideas as well as other sophisticated concepts in verbally intricate ways. Comic touches are also a hallmark of his writing. All these elements can be found in Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage, which focus on leading Russian intellectuals and their lives in the mid-nineteenth century. Originally produced in London's West End in 2002, the trilogy made its New York debut in 2006 and set a record for most Tony Awards won by one play (it was awarded seven awards total). This entry focuses on the New York version of the play, revised from the original 2002 version. The New York version was published by Grove in 2006.

Stoppard had been thinking about writing on the subject of Russian radicals as early as 1968, reading nearly one hundred books to research the topic before beginning to write the plays in the late 1990s. At the center of The Coast of Utopia are the ideas of, as well as relationships and tensions between, Russian revolutionaries and idealists Alexander Herzen, Michael (Mikhail) Bakunin, Ivan Turgenev, and Vissarion Belinsky. While the men all want to improve Russia and other countries in Europe through revolution, their methodologies and philosophies differ and evolve over time. The plays that form The Coast of Utopia also offer insight into the family and romantic lives of the men.

Critics were divided on The Coast of Utopia, though the New York production was better received than the London version. While most commentators agreed that the trilogy was an impressive undertaking, a number believed that the plays were cumbersome and repetitive. One New York critic, David Cote of Salon.com, noted of The Coast of Utopia Stoppard both honored the passion of his obscure subjects yet ironically underscored the fact that they lay the groundwork for Stalin.

Author Biography

Born Tomas Straussler on July 3, 1937, in Zlin (now Gottwaldov), Czechoslovakia, Tom Stoppard was one of two sons of Eugene and Martha (Beckova) Straussler. His father worked as a physician for the Bata shoe manufacturing company. After the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, the Straussler family was deemed to have Jewish blood and the Strausslers moved to Singapore in 1939. The Japanese invaded four years later, and the family, save Dr. Straussler, left for India. Stoppard's father was lost at sea trying to reunite with his family after working to help the wounded in the conflict. Stoppard attended an American boarding school in Darjeeling until 1945, when his mother was remarried to British Army major Kenneth Stoppard.

In 1946 the family moved to Britain, where Tom's newly adoptive father worked in industry, and Stoppard became a naturalized British citizen. After completing his A-levels at the Yorkshire-based Pocklington School in 1954, Stoppard began his career in Bristol, England, as a writer for both the Western Daily Press and Evening World from 1958 to 1960. He spent the next three years as a freelance reporter before launching his script-writing career with Walk on Water, produced on British television in 1963.

In 1965, Stoppard's first play, The Gamblers, was produced in Bristol. He found more success the following year with Tango, first produced in London in 1966. Stoppard firmly established himself as a new playwriting talent with his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. First produced at the Edinburgh Festival in 1966 then on the West End and on Broadway in 1967, Stoppard's play focused on the titular minor characters in Hamlet and imagined Shakespeare's story through their eyes. He won a Tony Award for best play for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1968.

Stoppard continued to write plays prolifically for the next two decades. Through the late 1980s, he wrote and produced a play nearly every two years. Among his most acclaimed works were the Tony Award—winning Travesties (produced on the West End and Broadway in 1974), the Evening Standard Award—winning Jumpers (produced on the West End in 1972 and on Broadway in 1974), and the Tony Award—winning The Real Thing (produced on the West End in 1982 and on Broadway in 1984). He also tried his hand at directing in 1973, with a London production of Born Yesterday.

After Artist Descending a Staircase (produced on the West End in 1988 and on Broadway in 1989), Stoppard moved away from the theater for a few years. Radio, television, and film had also interested the writer for some time, and he wrote numerous scripts in all media over the years. Stoppard found the most success in film. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1985 for cowriting the script for Brazil. In the early 1990s, Stoppard adapted his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead for the screen and also directed the film. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead won the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1990.

Stoppard returned to playwriting in the mid-1990s