Tom Stoppard has spoken of this 2006 play as an alternative biography, of sorts, straddling his Czech heritage with his British identity. So we shuttle between Czechoslovakia and Cambridge, moving from the Prague Spring to its suppression by the Soviet Union and ending with the Velvet Revolution.
The central drama presents a teacher-student clash as Jan (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), a Czech postgrad at Cambridge University, travelling home in 1968, criticises the communist dream to the consternation of his diehard Marxist tutor Max (Nathaniel Parker).
Tucked in between is the tale of apolitical Czech rock group the Plastic People of the Universe, flashes of family drama, a love story and close readings of Sappho’s poetry. All the while there is rock music – a lairy, long-haired soundtrack of the ages that here seems too polite and not quite rock’n’roll enough.
It is a play of ideas asking important ideological questions: how can you remain a committed Marxist at a time of communist repression? And how is Stalinist repression any different from Nazi fascism? (“Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler,” says Jan).
Under the direction of Nina Raine, these questions still resound but they land differently – more nostalgic and perhaps lacking a necessary urgency. There are prescient glimmers of what we contend with today: media censorship, restrictions on liberty and the death of the communist dream. Heated exchanges on freedom, consciousness and Marxism sound as if they are from 1970s debating circles while glittering with a typically Stoppardian intelligence.
But there is too much talk and not enough drama. The pacing becomes ever slower over the course of two and a half hours. The cast excel but the characters are not given enough space to gain an emotional hold.
The music, originally blasted out in blackouts in between scenes, is here concertinaed in dimly lit choreographed interludes when we are given atmospheric snatches of Pink Floyd, the Velvet Underground, the Beach Boys, Syd Barrett, John Lennon and others. A stereo and rows of LPs are centre stage and this music should serve as the emotional driver but is not loud or rebellious enough. There is timidity to the choreography, too, with the intermittent appearance of a barefooted musician, dressed like a 1970s flower child, who verges on caricature.
What is still here, in abundance, is exuberance of language and characteristically fizzing wordplay as well as dangerous and exciting comedy. A searing description of breast cancer and mastectomy by Max’s wife, Eleanor (Nancy Carroll, who also plays his daughter Esme), segues into sudden, irreverent humour. “Just don’t lose half your bum,” Max tells Eleanor warmly.
A briefly glimpsed love story returns in the second act when the play seems to switch to a middle-class family drama with an extended dinner party scene, although its erudite “debate play” dialogue keeps its through line. The final Rolling Stones song plays as the cast dance on tables. Finally, you feel the growling, feral energy of the music. It is an effective – and affecting – moment, rather late in the day.
• At Hampstead theatre, London, until 27 January
