The actor acts, but does the play?

Stoppard says he started out as a "language nerd", no more. Later, he said: "I must stop compromising my plays with this whiff of social application. They must be entirely untouched by any suspicion of usefulness."

A couple years earlier, someone who also wrote funny plays said: "We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely." His name was Oscar Wilde. Not many people know this, but he also wrote an essay entitled "The Soul of Man Under Socialism", a utopian plea for social change, wherein he posits: "The State is to make what is useful. The individual is to make what is beautiful". 

What is the use of Art? - the debate is endless. I like to think of it this way: it's so much easier to tackle the useful if you indulge in the useless from time to time. And sometimes, now and again, the useless breeds the useful. In time, Stoppard's plays have become more politically engaged, touching on themes such as censorship, rights abuse and repression. Everything that forbids expression, artistic or not, useful or less. 

Guil: Now mind your tongue, or we'll have it out and throw the rest of you away, like a nightingale at a Roman feast. 

Ros: Took the very words out of my mouth. 

Guil: You'd be lost for words. 

Ros: You'd be tongue-tied. 

Guil: Like a mute in a monologue. 

Ros: Like a nightingale at a Roman feast. 

Guil: Your diction will go to pieces. 

Ros: Your lines will be cut. 

Guil: To dumbshows. 

Ros: And dramatic pauses. 

Guil: You'll never find your tongue. 

Ros: Lick your lips. 

Guil: Taste your tears. 

Ros: Your breakfast. 

Guil: You won't know the difference. 

Ros: There won't be any. 

Guil: We'll take the very words out of your mouth. 

Later in his career, Stoppard said: "I think I was too concerned when I set off, to have a firework go off every few seconds... I think I was always looking for the entertainer in myself and I seem to be able to entertain through manipulating language... [but] it's really about human beings, it's not really about language at all."

Perhaps. Then again, it did take him a lot of fooling around with language to get there. Supposedly, there's a there for everyone. I am 27 and I haven't gotten there yet. But I feel like I'm getting closer, and Ros and Guil have a little something to do with it. So, thank you Stoppard, for taking the very words out of your head and putting them on the page. You're very useful like that.