After Magritte

by Tom Stoppard

Harris, his mother and his wife are a kooky trio. Enter the forceful inspector from Scotland Yard with his constable - which is strange, notes the wife, for she had ordered an ambulance. The officers proceed to place the three under arrest. It is not clear why; something about a parked car, a bunch of .22 caliber shells in the waste basket, and a robbery of the box office of a minstrel show. But Harris has an he had parked near an art gallery to let his mother see some paintings by Magritte in which her obsessional instrument, the tuba, figured grandly. But then it develops that there was no minstrel show at all, and the plot goes haywire. Performed in New York with The Real Inspector Hound.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction, Humor, British Literature, Art

34 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

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

[Hasan Abbasi · Rating 3 out of 5]

نمایشنامه افتر ماگریت اساسا به نظر یک تمرین نمایشنامه نویسی از استاپارد است . ایده ی اصلی نمایش نشان دادن مفهمو عدم توازن چیزها در زندگی است . یک کمدی ست از اشتباهات . همانطور که طراحی صحنه از مجموعه ای از نامتوازن ها تشکیل شده است ( مانند چیزهایی که از سقف آویزانند یا وسایل شلخته بر روی صحنه ) خود ایده نمایش نیز از مجموعه ای از پخش و پلا شده ها و اشتباهات انسانی تشکیل شده است . از هریس که مرد خانه است و دایما در حال تغییر لامپ های خانه است تا زن خانه که چیزها را اشتباه میبیند و مادر خانه که حتی زن و مرد توافق ندارند که مادر کدام از آنهاست . کارآگاه بی دست و پایی وارد خانه آنها میشود و ادعا میکند آنها در دزدی آن روز در یک فروشگاه دست داشته اند ولی در پایان متوجه میشویم که کاراگاه نیز اشتباه میکرده و در واقع اصلا جرمی رخ نداده است . درونمایه اصلی نمایش به زاویه دیدگاه های انسان ها اشاره دارد و اینکه اساسا زندگی چیز به هم ریخته ایست .

[Kushagri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A normal family doing weird-looking things is mistaken for a surreal crime scene by two over-imaginative detectives.

[Abr · Rating 2 out of 5]

نمایشی سرتاسر به‌هم‌ ریخته و نامتوازن، با آدم‌هایی به‌هم ریخته و نامتوزان.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very odd play. Essentially a very surreal tale of detection, somewhat like 'The Real Inspector Hound.' I really enjoyed the aspects of Magritte's work into the play, but it was also quite an odd play. Obviously very surreal, and funny. Not entirely sure how much I would enjoy actually seeing it--outside of how all of the interesting staging would look--but I did enjoy reading it. I also loved how Stoppard tied everything together at the end in such an amusing fashion.

[Kitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, blow on the light, and whether you meant Maigret, Margaret, but classify a Tuba along with femur and fibula Magritte-style, recognizable icons of Magritte paintings wend their way into the play to contradict, almost beyond delightful.

[Tom O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

A deliriously witty and surreal play, paying homage to Magritte through visual puns and the loveably daft nature of it's plot. Light and very funny this has wordplay of the highest order and a serious intelligence cutting loose.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did this play in college and had lots of fun in the role of Harris. Director was a fellow undergraduate student--part of the Student Director class. Tom Stoppard is hilarious!

[Chloe Frances · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun little comedy. Less ideas or substance than stoppard's other stuff, more straight comedy.

[Becky Marietta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absurd as only Tom Stoppard can be; this one was almost TOO absurd for me. I laughed, of course, but it just didn't hit me like some of his other plays.

[Will · Rating 1 out of 5]

Great for people who laugh at lightbulb jokes and think tuba noises are inherently comic.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Does He Have Against Tubas?!

This was bouncing off the walls madness and it was so good! Between the woman in a ballgown, the mother asleep on the ironing board, the man buttering the wrong foot, the detective asking for a TV license and the constable excited by a random bit of furniture you really believed anything could happen! So far this is my favourite bit of absurd theatre and I honestly believe everyone should give it a go.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a bizarre piece that places its characters, through completely cogent means, into situations worthy of a Magritte painting. It features a husband-wife dance team, the rather mystified mother of one of them, and a constable named Holmes. Stoppard notes that it is commonly performed as a companion piece to The Real Inspector Hound.

I read it as a part of my Phd thesis and did not enjoy it one bit.

[Duncan Hendry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun little stupid little play.

[Pranav · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think I got it.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Will you kindly stop interrupting while I am about to embark on my exegesis!!"

Short and funny play that ties up all the loose ends neatly.

[John Arden · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this was a script.
It didn't make a lot of sense, which I think was the point, but it got annoying after a few pages.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Susanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/6 points, play-script, lovely little weird set-ups

[T. Melisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOL

[Mości · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nie lubię tego formatu, ale całkiem zabawne.

[Ben Huxley]

Like Ionesco's Bald Prima Donna, it makes absurdity out of a cliché domestic play, and it's hilarious.

[Kylie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike some of his other loftier works, I think After Magritte works exceptionally well both because the general public has a better idea of who Magritte is and because if you don't, it's an easy concept to pick up. Funny and inventive, it is a little hard to get the show from reading the play alone.