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Read The Real Inspector Hound And Other Plays (1998)

The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays (1998)

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Rating
4.02 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0802135617 (ISBN13: 9780802135612)
Language
English
Publisher
grove press

The Real Inspector Hound And Other Plays (1998) - Plot & Excerpts

Presented here is the kind of work one imagines a clever young Briton might write upon completing university and going down to London: playful, imaginative, zestful in its learnedness, and above all—did I say this already?—playful. Come to think of it, much of Tom Stoppard’s work may seem like it was produced by someone who accumulated a good store of knowledge in his college years and continued to add to it while playing with it in his scripts. It’s no surprise to find him concluding his brief introduction, dated 1993, with the observation that “The ‘role of the theatre’ is much debated (by almost nobody, of course), but the thing defines itself in practice first and foremost as a recreation.” Stoppard is one of those dramatists who reminds you of the multiple meanings of the word “play.” But anyone who knows his writing probably will be surprised to learn, as the Wikipedia entry on him reports, that Stoppard never attended university. Clearly, there are some minds so dense that no degree of training will ever force in much light, and there are others so open and absorptive that no lack of formal education will keep them from learning. (Surely that’s been better said somewhere.)In this collection of jeux d’esprit, one will find, among other things: the country-house murder mystery distilled to a quintessence of formulaic silliness; the ambition as well as the self-important writing style of critics—they happen to be theater critics—expanded and whipped into a kind of froth; paintings by Magritte miraculously set in motion (it helps to see a production in which they’re reproduced in a lobby display, as I did); two estimates as to what really goes on behind the close doors of so-called deliberative bodies, where the subject at hand is sex scandals and a citizenship application; a Wittgensteinian conundrum about language dramatized in the context of a Hamlet production; and a takeoff inspired by Stoppard’s discovery that Czech playwright Pavel Kohout and a handful of colleagues, prevented by the government from working in legitimate theaters, prepared a condensed version of Macbeth to be performed in the living room of anyone who invited them.For readers, and quite likely for theatergoers as well, the most appealing of these works is The Real Inspector Hound. It’s a one-act play containing the murder-mystery parody and theater-critics satire I mentioned, along with a line about the skeleton in the closet coming home to roost, and other delights that will go unquoted here. But it’s not without seriousness! It imparts a valuable moral lesson, admittedly not often applicable, but crucial in certain cases: if you’re seated in a theater during intermission and the phone on the stage begins to ring, don’t answer it.To slip into doge: Such play. Amaze!

What do You think about The Real Inspector Hound And Other Plays (1998)?

This collection of shorter works from the 1970s is among the better Tom Stoppard I've read. The title piece, a send-up of Christie-style whodunnits, is a seamless work of beauty which effectively blurs the line between performers, audience, and the critics who attempt to mediate between them. Both a poke at the formulaic structure of "classic" murder mysteries as well as a dig at theater critics, "The Real Inspector Hound" is non-stop laughs. Although the word "clever" is chronically over-used, the mesh between Stoppard's plot and dialogue earns it here.Much the same praise extends to "After Magritte," which succeeds in exemplifying that artist's work. It toys with the dichotomy between appearance and reality, the subjective and the objective. Specifically, the capacity to view one's self objectively is called into question, as is the inevitability of viewing others subjectively."Dirty Linen," is paired with "New-Found-Land," and the two form an inseparable whole. Stoppard has managed to recycle the same setting for two very different stories, one taking place in the middle of the other. Thus, "Dirty Linen," a study of sexual mores as they relate to people (not just men) in positions of power is, effectively split into two scenes. Between these appears "New-Found-Land," an hilarious concentrate of bad American stereotypes, somehow both accurate and ludicrously off-base at the same time.The dog of the bunch here is "Dogg's Hamlet," which is a noble, but failed, experiment in the redefinition and understanding of language. Stoppard effectively demonstrates how language is an act of collusion, but his point is made in the introduction, and the playing out of the scenario quickly becomes tedious as long streams of seemingly unrelated words fly past at a rapid pace. Its companion piece, "Cahoot's Macbeth," is generally much more successful, painting a picture of the absurdity with which totalitarian regimes must live in constant terror of the power of words. Unfortunately, because it is tied in directly to "Dogg's Hamlet," it cannot be separated from that piece in any meaningful way. And by intertwining the two, the end of "Cahoot's Macbeth" comes off a bit muddled and perfunctory, like an engine suddenly running out of steam.Despite the faults which "Dogg's Hamlet" introduces into this volume, based on its contents, it is clear that the overall quality of Stoppard's work during the 1970s was astonishing. Fans of his work should be well-pleased.
—John

Tom Stoppard is extraordinarily erudite, and often very funny. I love his best known play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and was also a big fan of his one and only novel. This collection didn't hit me the same way, though.The first play, the Real Inspector Hound, was my favorite. As others have said, it is both a send-up of the mystery genre and a commentary on criticism, while also managing to be funny to boot.Unfortunately, I thought there was diminishing returns on the rest of the plays, though it has crossed my mind that they may play better on stage where it would be easier to understand some of the action and blocking. While these plays can sometimes be clever, there really isn't much emotional pitch involved.
—Brett

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