JUMPERS
PLAYS
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead* Enter a Free Man* The Real Inspector Hound* After Margritte* Jumpers* Travesties* Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land* Every Good Boy Deserves Favour* Night and Day Dogg’s Hamlet and Cahoot’s Macbeth* The Real Thing Rough Crossing Hapgood Arcadia Indian Ink The Invention of Love* Voyage: The Coast of Utopia Part I* Shipwreck: The Coast of Utopia Part II* Salvage: The Coast of Utopia Part III*
TELEVISION SCRIPTS
A Separate Peace
Teeth
Another Moon Called Earth
Neutral Ground
Professional Foul
Squaring the Circle
RADIO PLAYS
The Dissolution of Dominic Boot
“M” Is for Moon Among Other Things
If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank
Albert’s Bridge
Where Are They Now?
Artist Descending a Staircase
The Dog It Was That Died
In the Native State
SCREENPLAYS
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Shakespeare in Love (with Marc Norman)
FICTION
Lord Malquist & Mr. Moon
TOM STOPPARD Jumpers
Copyright © 1972 by Tom Stoppard
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this play is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and all British Commonwealth countries, and all countries covered by the International Copyright Union, the Pan-American Copyright Convention, and the Universal Copyright Convention. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved.
First-class professional, stock, and amateur applications for permission to perform it, and those other rights stated above, must be made in advance to Samuel French, Inc., 45 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10010.
“Sentimental Journey” by Bud Green, Les Brown, and Ben Homer, copyright © 1944 by Morley Music Inc., is published in Great Britain by Edwin H. Morris & Co. Ltd., 15 St. George St., London Wl, from whom permission to perform it must be obtained.
“Forget Yesterday” by Tom Stoppard and Marc Wilkinson copyright © 1972 by Josef Weinberger Ltd., 10 Rathbone Street, London Wl, England, from whom tape recordings of the song itself and the background track of “Sentimental Journey” as recorded by the National Theatre for the original production are available on application for use in other productions.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-21011
eBook ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9538-5
Grove Press
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
For Miriam
Characters
GEORGE
DOROTHY
ARCHIE
BONES
CROUCH
SECRETARY
8 JUMPERS who also play:
SCOTT
CLEGTHORPE
and
USHERS
CHAPLAINS
DANCERS
The play is in two Acts and a
Coda which follows the second act
without interruption.
Jumpers was first performed by the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic Theatre, London, on 2nd February 1972, when the cast was as follows:
| GEORGE | Michael Hordern |
| DOROTHY | Diana Rigg |
| ARCHIE | Graham Crowden |
| BONES | David Ryall |
| CROUCH | Paul Curran |
| SECRETARY | Anna Carteret |
| JUMPERS, etc | Ray Callaghan |
| Tom Dickinson | |
| Michael Edgar | |
| Tom Georgeson | |
| Lionel Guyett | |
| William Hobbs | |
| David Howey | |
| Barry James | |
| Brian Jameson | |
| Desmond McNamara | |
| Riggs O’Hara | |
| Howard Southern | |
| Harry Waters |
Directed by Peter Wood
Designed by Patrick Robertson
Author’s note
In preparing previous plays for publication I have tried with some difficulty to arrive at something called a ‘definitive text’, but I now believe that in the case of plays there is no such animal. Each production will throw up its own problems and very often the solution will lie in some minor change to the text, either in the dialogue or in the author’s directions, or both. What follows is a basic version of Jumpers. The National Theatre production was mounted on a revolve stage and this fact alone was responsible for various small changes to the links between scenes. I have also included here the stage directions relating to the wall-sized television screen which the National Theatre was able to provide, but such a screen is not intended to be essential to the play’s workability. I also shortened the play slightly in ways which are not shown here.
T.S.
POSTSCRIPT (February 1973):… And indeed, after some months’ absence Jumpers returned to the National Theatre in a slightly altered form. This edition incorporates the changes because they seem to me an improvement on the original.