In the Native State

by Tom Stoppard

Hardcover in very good condition. First edition. Mylar covered jacket (unclipped). All text is clear. CM

Genres: Theatre, Drama, Plays

85 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

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

[Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discusses colonialism in India, art, poetry, secrets, and the connections people make across time through these things. I'm excited to read Indian Ink, Stoppard's updated version of this radio play, next!

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good play. I'm a little bit prejudiced against anything written after Shaw, play-wise, so I didn't enjoy it all that much. Basically, give me Shakespeare every time. In any case, you can tell that Stoppard is brilliant and knows the canon like the back of his hand, but the two plays of his I've come in contact with seemed more witty than insightful. Meh.

[Nguyễn Phát · Rating 1 out of 5]

Problematic, romanticizing colonial time, no clear counter voices against these arrogant, self-righteous English people.