^#smrgSAHAF The Real Inspector Hound -

Tom Stoppard is the author of such seminal works as Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Travesties, Every Good Boy Deserves a Favor, Arcadia, Jumpers, The Real Thing, and The Invention of Love.

Tom Stoppard's convoluted farce plays with identity and the nature of reality. There is a play within a play--a marvelous send-up of drawing room mysteries--and a couple of drama critics who comment on the stage action in rather oblique ways that often make it seem that they may actually be speaking of their relations with the actors playing the characters. Then they enter the action of the play and everyone seems compelled to remain in character. I suppose one could read a lot into this, such as the nature of the roles we play in society or the degree to which the reality we experience is deterministic or preordained, but frankly I just enjoyed the humor. It's too clever by half to be a meaningful statement about the human condition, but just witty enough to be a terrific comedy.