Invention of Love FROM THE PUBLISHER
It is 1936 and A.E. Housman is being ferried across the river Styx, glad to be dead at last. His memories are dramatically alive. The river that flows through Tom Stoppard's new play connects Hades with the Oxford of Housman's youth: High Victorian morality is under siege from the Aesthetic movement, and an Irish student called Wilde is preparing to burst onto the London scene.
On his journey the elder Housman confronts his younger self, the flamboyant Wilde, and the memories of the man he loved his entire life, Moses Jackson -- the handsome, athletic, and wholly heterosexual classmate who could not return his affection. Housman reflects on a life spent alone, first as a patent office clerk, and then as a renowned classics scholar, burying his passion in his poetry. As if a dream, The Invention of Love travels through Housman's life -- a struggle with unrequited love and his passion for dead texts -- and asks, Which is more fatal: intellect or emotion?
FROM THE CRITICS
Sunday Times (London)
Tom Stoppard at his best; manipulative, inquisitive, irresistible...a master at work.
Daily Telegraph
Tom Stoppard is at the top of his form....The Invention of Love does not just make you think, it also makes you feel.
Financial Times
Some of the finest, most passionate, and most disarmingly brilliant dramatic writing that he has given us.
Evening Standard
A magical memory play which meanders like an elaborate dream....Stoppard has been inspired to write the most emotionally powerful and enthralling play of his career. Never before has he written with such exciting eloquence.
Vincent Canby
"So beautifully constructed the the playwritht seems to be discovering his play only one jump ahead of the audience. Iti has the sense of surprise and wonder." -- New York Times
Home
