Today’s word of the day, thanks to the Brittanica Dictionary, is facility. Facility is a noun which means “readiness or ease due to skill, aptitude, or practice,” or “ready compliance” or “an easy-flowing manner” or “the quality of being easily or conveniently done or performed” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/facility). It can also refer to “something designed, built, installed, etc., to serve a specific function affording a convenience or service” or “something that permits the easier performance of an action, course of conduct, etc.” or, informally, “a restroom, especially one for use by the public, as in a theater or restaurant” (ibid.). Dictionary.com says that it was “First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English facilite, from Middle French or directly from Latin facilitās” (ibid.).

Etymonline.com concurs that it entered the language in the “early 15c., ‘gentleness, lightness,’ from Old French facilité ‘easiness, ease,’ from Latin facilitatem (nominative facilitas) ‘easiness, ease, fluency, willingness,’ from facilis ‘easy to do,’ from facere ‘to do’ (from PIE root *dhe– ‘to set, put’). First in a medical book:
“If it be nede forto smyte [the head] wiþ a malle, be it done with esynez or facilite [transl. Guy de Chauliac’s Grande Chirurgie” [If it is necessary to smite the head with a mallet, let it be done with easiness or facility]. 
“Its sense in English expanded to ‘opportunity’ (1510s), to ‘aptitude, ease, quality of being easily done’ (1530s). Meaning ‘place for doing something’ which makes the word so beloved of journalists and fuzzy writers, first recorded 1872, via notion of ‘physical means by which (something) can be easily done’” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=facility).

The On This Day website told me that Tom Stoppard got married on this date in 1965. It was the first of three marriages for Stoppard, and that doesn’t include a time when he had a live-in partner, so I can’t say that Stoppard’s married life is anything to celebrate. But his work is certainly something to celebrate.

Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia, his father a medical doctor employed by a shoe company. His parents were Jews. In 1939, his family fled Europe for Singapore. Threatened by Japan in 1941, the family fled to India, except for Stoppard’s father, who stayed behind to help the British military. The father died when a ship he was on was sunk by the Japanese. In 1945, Stoppard’s mother remarried, this time an English army major whose last name was Stoppard. The major gave his last name to her children, and Stoppard went from being Tomáš to Tom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Stoppard).

Stoppard left school before going to university to become a journalist. At the Bristol Evening World, he became a drama critic and began to be involved with the theater. He wrote plays for radio, television, and the stage in the late 50s and early 60s.

Then, in 1966, he won acclaim with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. One might describe the play as a cross between Hamlet and Waiting for Godot. The play focuses on two relatively minor characters from Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. When we meet them, they are on the road to Elsinore, the royal castle of Denmark, because they have been called by Claudius and Gertrude, the King and Queen, to come find out what is bothering Hamlet, to “glean what afflicts him.” But they are a bit lost and confused, constantly forgetting what it is they are supposed to be doing.

In Act 1, as they travel, they come across the Players, a traveling acting troupe that is also on their way to Elsinore, although their purpose is to make money. Like the players in Shakespeare’s day, in the early 1590s, they are moving about to avoid the plague. In Act 2, R&G are in Elsinore, playing the question game, trying to get something out of Hamlet, and getting themselves confused because nobody is sure which one is which. Act 3 finds them on a boat, sailing to England with Hamlet, carrying a letter to the English king. They have no idea what is in the letter; they are just doing what they are told. Pirates attack the ship, and suddenly they are without Hamlet, though still on a boat bound for England. The play closes with the final scene from Hamlet, after Hamlet has been killed by Laertes poison rapier, when the ambassadors from England are introduced to announce that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Horatio assures the remaining Danes that it was not Hamlet who ordered their execution.

One of the fun features of the play is that Stoppard actually uses occasional scenes from Shakespeare’s play, taken word for word. But in the context, these scenes seem to take on a whole new meaning.

In 1975, when I was at Davidson College, I got to play Rosencrantz in a college production of the play. The director, who later became my major professor, asked me if I were planning to audition for the play. I told him I wasn’t sure, and he suggested that I read the play and then decide. I went to the library, got it from the reserve desk, sat in one of the comfy chairs, and started reading. I laughed and laughed. It is probably the funniest play I have ever read. So I did audition and got cast as Rosencrantz. I have to say that it was a delightful experience, one that I’ll never forget.

Later in college, I got cast in Stoppard’s one-act play “The Real Inspector Hound.”

Stoppard was also the screenwriter for the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love, a romantic comedy about the writing of Romeo and Juliet, completely fictional. The movie demonstrates not only Stoppard’s wonderful sense of humor but also his deep knowledge of Shakespeare’s life and works. I remember seeing it at the dollar theater in Clemson. It was packed. There is a boy character in the movie. Shakespeare has a scene with him, and during the scene, the boy is playing with a live mouse. At the end of the scene, the boy obviously gives the mouse to a cat, who has been trying to get it. Shakespeare then asks him his name; he says, “John Webster.” I and one other person in the packed house laughed out loud. You see, Webster was in the next generation of playwrights, and his plays exhibit some extreme cruelty and violence, plays like The Duchess of Malfi. I’m sure Stoppard knew how funny that was, at least for those of us who are Renaissance drama students.

Tom Stoppard may not have been the best of husbands. Or maybe he was just unlucky in love. I don’t know. But his facility with a pen or a keyboard made him someone to remember.

Today’s image is of Daniel Radcliffe and Joshua McGuirein in the Old Vic 50^th anniversary production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/rosencrantz-guildenstern-are-dead-theater-984369/). Daniel Radcliffe was, of course, reprising my role as Rosencrantz.