Life is full of peculiar ironies and thus, Tom Stoppard, quite possibly the most most dizzyingly proficient writer of the English tongue did not grow up speaking English. to college. He is, to use his old joke, a bounced check. He grew up in Czechoslovakia and spoke that language until the age of three-and-one half, or perhaps five.
Accounts of Stoppard's past tend to vary a bit. There followed a series of abrupt moves triggered by the onset of war. The very short version of this story is that Stoppard's father, a doctor, stayed behind in Singapore where he was needed and paid for that ethical decision with his life.
Stoppard and the rest of his family ended up in India where young Tom did some of his growing up. His mother married the man whose name Stoppard bears.
But, the great playwright isn't a fan of biographical analysis.
So, whatever we talk about today live from The Study at Yale in New Haven, it probably won't be that.
Leave your comments below, email us at colin@wnpr.org, or tweet us @wnprcolin.
GUEST:
- Tom Stoppard is a Czech-born playwright. His most famous works include "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" and "Every Good Boy Deserves Favor." He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1998 Academy Award winning film, "Shakespeare in Love." Over the course of his career he has written for radio, television, film and stage. He' received one Academy Award and four Tony Awards for his work.
