Arcadia

Optional Supplemental/Background Information

The following information gives some contextual information about the play including details about the playwright and the history of the story and the original production. It is intended for you to use as much or as little as interests you and is in no way required for you to be familiar with it in regards to our discussions.

PLAYWRIGHT: Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard is one of the three greatest living playwrights in English-speaking world alongside Caryl Churchill and David Hare.  He is clearly the most well-known and most often produced of the three in the States.  His first success was ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD in 1967, which had its London premiere at the National Theatre when the company was still performing at the Old Vic. This began a long relationship with the National Theatre, which has produced 11 of his plays to date. He was awarded Most Promising Playwright by the Evening Standard Awards and the play won the Theatre Critic’s Award, the New York Drama Critic’s Award, and the Tony Award for Best New Play.

Stoppard was celebrated early in his career for his wit and for melding thematic ideas with bold theatricality. The 1970’s brought him acclaim for JUMPERS (which was an existential murder mystery involving a moon landing, academia, and a troupe of gymnasts), TRAVESTIES (THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST meets James Joyce, Lenin, and Tristan Tzara in a sort of Dadaist music hall), THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND (a parody of theatre critics, free will and THE MOUSETRAP), and EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR, which calls for a full symphony orchestra as one of the main characters.

From the late 70’s to the mid-80’s he mostly wrote adaptations of lesser-known 19th-Century plays from the continent. One of them, ON THE RAZZLE, may be one of the most ridiculous plays every written and, if not for already having a Stoppard  play in our series, would definitely be in my Dream Season.  Maybe version 2.0.

The 80’s saw only two original plays from Stoppard: THE REAL THING and HAPGOOD. THE REAL THING is a pseudo-autobiographical romantic comedy, of sorts, where Stoppard explored the nature of love, truth, revolution, art, and cricket bats.  The play was hailed as the first time Stoppard presented characters who were driven by their heart rather than their wit and it won a slew of awards in London and New York. HAPGOOD was a Cold War spy thriller that also explores quantum mechanics, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and duality.  The original production was considered a failure and is one of Stoppard’s least well-known and produced works.  However, I think it has been seriously misjudged and is his best least well-known play. HAPGOOD would easily make an appearance in my Dream Season 3.0.

MEDIA: TOM STOPPARD

There is no shortage of books, print interviews, audio interviews and video on Tom Stoppard. I have found the few selections below to be informative and enlightening.

HISTORY: ARCADIA

5 years after writing HAPGOOD, which was seen as his worst failure as a playwright, he came back with ARCADIA, which is considered by many to be his masterpiece.  It combines the wit of his early plays with the romantic desires of THE REAL THING. ARCADIA is also a murder mystery, of sorts, played out in two different time periods, that also concerns itself with chaos theory, the second law of thermodynamics, Lord Byron, fractal geometry, Romanticism vs Classicism, academia, 18th-century landscape architecture, and love. I believe it may be the most perfect play ever written.

ARCADIA opened at the National Theatre in April of 1993 in the Lyttleton Theatre where it played for 116 performances. It was directed by Trevor Nunn (who was the subject of my MA Thesis) and starred Rufus Sewell (in his first professional production), Felicity Kendall, Bill Nighy, Harriet Walter, and Samuel West (Laura Wade’s husband). The play won both the Olivier and Tony Awards for Best New Play.

CHARACTER LIST

The following list may be helpful in tracking the characters between 1809 and the present. It was taken directly from Wikipedia, though I have edited it some to remove some significant spoilers. It is probably best used as a reference after reading the play.

CHARACTERS OF 1809

• Thomasina Coverly: The 13-year-old (later 16-year-old) daughter of Lord Coverly and Lady Croom, Thomasina is a precocious genius. She comes to understand chaos theory and the second law of thermodynamics, before either is established in the mathematical and scientific communities. Stoppard apparently based the character on Lord Byron's daughter Ada Lovelace (Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace). She was an English mathematician who conceptualised how Charles Babbage's Analytical engine could be used, foreseeing the binary computer.

• Septimus Hodge: Thomasina's tutor, and the academic colleague and friend of Lord Byron. While teaching Thomasina, he works on his own research and has affairs with the older women of the house. When Thomasina is older, he falls in love with her; after her death, he becomes the "hermit of Sidley Park", working on her theories until his own death.

• Jellaby: The Crooms' butler. His chief functions are to spread gossip and to deliver letters.

• Ezra Chater: An unsuccessful poetaster staying at Sidley Park. His wife's romantic affairs lead him to challenge Septimus to a duel. Later, it is revealed that he is the amateur botanist "Mr. Chater," who dies of a monkey bite in Martinique, where he has travelled with his wife and Captain Brice.

• Charity Chater: Ezra Chater's wife. Though she, like Byron, never appears onstage, she plays a vital role. She sleeps with Septimus, and her repeatedly cuckolded husband challenges him to a duel. She sleeps with Lord Byron and gets him, her husband, Captain Brice, and herself ejected from Sidley Park.

• Richard Noakes: Lady Croom's gardener. Throughout the play, he is working to transform Sidley Park's classical, Arcadia-like landscape into the popular Gothic style – which Lady Croom begrudgingly accepts. He is key in exposing Septimus' and Mrs. Chater's affair.

• Lady Croom: Thomasina's mother. She rules the Coverly estate with an iron fist, but flirts with Septimus and other gentlemen throughout the play. A second Lady Croom, the mother of Valentine, Chloe and Gus in the modern half of the play, never appears on stage.

• Captain Brice: The brother of Lady Croom (of 1809). He is a sea captain who falls in love with Mrs. Chater. He takes her and her husband to the West Indies at the end of the play. Captain Brice eventually marries Mrs. Chater.

• Augustus Coverly: Thomasina's trouble-making younger brother. He appears in only a few brief scenes.

CHARACTERS OF THE PRESENT

• Hannah Jarvis: The author of a best-seller on Byron's mistress Lady Caroline Lamb. Hannah is researching the elusive hermit of Sidley Park, who lived there in the early 19th century. Hannah collaborates (warily) with Bernard and also with Valentine, though she rejects the romantic advances of both.

• Chloe Coverly: The 18-year-old daughter of the modern Lady Croom. While her mind is not as rigorous as Thomasina's, Chloe likes to propose wild ideas. She argues that the Newtonian universe has been destabilized by sex and the problems it causes. She tries to set up Hannah with Bernard, but ends up sleeping with him herself.

• Bernard Nightingale: A don at a modern university in Sussex, England. Bernard comes to Sidley Park hoping to work with Hannah on his theory about Lord Byron staying at the estate. Foolishly, instead of seeking further evidence, he announces on TV his theory that Lord Byron killed Ezra Chater in a duel.

• Valentine Coverly: Chloe's older brother. A graduate student of mathematics, he pores over several old documents and comes to acknowledge Thomasina's genius.

• Gus Coverly: Valentine and Chloe's younger brother, who has been mute since the age of five. Gus helps to pass several important props from past to present, and helps connect key moments in the play.

MEDIA: ARCADIA

• 1993 BBC Recording of ARCADIA with the original cast. I would recommend listening to this after you have read the play on your own. Listening to a radio play is a very different experience to reading the play or seeing a production and can be a little disorienting if you are not familiar with the play. It’s a good way to deepen your experience of reading the play, especially with this cast.

• LA Theatre Works discussion on Chaos Theory in ARCADIA.