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Encyclopedia > The Real Inspector Hound

The Real Inspector Hound is a short play by Tom Stoppard. The story line follows two theatre critics that are watching a ridiculous set-up of a country house murder mystery, in the style of a "whodunit". By accident, they become involved in the action causing a series of events that parallel the play they are watching. Tom Stoppard in a 1985 documentary for the film Brazil Sir Tom Stoppard, OM, CBE (born Tomáš Straussler on July 3, 1937) is an Academy Award winning British playwright. ... Sherlock Holmes, pipe-puffing hero of crime fiction, confers with his colleague Dr. Watson; together these characters popularized the genre. ... A whodunit or whodunnit (for Who done it? and sometimes referred to as a Golden Age Mystery novel) is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is paramount. ...


The play was written between 1961 and 1962, initially named The Stand-ins and later, The Critics. It is a parody of the stereotypical parlor mystery in the style of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, as well as of the critics watching the play, with their personal desires and obsessions interwoven into their bombastic and pompous review. 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ... Parody of Back to the Future In contemporary usage, a parody is a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke some affectionate fun at the work itself, the subject of the work, the author or fictional voice of the parody, or another subject. ... Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (15 September 1890-12 January 1976), also known as Dame Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer. ... St. ... The word critic comes from the Greek κριτικός, kritikós - one who discerns, which itself arises from the Ancient Greek word κριτής, krités, meaning a person who offers reasoned judgement or analysis, value judgement, interpretation, or observation. ...


The Real Inspector Hound, much like Stoppard's earlier play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, examines the ideas of fate and free will as well as exploring the themes of the "play-within-a-play". Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a humorous, absurdist, tragic and existentialist play by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe August 26, 1966. ... For other uses of Fate, see Fate Destiny refers to a predetermined course of events. ...


It is an example of the dramatic style of absurdism.


The work premiered at the Criterion Theatre on 17 June 1968, directed by Robert Chetwyn. The Criterion Theatre The Criterion Theatre is a theatre situated on Piccadilly Circus in the West End of London. ...


Characters

Critics

Moon - a theatre critic, called to the production to critique it in the absence of Higgs, another critic. Moon's jealousy of Higgs' superior reputation seems to make him question his own purpose, with Moon's ultimate thoughts being of Higgs' death.


Birdboot - a theatre critic and a womaniser, who is having an affair with Felicity, one of the actresses in the 'play-within-a-play'.


Higgs - A "first-string" theatre critic, who presides over "second-string" and "third-string" critics Moon and Puckeridge respectively.


Puckeridge - The "third-string" critic; Puckeridge is called in if both Higgs and Moon are unavailable.


Play-within-a-play characters

Mrs. Drudge - The cleaner and maintainer of Muldoon Manor.


Simon Gascoyne - Has had affairs with both Felicity and Cynthia. Takes an instant dislike to Magnus, as they are both in love with Cynthia.


Felicity - A young friend of Cynthia's who has had an affair with Simon.


Cynthia Muldoon - Apparent 'widow' of the 'late Albert Muldoon'. She has had an affair with Simon.


Major Magnus Muldoon - Albert Muldoon's "crippled half-brother" who just flew in from Canada. Has a desire for his late brother's widow, Cynthia. Takes an instant dislike to Simon, as they are both in love with Cynthia.


Inspector Hound - Appears from outside the house in the middle of the play to 'investigate' the murders in Essex.

The Plays of Tom Stoppard
15-Minute Hamlet, After Magritte, Arcadia, Cahoot's Macbeth, The Coast of Utopia, Dalliance, Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land, Dogg's Hamlet, Enter a Free Man, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Hapgood, Indian Ink, The Invention of Love, Jumpers, Night and Day, On the Razzle, Professional Foul, The Real Inspector Hound, The Real Thing, Rock 'n' Roll, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Rough Crossing, Travesties, Undiscovered Country

  Results from FactBites:
 
The Real Inspector Hound (359 words)
In The Real Inspector Hound, Stoppard ingeniously turns the country-house whodunnit on its head, breaking down the wall between stage and auditorium.
Hound brilliantly exploits theatrical forms, feeding off the conventions of theatre itself as reality and illusion contrast and eventually merge.
Performances of The Real Inspector Hound are July 6-28, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm, at Actors Workshop, 40 Boylston Street, Boston conveniently located on the MBTA, one half block from the Boylston Station on the Green Line and Chinatown/Essex Station on the Orange Line.
The Real Inspector Hound (1218 words)
The aptness of "Inspector Hound" for this company, which offers roles to disabled actors (in much the way Theater by the Blind does), is that because words are paramount, movement can be minimal.
The Real Inspector Hound can be a tricky thing to review—since one of its main subjects is the faddishness, clichés, infighting, and petty jealousies of theatre reviewing.
The doubling of realities gets even more complex toward the end of the play, as the critics get drawn into the onstage action, and the onstage characters begin to stand in for the critics—with widely diverging opinions from the professionals.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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