It should be also no surprise that the kind of subtle cultural resistance that Jan takes up with the Plastic People of the Universe is utterly foreign to Max. When Max learns that Jan has been arrested for petitioning for the Plastics, he can’t believe Jan would get arrested for “some pop group thing.” When Max learns that Jan had taken a record from his daughter Esme on his last day in England (instead of her virginity), he calls it “bourgeois.” Max is utterly oblivious to the more nuanced ideology behind Jan’s political vagrancy, and the disparity becomes realized in the painfully awkward reconciliation the two share when they meet in Rock ‘N’ Roll’s second act, which takes place after perestroika.
It is at least not Stoppard’s active intent to dismantle Communist ideology with Rock ‘N’ Roll. While Jan is a vaguely autobiographical character and Stoppard is a self-declared political conservative, Rock ‘N’ Roll fairly appraises the flaws of the Soviet regime while still showing the sympathetic side of Max’s reasoning behind his desperate allegiance to Marxist ideals, though it is debatable whether Max is a sympathetic character or an old, stubborn bully. Like most Stoppard plays, the larger ideological points translate into the more personal themes of hypocrisy, personality flaws, and fractured relationships. Max’s materialism is countered by Eleanor’s cancer, and Jan’s love of rock music translates to his political conscience. Such a dynamic allows Rock ‘N’ Roll to meditate equally on the dramatic and theoretical levels.
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