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Thursday 12 September 2024

Professional Foul

In 1977, Eastern Europe was still in the grip of Communist regimes controlled by the Soviet Union. In Czechoslovakia, there had been a crackdown following the liberal period known as the Prague Spring, and subsequent Soviet invasion. the playwright Václav Havel had been imprisoned several times for opposing the Communist system. He became President after independence. 

That autumn, I was in the middle of a few idle weeks between receiving the ‘A’ Level examination grades that had got me in to university as a mature student, working for the summer on night shifts in a canning factory, a walking holiday in Iceland, and starting my new course. One Wednesday evening, with nothing to do, I clicked through the three television channels we then had, wondering whether there was anything I might watch. I caught the beginning of a televised play which seemed to be about university lecturers. I quickly realised it was something special. 

It was Tom Stoppard’s ‘Professional Foul’. It opens with a scene on an aeroplane in which a Cambridge Professor of Ethics, Professor Anderson, is on his way to a philosophical colloquium in Prague to give an invited talk. Another academic on the plane from a lesser, working-class university, McKendrick, forces him into conversation, but Anderson shows no interest in the colloquium, or anything philosophical at all. We later learn he has an ulterior motive for accepting the expenses-paid invitation, which is to go to a football match between England and Czechoslovakia, a World Cup qualifier. 

In true Stoppard fashion, the plot becomes more and more complicated from then on, with interleaving themes and clever word play. The main themes are how ethical behaviour can be compromised by real-life events, and the oppression of individual expression by authoritarian regimes. 

In Prague, Professor Anderson spots two English footballers at his hotel. He is also approached by a Czech ex-student, Holler, who despite getting a First, is only allowed in Czechoslovakia to work as a cleaner. 

Holler asks Anderson to smuggle a thesis out of the country. This gives Anderson an ethical dilemma. The thesis concludes that the morality of the state should be derived from that of the individual, which is a position not permitted under a system that denies freedom of thought. Anderson, however, concludes that as a guest of the government, it would be unethical to take the thesis, but agrees to return it to Holler’s flat the next day, rather than risk him being caught in the street with dissident material.

He calls at Holler’s flat on the way to the football match, to find it being searched by police. They prevent him from leaving, but switch on the radio broadcasting the match. One of the footballers from the hotel commits a deliberate ‘professional foul’ to deny the opponents a scoring opportunity. The police also commit a professional foul of their own by planting foreign currency in the flat. 

Anderson returns to the hotel exhausted, with the thesis still in his possession. Later, Mrs. Holler and their son arrive to ask for his help. They tell him that Holler was arrested on the way home from visiting him the previous evening. Disturbed by their plight he promises to do all he can. It makes him think further about his ethical dilemma over Holler’s thesis, and revise his position. 

After dinner, McKendrick holds forth loudly to the other residents in the hotel lounge. He is clearly very drunk, and enamoured by his own linguistic dexterity. He lectures them about the ethics of professional fouls by working-class footballers. One of the footballers thumps him to the ground. Anderson helps him back to his room and leaves him to sleep it off. 

In light of what he has seen, Anderson re-writes his talk to discuss the conflict between the rights of individuals and the rights of the state, including freedom from search and interference, and whether it is ethical to put someone in prison for reading or writing the wrong books. The worried chairman cuts his talk short by arranging a fire alarm. Two more professional fouls.  

At the airport on the way home, Anderson’s luggage is carefully searched while McKendrick is allowed straight through. Another academic is detained for carrying letters to Amnesty International. On the plane, McKendrick and Anderson discuss this, and Anderson mentions the thesis. McKendrick asks where he hid it, and Anderson reveals he took advantage of McKendrick’s unconsciousness to hide it in his brief case. Another professional foul. McKendrick is furious, which Anderson understands, but concludes that his unethical actions were justifiable in the real-life circumstances. He surmises that ethical philosophy can be very complicated. 

Although the play conveys a menacing sense of state repression, it is entertaining, clever and funny. The quick-witted Anderson character is delightful. It is set in very different times to now, in a country where those who held the wrong opinions suffered discrimination. It could easily return, either there or here.    

This misses an awful lot out, but the plot is much easier to summarise than the philosophy. I did not understand the half of it, but it brought home the fun in playing creatively with ideas, and that it might be part of university life. If my course encouraged just a small amount of this, I was going to enjoy it.  

The play is on YouTube (here). I still don’t get all the philosophical references, though.  

20 comments:

  1. A play of its time - behind The Iron Curtain. Now The Czech Republic is free - well what we call "free" anyway. I think you might correctly describe the play as Kafkaesque.

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    1. It certainly had a sense of menace.
      Plays and films set in the past are popular, so does it matter that it is of its time? Not a time we would like to go back to, though.

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  2. It would be of limited interest to me, especially as you have summarised it so well. I know something of Stoppard. I need to check. Ok, I can see why I would have heard of him but I don't think I've seen any of his works. I did see the film version of Empire of the Sun. It is interesting that he spent three childhood years in India.

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    1. There is a lot more than in my summary, and some amusing scenes suck as when McKendrick mistakes the footballers for academics, and the newspaper reporters phoning their match reports back to England.

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  3. A friend at the time was going out with the Czechoslovakian daughter of a politician at the time, I remember she went back to Prague and gave my small daughter a monkey. How memory picks up on odd moments. But I recognise the professors of the time, when archaeology - 1960s went through the 'Processual' interpretation of understanding (followed by Post-processual - 1980s). It became scientific not cultural. Stoppard is saying look at these clever intellectual men scrabbling around in football and dirty magazines whilst people are being hunted by a rotten regime.

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    1. I hadn't thought that, but I suppose Stoppard is saying that too. It says so many things, which is the sign of great writing. Probably his main purpose was to draw attention to the awful regime.

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  4. You have whet my appetite and I shall have to watch the play. Thank you.

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    1. I enjoyed it again after all this time. It is very entertaining.

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  5. I think I may find it too bleak. I am retreating more and more into a fairytale world of sweetness and light and denial these days. Better for my stress levels.

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    1. The world is not a happy place, but I find something that makes me think like this play also takes me away from it.

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  6. Much of what you say here about repressive states ties in with the best work of fiction I have read this year so far, "Our Missing Hearts" by Celeste Ng. I have yet to write the review and post it on my blog, but I can highly recommend it. Last but not least, Librarians play an important role in it!

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    1. Maybe I like this play because I worked in universities after finishing my degree. The Ng book sounds interesting but I have to have things read out now. I would struggle to manage a page an hour.

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  7. Interesting! And thanks for the YouTube link -- I will watch the play this weekend if I have time!

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    1. As commented above, I enjoyed it, but appreciate it might not be for everyone. Hope you like it.

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  8. It reminds me of Malcolm Bradbury's Rates of Exchange about a university lecturer going into the Eastern bloc to lecture writtten at roughly the same time. The Eastern Bloc was a rich vein of material for writers at the time, especially in the new emergence of universities in Britain.

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    1. Sounds a very similar kind of idea. It was difficult to go there in those days. I like it in the play that Anderson accepts these invitations only to go to international football matches, and he has become an expert on foreign teams and players.

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  9. I did indeed love this kind of thought provoking when I was at university but wonder if I too am retreating into JayCee'z world. Other days I wonder if it is just the stress of the modern digital age that has overwhelmed my capacity to explore esoteric ideas.

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    1. I think we spend far too much time online, and it blocks out our own thoughts by demanding constant attention.

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  10. Possibly - almost definitely - the most thought-provoking post I've read for a long time. I was mulling over a response in what passes for my brain until I got to your response to the last comment (from Tigger's Mum). I have been thinking much the same recently and am trying to cut down - so far without much success.

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    1. Through working in computing, and having one home since the 1980s, it took me several years to learn what an attention grabber they can be. I thought it edifying that many of the Silicon Valley computing staff would not let their kids near one. Partly the reason I don't want a smartphone.

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