Stoppard’s Latest: Mixed Reviews
Tom Stoppard‘s new play “The Hard Problem” has opened at the National Theatre in London, directed by Nicholas Hytner, to mixed reviews. The play, which poses big questions about the nature of consciousness, is Stoppard’s first at the NT since 2002’s “The Coast of Utopia.” The story centers around psychology researcher Hilary (Olivia Vinall, pictured) and her work at a brain science institute. In The Guardian, Michael Billington writes: ‘Even if the play occasionally suffers from information overload, it is still a rich, ideas-packed work that offers a defence of goodness whatever its ultimate source.” In The Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish says: ‘At times I had to pinch myself that it was written by the great man himself; and at others moments I almost had to pinch myself to stay awake. Even though it’s only 100 minutes long, at points it drags and even bores.’
