Artist Descending a Staircase - A Play

by Tom Stoppard

In 1972 an elderly avant garde artist is murdered, leaving his two friends suspecting each other. To reveal why, successive scenes flashback toward the 1920s and then progress back to 1972. Each of the three was infatuated with Sophie. Before she tragically went blind she fell in love with one of them after viewing his picture in a gallery.|1 woman, 6 men

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Audiobook

60 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Sir Tom Stoppard was a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. He was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.

Stoppard's most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1978), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), The Invention of Love (1997), The Coast of Utopia (2002), Rock 'n' Roll (2006) and Leopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays for Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012), as well as the HBO limited series Parade's End (2013). He directed the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), an adaptation of his own 1966 play, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the leads.

He has received numerous awards and honours including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna. The play premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3:
Tom Stoppard's Artist Descending a Staircase is both very much written for, and a tribute to, the medium of radio - the medium for which Tom Stoppard first started writing drama. Originally written for radio in 1972, this will be the first new production to be heard on the airwaves for 43 years.

Taking its title from Duchamp's painting Nude Descending a Staircase No 2, Tom Stoppard's 1972 radio play is both a funny and moving exploration of the meaning and purpose of art and the constantly shifting uncertainties of so-called "reality". It is also a tragic love story.

It begins in classic murder-mystery mode. Donner, an elderly artist, lies dead at the bottom of the staircase. His last moments of life - ambiguous fragments of sounds and words - have been captured by the tape recorder, which his housemate Beauchamp uses to make ''tonal art''. But the meaning of these aural clues (which are replayed and re-examined nearly as assiduously as the tape in Coppola's film The Conversation), depends entirely on the radio listener's interpretation of them. Beauchamp and the third artist, Martello, assume - quite understandably - that the recorded clues can only mean that one or other of them is a murderer. But Stoppard aficionados will know that reality is never quite what it seems, and that there is a characteristic coup de theatre (or coup de radio) awaiting them in the last scene of this beguiling drama.

Sound Design and Original Music: David Chilton

A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 3.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06twqcd

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clever, but not one of Stoppard´s best. As regards the discussion on the nature of modern art I found the much more recent play 'Art' a bit more interesting and funnier.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

tom stoppard in his best form: hilariously funny verbal pyrotechnics

[Natalie Hayner]

I’m choosing to believe the fly did it

[Katlyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dude is clever. It was witty and fun and so ironic it'd make you cry from laughter. Stoppard is so good at repetition and integrating details. The whole thing read like variations on a theme. Creative.

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As part of my "Read Plays and Learn How to Write Plays" initiative I picked this up at the Strand. It was written as a radio play and it was lots of fun to read.

[Playwright42 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Takes a while to see where it's going, but once you do it's beautifully heartbreaking. Originally a radio play, therefore you need little more than the text.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little confusing at first, but completely enjoyable by the end.

[V.]

Listened to the radio play but am listing it here nonetheless because God is dead. Given how specific the jokes and structure of this are to the radio play format it seems excruciatingly pointless to adapt it for the stage. The fact that they tried to do so anyway goes to show you that there's some quality here.

Relatively light and entertaining, admirably avoids the misogyny that it at first seems to be teasing us with. Not exactly the deepest meditation on conceptual vs representational art, but very very clever. Kind of reminded me of the work of Gilbert Adair; I wonder how influenced he was by Stoppard.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Penned in a fragmented style, this is a murder mystery. This tome copies the disorderly style of the Marcel Duchamp painting (Nude Descending a Staircase) after which it is named. The proceedings which shift between 1972, 1914, and several other years, focus on an assemblage of artists who are members of the avant-garde movements of the 1910s and 1970s. Though old, the artists are still experimenting with their styles. Yet conflict ensues when one of them falls (or is pushed) down the stairs. The play, meant for radio, turns into something of a detective tale. I had the chance of narrating this for a video-blog way back in my thesis-writing years.

[Beatrice Achille · Rating 4 out of 5]

A script that moves forward and backward, like it's driven by the tide. It plays around memories and absences. The characters are beautifully crafted, and their way of conversing and debating about art is compelling. The reason I can't give the highest rating to this work by Stoppard is that I feel the essential point remains too implied, too vague, too merely hinted at.
However, I cannot fail to mention that every scene captivated and held me. It was yet another demonstration of this playwright's immense mastery.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to listen to this for my course on Radio plays and even though the essay I need to write for it gives me nightmares, this play was actually pretty nice to listen to. Following the script as I listened to the audio helped me a lot, because with all of the flashbacks and the three main characters being all males, I would've been lost right away with the who's-talking and the when-is-it-happening.

[Scull17 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, sad, intelligent, shocking, et cetera, et cetera.

[Bradley St. L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh man this is devastating, brilliant, and hilarious.

[Theodore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oooo I like. The dramatic framing was cool and affective and it would be so cool to do.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Complicated play winding back and forth across the decades.

[Carter Pisocky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very tricky Mr. Stoppard