As my regular readers already know, I am an enthusiastic admirer of Tomás Straüssler, aka: Tom Stoppard. Of course, I don't know him as a man, only as a playwright and it's no good me trying to extol his virtues in that discipline, the best thing to do is go and see one of his plays. Next month, courtesy of 'SoD', I am off to see his latest (and given Stoppard's advanced age, possibly his last!) play "Leopoldstadt".
In retrospect, I am forever in his debt because seeing, almost by chance, one of his earlier plays, opened up an entirely new horizon for me personally. Until that point I had only a minimal interest in theatre but Stoppard quite blew my mind away and I began to glimpse the terrific imaginative possibilities of theatre. Almost immediately I sought and found an amateur company to try my hand at acting and then directing. It filled, so to speak, my middle ages! Eventually, I was able to direct two of his plays, including what I consider to be his very greatest - "Arcadia". Of course, for me it was - could only be - a hobby but I derived enormous pleasure and mental stimulation from it.
I bore on thus because there is a very good article in The Telegraph today by Eleanor Halls on the subject of Tom Stoppard. It's worth reading but better still, try and see one of his plays if you can.
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