A
play by
Tom Stoppard, about an
academic philosopher, George Moore, who has several things to trouble him.
First, some of the students are under the impression that he's the more famous (real) philosopher of that name, G.E. Moore, and therefore dead.
Second, he's having marital problems with Dorothy, a former cabaret singer, and student of his, now retired for nervous reasons.
Third, a fellow philosopher who is also a doctor visits Dorothy and performs examinations of a certain kind upon her, which do not look innocent. However, as Dorothy acutely asks, echoing Wittgenstein, what would they look like if they looked innocent?
Fourth, the old-fashioned sense of right and wrong he brings to his lectures on moral philosophy is increasingly at odds with the relativist modern morality of most of the department, which George regards as frivolous and insubstantial for several reasons.
Fifth, including the fact that the other philosophers are all gymnasts.
Sixth, and Dorothy might have murdered one of them while they were forming a human pyramid at a party the night before.
Jumpers was first performed at the Old Vic, London, on 2 February 1972, with Michael Hordern as George and Diana Rigg as Dorothy. In some respects it is a reworking of Stoppard's television play Another Moon Called Earth from 1967.