ROCK 'N' ROLL, A STOPPARD GRAND SLAM
ROCK 'N' ROLL
Reviewed by Jeff Smith of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle
Before we wade deep into the superficial waters of theatrical criticism, let it be known, that if you see only one play on the west coast, it should be Tom Stoppard's, a.k.a. Tomas Straussler's, ROCK 'N' ROLL.
And, you should probably see it a minimum of twice: Stoppard is profound, complex and, like a good college professor, the pace of his delivery is merciless: there is a lot of material you might miss some of it on the first go around.
Stoppard, much like former President Bill Clinton, argues that "We have to begin again with the ordinary meaning of words."
While Clinton argued that we had to establish "what the definition of 'is' is" and what the exact meaning of "sex" is; Stoppard explores the precise definitions and nuances of a more politically charged lexicon like: liberation, occupation, patriotism, cleansing, art, and solidarity.
Clinton's depth as a linguist is found analogously in Stoppard's superficial character: the Cambridge firebrand: Candida.
Candida recalls her revolution of 1968; it was an endocrinal upheaval when she took to the streets and sheets (mostly the sheets) with drugs, alcohol, protest music and casual but intense and politically meaningful sex.
As she prattles on, fueled by wine and bourgeois self-absorption, her listeners, émigrés from Czechoslovakia, vividly remember their attempted revolution of 1968, i.e. Prague Spring: when the Soviet Tanks took up all the good parking places around Prague and any Czech with half a brain or an ounce of individualism was swept off the streets and toted to re-education centers for cultural "cleansing," forced community service or worse.
Candida on the other hand, blurrily and nostalgically remembers her turgid, turbulent sexual rebellion for her own sartorial courage i.e. the Sergeant Pepper Jacket that she so militantly wore to rock concerts: against the will of her feckless parents.
While rock and roll was a social lubricant for the decadent west and provided the back beat for pelvic gyrations (both on and off the dance floor); it was a social and political adhesive for the oppressed within the Warsaw Pact and its overlord, the Soviet Union.
In addition to listening to rock music from the west, the politically disenfranchised of Czechoslovakia listened to their homegrown (albeit cloned) underground music: principally the Plastic People of the Universe.
The Plastic People got started within weeks of the appearance of Soviet tanks in Prague.
While the Plastic People maintained that they were "outside of politics," in the upside down, paranoid world of perverted Marxism, announcing one's total indifference to politics is an "in your face" political statement.
Not satisfied with total political and economic control, the commie swine targeted musicians in order to gain absolute psychological control over their political prisoners i.e. everyone within the eastern bloc.
Just listening to rock and rolls music, domestic or imported, could get your subsidized toilet paper ration curtailed from three rolls per year to none: not a good thing in a land where laundry detergent is so scarce.
Stoppard's Max is a diehard armchair Commie-Pinko and a fatuous apologist for Lenin and Stalin.
Max valiantly fought the cold war from the University podium at Cambridge: spouting mind-numbing hollow Marxist rhetoric to British ruling class rubes while sipping Clarets on the verdant portico of his limestone villa gratuitously on loan to him by a trusting University.
Amazingly enough, amongst Max's students was one earnest expatriate of Czechoslovakia: Jan.
Upon hearing of the Soviet invasion of Prague in '68, Jan packed up is record albums and mobilized to Prague.
Jan, a Pollyanna, raised beyond the pale of the brutal Soviet Army, entertains the myth that the liberalization process started by the ousted Alexander Dubcek, will resume under the Russian stooge Gustav Husak, once the number of Soviet tanks falls below the number of parking spaces in Prague.
Thanks to a no-knock policy that spares neither the door hinges nor the welcome mat, Jan finds himself in prison for listening to naughty seditious contraband rock and rock music.
Max arrives in Prague to bail Jan out; swapping tepid third rate intelligence tripe for Jan's freedom.
In world where ratting out your neighbor for humming the words to a Bob Dylan tune will earn you an extra roll of toilet paper; the government has ample incentives to run on useless intelligence.
The snitch pretends he has important national security information, the government goon pretends it's hot stuff and so on up the chain of command: everyone gets an extra roll of toilette paper for the month and the senior apparatchik gets a pack of American cigarettes: presumably Marlboros.
Stoppard's play ends happily with the poet Vaclav Havel rhapsodizing at the Czech helm and the Plastic People of the Universe heading off to the very vortex of western decadence i.e. America, to become rich rock stars; hopefully with coteries of mindless groupies.
After all what is the best we can hope for after the Iron Curtain has rusted away?
One final ironic note: as the fabric curtain comes down on a performance of ROCK 'N' ROLL at A.C.T., the Rolling Stone's START ME UP is playing at a volume level suitable for middle age tympanums, ironically the version played has been Bowdlerized, self censorship prevents me from telling you what has been deleted.
You figure it out.
For a thought provoking evening that is sure to exacerbate your existential angst, get thee to the American Conservatory Theater.
For tickets surf to www.act-sf.org or call 415-749-2ACT.
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