Read before seeing staged reading at ACT. Like most plays, hard to get full picture from own reading - much more fun to see performance. Nice, intricate-if-minor Stoppard. ( )

Double-agents, double crosses, double helices, double entendres, 'double, double, toil and trouble.' Double-bluff, double-bogey, double-density, double fault, doublespeak, doublethink, double vision, and the ultimate double-whammy. Dual purposes, dual-citizenships, and dual personalities. The properties, relationships, and interactions of people, nations, and sub-atomic particles.
Plays are meant to be seen not read. Dramaturgy should forever be outlawed, and and the dramaturg should never be allowed to attend a rehearsal. BUT...if one is unable to sit in the theatre and experience the action on the stage THEN reading the likes of Shakespeare, Sheppard, and Stoppard are the next best thing. Always a joy to read Sir Tom's words. Top-drawer, top-notch, top-shelf. Once more unto the breach... ( )

One of the most convoluted Stoppard works I've ever read - and that's setting a high bar, since Stoppard is noted for his convoluted plots. This one involves agents and double agents, with twins moving in and out to complicate things. At one point or another, everyone is suspect. Red herrings draw you first one way, then the other, and a few traces of quantum physics lend an air of strategic importance to the goings on. In the end, the scheming of the agents and moles renders the activities of the various intelligence agencies (mostly British, in this case, but with a short nod to the KGB and CIA, as well) ridiculous and buffoonish. Which, if one follows the news, is not a difficult conclusion to reach. Stoppard presents it all with wit and style, but it does not match some of his other, more sublime plays. ( )

Stoppard was having fun reading about quantum mechanics, so he wrote a parody of Le Carre-style spy thrillers as a vehicle to share it. The original 1988 version didn't do well in London, this is the 1994 revision that was a success in New York. ( )

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