NIGHT AND DAY
by Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard is a rabbit breeder of wordsbutton-tailed, twitchy-nosed, big-eared, bright-eyed and always on the hop. Onstage, words do lead to talk, too much talk, perhaps, in this play, but much of it is exhilaratingly Shavian. In the new guise of a didact, Stoppard comes out for a free press ("Information is light).
However, he does have skeptical reservations about journalism and regards reporters as hostages to the whims, slants and manias of press tycoons. Night and Day, like some British journalism, is partially caught in a time warp with The Front Page and the...