Towards an analytic dramaturgy : Tom Stoppard and the Darkside of drama and philosophy

Despite the growing literature on the subject, scholars of drama and philosophy have almost entirely avoided discussing analytic philosophy. Although not of concern to most dramatists, analytic philosophy—a key development in the discipline during the 20th century—is central to the theatre of Tom Stoppard, who has written numerous plays that either engage with analytic thought or feature analytic philosophers as main characters. Yet in the critical account of Stoppard's philosophical plays, scant few talk about how Stoppard's discourse with philosophy centers on analytic thought. Grouping six of Stoppard's works across several media into the "analytic plays," this paper argues that analytic philosophy affords Stoppard a wealth of unique dramatic opportunities. Of the six analytic plays, which consist of Dogg's Hamlet, Jumpers, Professional Foul, Hapgood, Darkside, and The Hard Problem, the radio drama Darkside best exemplifies Stoppard's analytic dramaturgy through its satiric use of "the trolley problem," the most famous thought experiment in analytic ethics. Stoppard utilizes the trolley problem as the dramatic scenario of Darkside, a radio play wherein he lampoons the trolley problem's inability to meaningfully frame ethical issues. Darkside tells the audience that far-fetched analytic thought experiments like the trolley problem are harmful for good philosophy while also showing that these thought experiments offer meaningful dramaturgical value for the theatre, particularly for the "drama of ideas." In doing so, Stoppard bridges the oft-discussed divide between theatre and philosophy. For Stoppard, the implausible yet imaginative scenarios devised by analytic philosophers are an unwitting case of philosophy and theatre working alongside each other. Darkside does not reject analytic thought, even as it parodies it; instead, it devises limitations on the applicability of analytic thought to the real world, while extracting from analytic philosophy dramatic tools that can be seen in Stoppard's analytic plays