Tom Stoppard and Me

The one thing left on my bucket list is to write a Stoppardian play. That would mean a comedy with characters whose dialogue would mix their personal stories with some intellectual controversy in a collage of images and allusions to literary or scientific sources. An unkind critic said a Stoppardian play uses complexity of form to disguise a simplicity of thought.

I tried, but never got beyond the brainstorming stage. It's probably a mistake to start with the form and not with a subject of interest. Anyway, he died today, so he'll never see my homage, should I ever write it.

Regardless, I loved what I read and I liked what I saw.

Bruce Davison, actor on stage and screen, starred in the Duke Players' production of Stoppard's Travesties for which I was props manager. Davison was Duke's artist-in-residence that year, around 1980. I was honored when the actor inserted "Scott Smoot" into a list of names during a performance.

The earth moved for me the first time I saw a play of his that I could understand. It was a one-act take-off on Agatha Christie's plays that he called The Real Inspector Hound. Mid-way, the phone rings and just keeps ringing. A theatre critic who has commented on the first half of the play gets annoyed and climbs up onto the stage to silence the phone. From that point on, every line and stage movement is practically a repeat of the first half of the play, only it all means something new with this different character.

Stoppard performed a similar feat in his screenplay for Russia House, which opens with a story told by Sean Connery, heard three times, verbatim. Each time we hear the words, we're seeing a different angle on the story that changes its meaning completely.

I was delighted, and in awe. I felt the ground drop away, and I was in free-fall. I'm always grateful for that experience.

I got that same feeling from Arcadia, a much more substantial and emotional (and joyful!) play. I admit that other live performances were rarely as strong as the ones I imagined while I read and marked cross-references, puns, and epigrams. A Broadway production of Jumpers, a play I'd read with delight, was especially disappointing. I missed so much that I had caught on the page.

That's more or less my experience with other Stoppard plays. Below are links to my blogposts about Stoppard's works:

• Stoppard's The Hard Problem: Dramatizing Thought
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: Still Kicking How do we gain when Stoppard crosses Hamlet with Waiting for Godot? Let me count the ways!
• The Invention of Stoppard Stoppard's favorite of his own works was The Invention of Love. I saw it on Broadway and I read it closely. Stoppard eluded me, but I do think my essay about the show hits on something great: the playwright known for verbal virtuosity achieves his greatest emotional effect in the silence between just two words.
• I read today (Stoppard's death) that he thought Arcadia was his best play. Me, too. I wrote about it in Math and Tenderness.
• I tried to appreciate Stoppard's suite of plays called The Coast of Utopia about the intellectual developments of the 19th century that led Russia to totalitarianism. I didn't succeed. Or maybe, Stoppard didn't. You Had to be There.

I may some day post notes I wrote longhand on Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, The Real Thing, Travesties, and Night and Day.

When I studied at Oxford in the summer of 1980, the lords of British theatre were Stoppard, his buddy Pinter, and their less-revered-but-more-popular colleague Peter Shaffer. I wrote about the other two when they died:

Playwright Sees God: Remembering Peter Shaffer https://smootpage.blogspot.com/2016/06/remembering-playwright-peter-shaffer.html

A Moment of Silence for Harold Pinterhttps://smootpage.blogspot.com/2008/12/moment-of-silence-for-harold-pinter.html

Premieres by young composer Nathaniel Davila

Young composer Nathaniel Davila presented a recital of original works Sunday night November 9. Although he is a baritone, he has sung Tenor with St. James parish choir for two years. I and many other members of the choir were there.

In Scott Hall of KSU's Bailey Arts Center, we heard live performances of several chamber works by Nathaniel. The theme of the recital was a question, "How do you express character in music?" In a three-movement work for piano, cello, and bassoon, Nathaniel played with the notion that time changes character while character also changes our perception of time.

We also viewed a short film Distance for which Nathaniel composed the score. The story is about a relationship when the partners are separated for a summer. The director used split screens to show the action, so Nathaniel created parallel themes. Like parallel lanes of a north-south highway, the characters' themes moved in opposite directions: not a good sign for their relationship!

Another piece featured a choir singing vocalese in close harmony over, and sometimes against, a tonal background created by instruments.

At the conclusion, Nathaniel thanked Dr. Black. "I have learned so much from St. James," he said. In the photo, he's pictured at the piano, surrounded by members of the choir.

Remembering Mom

Frances M. Smoot
Educator, Dancer, Runner
November 5, 1934 – November 6, 2025

Frances Smoot died in her sleep one day after her 91st birthday. She was born Frances Lee Maier in 1934. Throughout her childhood in Cincinnati, she danced ballet and tap, continuing to dance in the annual revues at Walnut Hills High School. There she met Tom Smoot, a “bad boy” who reformed under her influence. She finished her undergraduate degree in Education at the University of Cincinnati, and married Tom in 1955. Over the next seven years, their family grew by three children, daughter Kim and sons Scott and Todd. They lived in Champaign-Urbana, Pittsburgh, and Chicago before settling in the Atlanta area in 1969.

Once the youngest child Todd reached middle grades, Frances started her career as a teacher at Holy Innocents Episcopal School in Sandy Springs in 1972. Soon, she was leader of the third-grade team. After she earned a graduate degree in Educational Administration, she instituted the school’s summer program, directing it for twelve years. At the celebration of her retirement from Holy Innocents in 2005, she surprised the faculty by handspringing up onto the stage to accept her plaque.

Frances also became an entrepreneur. With friends, she purchased properties to rent or resell. She managed a pool of writing tutors that she called “The Write Connection.”

Tom and Frances traveled the world. From Alaska to Peru, Iceland to Italy, Egypt to South Africa, Australia to New Zealand, and India to China, Tom and Frances covered every continent but Antarctica. Her brother Jack Maier and sister-in-law Blanche often accompanied them on their travels. Closer to home, Tom and Frances flew in a hot air balloon and parachuted from a plane. Tom made photo collages of their many adventures, keepsakes that Frances treasured.

Frances and Tom went to great lengths to support their children. When son Todd joined his high school’s track team, Tom and Frances both began to train as well. During the 1980s and 90s, Frances competed in Atlanta Track Club events, often winning her age division, being the only contestant.

While Frances was a consummate cook and entertainer for social occasions, the grandest party of all was a surprise to her. Years in advance, Tom invited guests to her 60th birthday, and they came from as far away as Italy. He rented the top floor of an Atlanta skyscraper, and led her to believe they were going to a friend’s retirement party.

Shortly after Frances retired, she and Tom followed Todd to Valdosta to be close to their grandchildren Raymond Craig and Mary Alice. They continued to race, supporting Todd’s business promoting track events, and they were active in Valdosta’s First Presbyterian Church. They also rescued Sassy, a miniature Doberman Pinscher who had been slated for euthanasia. When Tom died in 2010, Frances wrapped up affairs in Valdosta and returned to the Atlanta area in 2012. At Winnwood Retirement Community, she made friends and kept active walking with Sassy to the end of the dog’s life. During this time, Laura Robinson of Visiting Angels became her daily companion and friend.

In 2018, she moved to memory care at Arbor Terrace, where she was a bright and lively presence. A director there observed that her schoolteacher instincts kicked in, as she encouraged others in warm but firm tones to participate in conversation. With Laura at her side, she never felt alone during months of COVID-19 lockdown.

As dementia progressed, Frances forgot how to walk and talk, but she maintained a regal bearing and sense of humor. Some of the staff at Arbor Terrace referred to her as “The Queen.” During a visit when she hadn’t opened her eyes or said a word, Scott chatted with the nurse who was feeding her. When he rose to go, he said, “Ok, Mom, nice talking with you.” She stopped chewing and said, distinctly, “Yeah. Right.”

More about Mom

• All the articles I wrote to work through my range of feelings since Mom's diagnosis are linked on one-page overview at Dementia Diary. It may be of help to others shepherding a loved one through the same valleys.
• Articles about Mom in the context of generations of my family are linked to a page I call Family Corner.