Tom Stoppard's Hapgood Coming to Duke
DURHAM, N.C. – Science, math, political science, history, philosophy, psychology, humor, sleight of hand, spies—this play has it all. Tom Stoppard’s Hapgood will play in Sheafer Theater in the Bryan Center on Duke’s West Campus November 18-21, and like all of Stoppard’s work, it will provide the audience with both challenges and entertainment.
Jeffery West of the Theater Studies faculty will direct the Duke Department of Theater Studies mainstage production. “I chose a Stoppard play because I revere his writing,” says West. “He is interested in everything, and pursues his eclectic interests with ferocity. Hapgood seems on the surface to be a cold war spy mystery, but turns out to be much more.
“Stoppard explores the questions of who we are and why we do what we do in the framework of an espionage drama set during the Cold War a la Robert Ludlum. But I found the play to be still relevant in the post-9/11 era because it probes the way individuals rationalize, justify, and finally are forced to take responsibility for the results of their actions.”
Jeffery West has been associated with Stoppard plays before, having directed Arcadia at Duke and acted in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. West likes the fact that Stoppard deals with philosophical ideas, but combines them with wit and humor. “Hapgood will be a great play for the students to be involved in, with British and Russian dialects, the challenge of understanding and recreating the Cold War period, and Stoppard’s usual brilliant wordplay and innuendo,” says West. “And I think the audience will find the play to be thought-provoking in considering personal and political morality with the new problems and dangers we face in the world today.”
(http://www.duke.edu/web/drama/ or 919-684-4444 for more information or to purchase tickets.)
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