TOM STOPPARD
The Real Inspector Hound
The first performance of The Real Inspector Hound took place on 17th June 1968, at the Criterion Theatre, London.
The characters for this play are:
Moon, Birdboot, Mrs. Drudge, Simon, Felicity, Cynthia, Magnus and the Inspector Hound.
SPACE:
The stage tries to imitate an stage into the real stage, there are some seats between the acting area and the real audience. On these seats we see Moon and Birdboot, two theatre critics that are going to watch the play.
Between these two men and the audience is the acting area, that imitates the drawing-room of Muldoon Manor. There is a telephone towards Moon. There is a hide body near a seat.
TIME:
We don’t know the time, the action happens in a single night.
SUMMARY:
The play has an entertaining action, with surprising changes in it.
There is a dead body which nobody sees, there is a murder walking by the area, the district, and there is an annoying and worrying telephone that rings and asks for somebody we don’t know who is.
We have to add the love story between Simon and the two woman, Felicity and Cynthia.
But probably, the most interesting aspect of this play is the combination between the main play and the secondary; we see that Moon and Birdboot are making their critics at the same time, the mix his opinion at the same time the play runs, and that fact, has to be so interesting to the authentic audience. The use of the space is the most important fact.
Because when the telephone rings again, and the call is for Birdboot the play gets crazy. He enters on the scene, talks with his wife, who is on the phone, and then, he continues acting, first he says is Simon, who has been shot before, then he says he is Hound, then Hound and Simon are seated at the critics seats, Birdboot has been shot, Moon now is Hound, then he is accused to be the murder, Magnus is Cynthia’s death husband, Albert………..
Reading this play I finish without knowing who is who.
I have read this play but I would like to go seeing it, because it is entertaining, amazing, wild and crazy, all at the same time.