Stop-Rocks

Stoppard uses music to sharp effect, depicting a world increasingly aware of the power of individual consciousness to shape societies. The Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man," for instance, conjures up the Vietnam protests taking place offstage. At the beginning of the play, Pan--the tempestuous Greek god known for his wild music--appears to Max's off-the-rails hippie daughter, Esme. He is a thinly disguised Syd Barrett, the self-destructive Pink Floyd frontman who died earlier this month. The golden boy of late-'60s psychedelia and once a friend of Stoppard's, Barrett was ousted from the band in 1968 as his drug use spiraled out of control. Too much freedom can be as harmful as too little, the play suggests, and some depths of creativity should be left to the gods.

These disparate strands are sewn together brilliantly in Stoppard's tight, tense drama. Jan's apathetic attitude to authority is revealed as less naive than it first appears. For him and his idols, the Plastic People of the Universe, protest is about small, individual acts of rebellion: not getting a haircut, refusing to alter song lyrics. Stoppard deftly narrows the gap between pop artists and intellectuals, high and low culture--a distinction Havel also explored in his influential 1978 essay "The Power of the Powerless," in which he stressed the significance of seemingly small individual choices in combating a totalitarian regime.

Stoppard is a master architect of language and ideas. In the play, theory falls away and words lose their meaning when they become twisted for political ends. In an overt criticism of current British and U.S. policies, Jan says, "Giving new meanings to words is how socialism in Czechoslovakia lied to itself ... After that an invasion by foreign armies could become fraternal assistance." Stoppard has delved deep into his passion for music and his own conflicted past to reveal that there is a raw truth in art and individual expression that goes beyond fickle words, so abused to political ends. These twin forces ignite his new play, bringing vividly to life this timely and sharp exploration of rebellion, consciousness and truth.

© 2006