Appreciation: Why Tom Stoppard was my favorite living playwright

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I have been struggling to write a tribute to Tom Stoppard, the living playwright I admired more than any other in my professional life as a theater critic.

Why was he my favorite? Whereas most playwrights offer us their personal view of the world, often communicated with the moral or political certainty they feel, Stoppard simply concentrated on making sure we learned that the world was more complicated than we knew when we first sat down in our seats. This has always been what I have most wanted from seeing a show. I believe it to be the theater’s great value proposition.

In plays like “Arcadia,” “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,” “The Coast of Utopia,” “Travesties,” “Night and Day,” and many more, not to mention the screenplay to “