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Crime Fiction Session Three: Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound

Agenda • • • •

Fiction vs drama Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound: The play and the-play-within-the-play The play and the country house murder mystery: parody and pastiche

Fiction vs Drama • Fiction: • (re)reading • Asynchronic experience

• • • •

Drama: Watching Listening Synchronic experience

Fiction vs Drama • Fiction involves reading. When we read fiction, we have to recreate the fictional world in our minds. • Plays involve watching and listening. When we watch a play we are the witnesses to a fictional world that has already been recreated for us (by the director among others).

Fiction vs Drama • Reading is an asynchronous experience. It allows for rereading. We have the opportunity of refreshing our memories by going over particular passages again. • Watching a play is a synchronous experience. We cannot ask the actors to recapitulate a particular scene or dialogue.

Fiction vs Drama • Because we’re supposed to get the point the first time around, drama tends to be less complex than prose fiction. • A play will often use repetitions to secure that its point is registered.

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • Read the opening stage direction carefully • Make a drawing of the stage following the direction carefully (use the following slide to get you started. • Include the drawing in your portfolio

http://www.theatrecrafts.com/glossa ry/pages/stageplan.html

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • Stoppard’s play follows the play-within-theplay convention that most people are familiar with from Hamlet, for instance. • We have two levels: • The level of the play is constituted by two theatre critics watching a play • The level of the play-within-the-play is the whodunnit they’re are watching and reviewing

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • Stoppard’s play, then, mingles the two levels as Birdboot and Moon are caught up in the action of the play-within-the-play • Like the opening tableau, this mixing of levels is also ”impossible” since they represent two distinct and mutually exclusive categories:

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • The play: • Life • Reality

• The play-within-theplay: • Art • Fiction

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • On a piece of paper, make a list of characters for the play and the play-withinthe-play respectively • Show how they cross over between the two levels (follow, for instance, my suggestions in the next slide) • Include the list of characters and their relationships to the two levels in the portfolio

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • The play: • • • •

Life Reality Birdboot Moon

• The play-within-theplay: • Art • Fiction • Simon Gascoyne • Inspector Hound

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • By having the two levels merge with each other, Stoppard appears to want to teach us a lesson: • Our existences are intertwined with scripts and roles – we play a part in life. That we cannot escape. • If you want to succeed, you’ll have to do more than just to follow the script (since sticking to the script gets you killed). • To succeed you’ll have to be a ”cunning bastard” (Moon’s expression at the end of the play) and actively manipulate the scripts you’re written into and the roles you play.

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • In his play, Stoppard makes use of and manipulates a famous generic convention for his own ends: The country house murder mystery. • More particularly, he draws upon Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap • Find information on the Internet concerning The Mousetrap, especially concerning its ending. Print and include in the portfolio (max three documents)

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • Stoppard’s use of the generic conventions of the country house murder mystery involves parody and satire. • For instance, the way in which the telephone is used in the beginning of the play when Mrs Drudge answers it satirises the dramatic incompetence of most whodunnits • The telephone conversation is a clumsy short cut that tries to furnish us with important information concerning, among other things, Lord Albert Muldoon, by having Mrs Drudge tell it to the audience. • A serious playwright would, of course, have dramatised that information and shown it to the audience in a seperate scene, for instance.

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • Make a list of other aspects that strike you as parodic of the genre in general or The Mousetrap in particular. • Your list should include aspects that relate to, among other things, props, characters, dialogue, and action. • Include the list in your portfolio.

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • But Stoppard’s play is clearly not just a parody. It is also a highly effective example of the genre at the same time. It is also a highly effective pastiche. • When we read / watch the play we cannot help but be caught up in the puzzle (who is the killer?) • Similarly, we cannot help but look for clues as to his identity • And lastly, we have to admire Stoppard’s successful manipulation of the conventions of the genre when we discover how closely he has followed the rules pertaining to a locked room mystery: the killer was indeed in their midst all the time!

Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound • Thus, almost like Moon’s dying admiration for Puckeridge , we’re forced to conclude with approval that Tom Stoppard is a ”cunning bastard”!