Stoppard has often distanced himself from his contemporaries and the central stories of British playwriting. When the new playwriting that caught most critical attention was coming from the political left, Stoppard occupied a position on the right. Stoppard has affiliations with a separate tendency in 1950s and 1960s British drama, that of British absurdism. Later in his career, the success of Arcadia, a play of both ideas and emotions, exerted considerable influence on British playwriting.