Rock 'n' Roll has every ingredient required for stupendous theatre: when Tom Stoppard (arguably our greatest living playwright) is produced by Trevor Nunn the results are guarenteed to be impressive. And Stoppard's subject matter - the fall of communism - is as intriguiing as it is exciting. As Mark Lawson managed to establish during a recent painful interview on Radio 4, the death of Stoppard's mother has allowed him to return to Czeckoslovakia, and use the medium of drama to make his point.
And the point is that economic freedom and political freedom are necessarily intertwined. Jan's freedom of expression - his freedom to listen to the Plastic People of the Universe, and to grow his hair long - are treated as dissidence and subversion. Simple Rock and Roll is the prism through which to view the institutions that support rival economic systems, and is an interesting departure for Stoppard. He is comfortable and confident at utilising intellectual pursuits within his plays (chaos theory in "Arcadia" is a classic example), but here he opts for a cultural phenomena. It's important that he does so, because Max's Marxism is too central to the themes of the play, and therefore intellectualising ideology would become absurd. Rock and Roll is the perfect foil because - like feminism and pacifism - they are social constructs that raise consciousness. They are geniune constitutional moments where "we the people" make our point.
This is majestically staged in the final scene, as Jan and Esme attend a Rolling Stones concert in Prague, and we - the audience - are on stage. Despite this triumphant ending it should be clear that participative democracy is neither the struggle nor the prize. Ultimately the promotion of Rock and Roll as the mechanism by which upheaval occurs runs counter to the intentions of it's fans. Jan is not a dissident and is not searching for a revolution. In one blindingly insightful moment Stoppard points out that politicians are frightened by indifference, not by dissidence. This play is about the right to apathy, not the right to Rock 'n' Roll or even freedom itself.
Stoppard is a master at dealing with chronology (Henry IV shows this perfectly), and Rock 'n' Roll takes us from 1968 to 1990 in a believable manner; the characters develop and the constant soundtrack works well. To cope with this timeline the set was inspired: a rotating disc split into four, allowing quick scene changes and fluid movement between time and space. The acting was a little RSC for my taste, and demonstrated how Stoppard, alas, can bring out the worst in an audience. There was a smug ripple of laughter whenever something vaguely intellectual was mentioned, which is a shame because Stoppardian references should be just part of the conversation, rather than stocking fillers. I wonder if my training as a Sovietologist obscures my viewing pleasure, implying that Stoppard only writes for the layman, not the expert. I'm not sure.
Still, at times it bordered on being a musical, and how musicals should be (i.e. uplifting, well written, and compelling). The audience was as geniune a cross section of theater-goers I've ever seen, and if it can draw Mick Jagger and Timothy Garton-Ash to the opening night we know it's hit that perfect boundary between intellectualism and entertainment. A riveting play, played well.
Stoppard is always dealing with ideas, and it's been inevitable that he'd deal with ideology. It's been worth the wait.
Anthony Evans
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