Arcadia (play)
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Arcadia is a play by Tom Stoppard which first opened at the Royal National Theatre in London on 13 April 1993 and has played at many theatres since. It impressed the critics: the London Daily Telegraph's critic wrote "I have never left a new play more convinced that I'd just witnessed a masterpiece." It won the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Play, and the 1995 New York Drama Critics Award. The play's title is a reference to the Latin phrase Et in Arcadia ego, and underscores the seriousness of its comedy.
Arcadia is set in an English country house, Sidley Park, with the action switching between characters in 1809 and 1989. It takes an acid look at academic research by juxtaposing the interpretations of modern historians with the clues they interpret, which we see being left by the inhabitants of the earlier time. Arcadia explores the nature of evidence and truth in the context of modern ideas of mathematics and physics. The play questions the power of modernity and mocks the motives behind postmodernity, climaxing in one character's spirited soliloquy defending the beauty and wholeness of Aristotle's universe.
In 1809, daughter of the house Thomasina Coverly, a very precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics well ahead of her time, studies with her tutor, Septimus Hodge, a contemporary of Byron's who has offended some visitors to the house over a matter of criticism. In 1989, two academics converge on the house: Hannah Jarvis, historian, who is investigating the hermit who lived on the grounds, and Bernard Nightingale, a professor of literature who arrives to unearth a secret chapter in the life of Byron. As their investigations unfold, helped by the research of resident and biologist Valentine Coverly, the truth about what happened in 1809 is gradually revealed.
The play showcases Stoppard's trademark bravura allusiveness, essaying confidently into each of its myriad scattered foci — mathematics, physics, thermodynamics, computer algorithms, chaos theory, fractals, population dynamics, determinism, classics, landscape design, romanticism vs. classicism, English literature (particularly poetry), Byron, 18th century periodicals, modern academia, and even South Pacific botany — which pile up for the audience like the books, coffee mugs, portfolios, laptop computers, and tortoise that accrue on the great table that forms the centrepiece of the set. These are the concrete topics of conversation; the more abstract philosophical resonances start from there and keep going — apart from those suggested in the previous paragraph we might begin by mentioning epistemology, nihilism, the origins of lust, madness. The jokes pile upon each other too, ranging from the subtlest literary innuendos to the broadest sexual ones.
The original 1993 production was directed by Trevor Nunn and featured Rufus Sewell as Septimus Hodge, Felicity Kendal (a favourite of Stoppard's) as Hannah Jarvis, and Bill Nighy as Bernard Nightingale. The rest of the cast were Emma Fielding (Thomasina Coverly), Alan Mitchell (Jellaby), Derek Hutchinson (Ezra Chater), Sidney Livingston (Richard Noakes), Harriet Walter (Lady Croom), Graham Sinclair (Captain Edward Brice R.N.), Harriet Harrison (Chloe Coverly), Timothy Matthews (Augustus Coverly/Gus Coverly) and Samuel West (Valentine Coverly).
The first New York production opened in March 1995 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre. It was again directed by Trevor Nunn, but the entire cast changed; it had Billy Crudup as Septimus, Blair Brown as Hannah, Victor Garber as Bernard, Robert Sean Leonard as Valentine, and Jennifer Dundas as Thomasina. This production was the Broadway debut of Paul Giamatti, who played Ezra Chater. The other actors were Lisa Banes (Lady Croom), Richard Clarke (Jellaby), John Griffin (Gus/Augustus), Peter Maloney (Noakes), David Manis (Captain Brice, RN), and Haviland Morris (Chloe). This production was nominated for the 1995 Tony Award for Best Play, but lost to Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion!.
Jennifer Dundas and Lisa Banes had already played daughter and mother once before, in The Hotel New Hampshire.
External links
- ArcadiaWeb, from Eden Prairie High School (but do not take all info there too seriously).
- Chaos, Fractals, and Arcadia, written by Robert L. Devaney from Boston University.