Tom Stoppard, Hapgood

Doris Mader (Karl-Franzens-Universit)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1988

Places

United Kingdom (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

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When the Peter Wood production of Tom Stoppard’s

Hapgood

opened at the Aldwych Theatre in London on 8 March 1988 (later performed in New York in 1994), the theatrical world saw the first (and so far the only) staging of particle physics. The play, inspired by Richard Feynman’s

Lectures on Physics

, intertwines scientific concepts with an austere love story set in an intricately woven Cold War spy thriller. Immediately on release,

Hapgood

met with considerable criticism for its allegedly stilted and stylised action, some improbabilities of plot, and for its overly complicated, perhaps even irritating, structure. Ever since the award-winning

Arcadia

came out in 1993,

Hapgood

has even been dismissed as merely paving the way for this second and much more successful “science play” (see…

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4326 words

Citation: Mader, Doris. "Hapgood". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 July 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16432, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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Tom Stoppard, Hapgood

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

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