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Artist Descending a Staircase: Stoppard Captures the Radio Station—and Duchamp

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Elissa S. Guralnick
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Abstract

In Artist Descending a Staircase, Stoppard has constructed a play so well suited to radio that it cannot be translated to any other medium without a significant loss. The play thereby calls into question the popular notion that radio is inferior to the stage as a forum for drama. The play also questions our ability to know, with any certainty, those things we have not witnessed, not to mention those we have. Thus, the two mysteries at the heart of the play—Who killed Donner? Whom did Sophie love?—remain essentially unsolved, even though the play suggests convincing solutions. Similarly, although the play does not explicitly discuss Marcel Duchamp, a portrait of the artist nonetheless emerges, drawn in meticulous detail. Artist, then, is built upon paradox, teasing us at every turn with “Now you see it, now you don't.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 105 , Issue 2 , March 1990 , pp. 286 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1990

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