Christopher Hampton's wry, poignant drama depicts the consequences of old literary Europe's attempt to integrate into fast-paced commercial Hollywood in the early years of World War II. With Austro-Hungarian playwright Odon Von Horvath resurrected as our guide, Tales from Hollywood leads us through a bizarre landscape where Schoenberg and the Marx Brothers play tennis, Brecht tries to write film treatments the studios will clamor over, and Heinrich Mann endeavors to maintain a dignified despair, overshadowed by his younger brother Thomas, who thrives on his celebrity status. As the war ends and McCarthyism sets in, the younger emigres assimilate but the older ones, unable to bear what they term the "tragic innocence" and relentless "cuteness" of America, go into a slow decline. Meanwhile, Horvath's conversations and observations raise questions of personal accountability for the unchecked rise of Nazism in Europe in the thirties and the futility of being homesick for countries that have forced one into exile. In its contrast of the two continents, Tales from Hollywood paints a wistful, humorous portrait of a time when Europe and North America were in the throes of artistic, ideological, and political changes that would forever alter their own identities as well as their relations to each other.
Author
Christopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for the film adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement. Hampton became involved in the theatre while studying German and French at Oxford University where OUDS performed his play When Did You Last See My Mother?, about adolescent homosexuality, reflecting his own experiences at Lancing College, the boarding school he had attended. The play was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London, and that production soon transferred to the Comedy Theatre, resulting in Hampton, in 1966, becoming the youngest writer to have a play performed in the West End in the modern era. From 1968-70 he worked as the Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre, and also as the company's literary manager. Hampton won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1988 for the screen adaptation of his play Dangerous Liaisons. He was nominated again in 2007 for adapting Ian McEwan's novel Atonement. Hampton forthcoming project is the translation into English of Michael Kunze & Sylvester Levay's Austrian musical Rebecca based on Daphne du Maurier's book which is scheduled to premiere in 2009 in Canada, and then move to Broadway in 2010.
