After Magritte
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''After Magritte'' is a
surreal Surreal may refer to: *Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art * "Surreal" (song), a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki * ''Surreal'' (album), an album by Man Raze *Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor ...
comedy written by
Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is 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 politi ...
in 1970. It was first performed in the Green Banana Restaurant at the Ambiance Lunch-hour Theatre Club in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.


History

Tom Stoppard wrote ''After Magritte'' during the period of his well-known plays ''
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead ''Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'' is an absurdist, existential tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966. The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare's ''Hamle ...
'' and ''
The Real Inspector Hound ''The Real Inspector Hound'' is a short, one-act play by Tom Stoppard. The plot follows two theatre critics named Moon and Birdboot who are watching a ludicrous setup of a country house murder mystery, in the style of a whodunit. By chance, th ...
.'' Stoppard was already well-established as a writer of stage, radio, and television plays. The idea struck for ''After Magritte'' came to him while writing the Radio play ''Artist Descending a Staircase,'' which was based on a
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
painting of a similar name. Around this time Tom Stoppard was beginning to become interested in bringing his plays to an American stage.


Motifs


Surrealism

''After Magritte'' is an example of Surrealism in the arts, in which what is seen by the naked eye is not what the art necessarily expresses. The basis of the surrealism in this play is the predisposition of Rene Magritte as a surrealist painter; Stoppard sought to bring to life the characters inside of Magritte’s surrealist reality. The idea behind ''After Magritte'' is partly to represent the surrealist schools of thought that are shared between art forms, but also to animate Magritte's world of still images, and to its illogical situations perpetually illogical.


Absurdism (Art vs Reality)

''After Magritte'' is also an example of Absurdism, which is based on the idea that humans are always in search of inherent meaning in life, even when there is no meaning—at least none that is understandable. As Rene Magritte's paintings places figures in situations that are devoid of meaning to our eyes, so Stoppard's characters try to find meaning, even as they don’t know why they are in this painting or why they are doing certain things. Stoppard creates confusion through his use of language: "Several critics have noticed the specific quality of language in the play, the use of puns and the fact that language is an inadequate means of describing reality."


Setting of the play

The setting of the play takes in an unidentified Rene Magritte painting that bears similarities to his ''L'assassin menacé''. Stoppard describes the set in his script: “The only light comes through the large window which is facing the audience…The central ceiling light hangs from a long flex which disappears up into the flies. The lampshade itself it a heavy metal hemisphere, opaque,…similarly hanging from the flies, is a fruit basket attractively overflowing with apples, oranges, bananas, pineapple, and grapes,…It will become apparent that the light fixture is on a counterweight system, it can be raised and lowered, or kept in any vertical position, by means of the counterbalance, which in this case is a basket of fruit. Most of the furniture is stack up against the street door in a sort of barricade, an essential item is a long low bench-type table, about eight feet long, but the pile also includes a settee, two comfortable chairs, a TV set, a cupboard and a wind up gramophone with an old-fashioned horn…” The set as described by Stoppard resembles the beginning of the play ''
Tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...
'' by Slawomir Mrożek, which was translated by Stoppard in 1966.


Synopsis

The play begins with an astonished policeman looking through the window of a house where a group of people are posed in a bizarre,
surreal Surreal may refer to: *Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art * "Surreal" (song), a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki * ''Surreal'' (album), an album by Man Raze *Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor ...
tableau Tableau (French for 'little table' literally, also used to mean 'picture'; tableaux or, rarely, tableaus) may refer to: Arts * ''Tableau'', a series of four paintings by Piet Mondrian titled ''Tableau I'' through to ''Tableau IV'' * ''Tableau viv ...
reminiscent of the paintings of
René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...
. Finding this suspicious, he calls in his inspector. Inside the room, a rational explanation for the tableau gradually becomes apparent. Two ballroom dancers, a man and a woman named Reginald and Thelma Harris, are hurriedly getting ready for an event. A lampshade which had used bullets as a counterweight has broken and a woman crawls on the floor to look for them. The mother plays the tuba. The inspector arrives and asks about the family's memories of a man they had seen outside of the
Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
, where a
René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bounda ...
exhibit is being held. He invents an entirely false story, accusing the family of complicity in a crime known as the Crippled Minstrel Caper. As he continues, the stage picture becomes increasingly ridiculous. For instance, the couple offers the inspector a banana as the male dancer stands on one foot. One scene is even performed in total darkness. By the end of the play, the characters are posed in another Magritte-like tableau.


Reception

Randolph Ryan praised ''After Magritte'' as “a clever and funny look at the problem of determining reality, reduced from philosophic terms to those of farce.” Theresa Montana Sabo dubbed it "witty" along with ''
The Real Inspector Hound ''The Real Inspector Hound'' is a short, one-act play by Tom Stoppard. The plot follows two theatre critics named Moon and Birdboot who are watching a ludicrous setup of a country house murder mystery, in the style of a whodunit. By chance, th ...
'' (1968). Jadwiga Uchman called the play "hilariously funny" in 1999 and argued, "Stoppard wittily employs language to create confusion, making it clear that it is an imperfect tool for describing reality." Nancy Worssam of ''
The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington (s ...
'' wrote, "None of this preposterous yet outrageously funny behavior seems to make sense. Amazingly, by play’s conclusion, everything that had appeared to be totally idiotic is explainable. And isn’t that more than a bit like life?" Leone Lucille Michel stated, "Attention to structure at the expense of ideas marks this as one of Stoppard's less notable achievements. Nevertheless, as ingeniously constructed light entertainment, ''After Magritte'' succeeds to a great extent". Jess M. Bravin of ''
The Harvard Crimson ''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...
'' said that the play is, like ''
The Real Inspector Hound ''The Real Inspector Hound'' is a short, one-act play by Tom Stoppard. The plot follows two theatre critics named Moon and Birdboot who are watching a ludicrous setup of a country house murder mystery, in the style of a whodunit. By chance, th ...
'', weaker in character development and plot than in dialogue, but that this is a less important flaw in the case of ''After Magritte'' because of its brevity. He described both works as "diverting and enjoyable entertainment". Adam Langer praised the exchanges between the five characters about the man walking near the gallery as "hilariously whimsical and disorienting ..despite the sophomoric philosophizing about perceptions, the play, with its many inspired sight gags and turns of phrase, can be a hoot."
Clive Barnes Clive Alexander Barnes (13 May 1927 – 19 November 2008) was an English writer and critic. From 1965 to 1977, he was the dance and theater critic for ''The New York Times'', and, from 1978 until his death, ''The New York Post.'' Barnes had sign ...
referred to ''After Magritte'' as "a brief Dadaist sketch that somehow does not quite sustain itself". J. Wynn Rousuck of ''
The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
'' dismissed it as a "trifle" for Stoppard. Todd Everett wrote that "Stoppard’s manic script ..simply doesn’t make much sense."


Premiere

Actors and characters for premiere at the Green Banana Restaurant at the Ambiance Lunch-hour Theatre Club in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. * Harris - Stephen Moore * Thelma -
Prunella Scales Prunella Margaret Rumney West Scales (''née'' Illingworth; born 22 June 1932) is an English former actress, best known for playing Sybil Fawlty, wife of Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), in the BBC comedy '' Fawlty Towers'', her nomination for a ...
* Mother -
Josephine Tewson Josephine Ann Tewson (26 February 1931 – 18 August 2022) was an English actress, best known for her roles in British television sitcoms, such as Edna Hawkins ("Mrs H") in '' Shelley'', Elizabeth "Liz" Warden in ''Keeping Up Appearances'' (1 ...
* Foot -
Clive Barker Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English novelist, playwright, author, film director, and visual artist who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the ''Books of Blood'', which established him as a leading h ...
* Holmes - Malcom Ingram Directed by Geoffrey Reeves


References

{{Italic title 1970 plays Plays by Tom Stoppard