"The Coast of Utopia"

In its 11/6/06 issue, New York magazine collated some data regarding the production of Tom Stoppard’s epic trilogy, “The Coast of Utopia.” So what's it take to put on three plays about Russia? Each night cast and crew consume 27 bottles of water; the total budget is approximately $7.5 million; and there are 82 speaking roles, plus one non-speaking cat.

I saw “Voyage,” the first of the three plays, in previews on Saturday night—a wonderful birthday surprise. It primarily focuses on the friends and family of Michael Bakunin (now known as the “father of anarchism”) in mid-nineteenth-century Russia. As the rest of Europe modernized during the Enlightenment, Russia remained buried beneath the weight of roughly 50 million serfs. Bakunin and co., including a young Ivan Turgenev and Alexander Herzen, debate about weighty philosophical issues like how to modernize the country, how to create a national literature, and how to translate abstract notions into concrete actions. But Stoppard deftly handles the heady philosophy with his trademark sense of humor. He just might be the smartest playwright working today.