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Arcadia (play)

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Theatre

   Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship
   between past and present and between order and disorder and the
   certainty of knowledge.

Synopsis

   Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

   Arcadia is set in Sidley Park, an English country house in the years
   1809 and 1989 alternately, juxtaposing the activities of two modern
   scholars and the house's current residents with the lives of those who
   lived there 180 years earlier.

   In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious
   teenager with ideas about mathematics well ahead of her time. She
   studies with her tutor, Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron, who is
   an unseen guest in the house. In 1989, a writer and an academic
   converge on the house: Hannah Jarvis, the writer, is investigating a
   hermit who once lived on the grounds; Bernard Nightingale, a professor
   of literature, is investigating a mysterious chapter in the life of
   Byron. As their investigations unfold, helped by Valentine Coverly, a
   post-graduate student in mathematics, the truth about what happened in
   1809 is gradually revealed.

   The play's set features a large table, which is used by the characters
   in both 1809 and 1989. Props are not removed when the play switches
   time period, so that the books, coffee mugs, quill pens, portfolios,
   and laptop computers of 1809 and 1989 appear alongside each other in a
   blurring of past and present.

Themes

   Arcadia explores the nature of evidence and truth in the context of
   modern ideas about history, mathematics and physics. It shows how the
   clues left by the past are interpreted by scholars. The play refers to
   a wide array of subjects, including mathematics, physics,
   thermodynamics, computer algorithms, fractals, population dynamics,
   chaos theory vs. determinism (especially in the context of love and
   death), classics, landscape design, romanticism vs. classicism, English
   literature (particularly poetry), Byron, 18th century periodicals,
   modern academia, and even South Pacific botany. These are the concrete
   topics of conversation; the more abstract philosophical resonances veer
   off into epistemology, nihilism, the origins of lust, and madness.

   The title refers to the pastoral ideal of Arcadia and to the memento
   mori spoken by Death: " Et in Arcadia ego" ("Even in Arcadia, I").

Productions and responses

   Arcadia first opened at the Royal National Theatre in London on April
   13, 1993, and has played at many theatres since. It impressed the
   critics: The 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 original 1993 production was directed by Trevor Nunn and featured
   Rufus Sewell as Septimus Hodge, Felicity Kendal (Stoppard's then lover)
   as Hannah Jarvis, Bill Nighy as Bernard Nightingale, Emma Fielding as
   Thomasina Coverly, Alan Mitchell as Jellaby, Derek Hutchinson as Ezra
   Chater, Sidney Livingston as Richard Noakes, Harriet Walter as Lady
   Croom, Graham Sinclair as Captain Brice, Harriet Harrison as Chloe
   Coverly, Timothy Matthews as Augustus Coverly and Gus Coverly, and
   Samuel West as 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 starred 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.

The best science book ever written

   At London’s Royal Institution on 19 October 2006 Arcadia was voted onto
   the shortlist at an event to identify “the best science book ever
   written”. The winner was The Periodic Table by Primo Levi.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_%28play%29"
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