It is in the fabric of this volume, consisting as it does only of dramas written for radio, that it feels somehow more and less complete than Stoppard's fully staged works. There is something liberating about not being beholden to visualization. The fact that these plays are entirely auditory means that there is no imagination required. What is on the page is all there is, unlike staged works which are designed to incorporate the additional elements of set, lighting, costume, etc. The mind needn't wander. The writer has possibly even more freedom. He needn't ask himself while writing, "Is is possible to do this even?" It is all possible.
And yet these freedoms from constraint are also limitations. The first apparent of such limitations is that of length. So many of the ideas Stoppard considers here are left undeveloped, with the possible exception of "In the Native State," the longest of the radio plays. It is a great comfort to know that there are three stout volumes filled with his other works on my shelf, and plenty of room for these ideas to blossom. The other unique feature of these plays, however, is analogous to the limitations of reading a fully staged work. Stoppard so often relies on the main creative tool allowed to an audio drama: simultaneity. It is manifestly impossible for me to experience the words on the page in parallel as they were intended, and, as with other dramatic works, there is simply no substitute for the experience of the finished product.
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