Ashland Theatre Note: On the Razzle

I guess my favorite Tom Stoppard play is Professional Foul, done for BBC TV back in 1977, about philosophers in Prague under the Soviets. It’s the only one I can think of where he gets a completely right mix between Deeper Meaning and his natural silliness. Others, even the best of them, always seem to get a bit labored whenever they get a bit serious: I like them all a lot, but I almost always have to keep my fingers crossed (and I haven’t seen the new trilogy, Coast of Utopia).

So my second favorite would be On the Razzle, the one about grocery clerks on a spree--the one with no redeeming social value whatever (but Ben Brantley in the NYT offers some interesting notes on what a serious interpretation might look like (link)). As such it is pure, distilled Stoppard, with all the virtues that phrae implies.

I’ve thought for a long time that what the Oregon Shakespeare Festival does best is farce. This is farce. They do it well. Indeed, the nearest thing I can think of as a complaint is that it’s so obviously their strong suit, they have trouble coming up with anything really unexpected. For my taste, I’d rather have written On the Razzle than the Declaration of Independence itself.

Update: For some further thoughts on farce at Ashland, go here (link).