Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, often described as one of the greatest British plays of the modern age, causes as much irritation as it does delight and wonder. Elegant and symmetrical in structure, it is a play built around binaries and opposites which fuse together at the end and leave two couples separated by 200 years waltzing around the stage, waiting for the universe to die. To reach this point Stoppard pitches into the mix an encyclopaedia of ideas and themes including the laws of thermodynamics, academic vanity, 18th century landscape design, and the ever present human desire for sex.
It is, ultimately, a drama about heart versus head, emotion versus rationalism, art versus science; and it is in this latter matter where I found myself wanting to scuff Stoppard across the head with a rolled up newspaper and tell him to stop showing off. Yes, there is indeed erudition and learning galore in Arcadia, so much that you can’t afford to let your attention wander for a moment, but there are times in Giles Croft’s Playhouse production when the characters sound as if they are simply reciting chunks of science text books; as if they were vehicles for ideas rather than proper human beings we should want to care about. Is that down to Stoppard’s script or the performances?
The play opens in a Derbyshire country house and remains there for the duration; there is only one room and one set (designed by Madeleine Girling) in the entire play and it acts as the anchor and pivot for what it is to come. There are two stories running in parallel. The first we see is set in the first decade of the 19th century when tutor Septimus Hodge (Parth Thakerar) is teaching Latin and science to young Thomasina Coverly (Emily Laing). The clever drawing room wit of this story is established from the opening lines when Thomasina asks Septimus what ‘carnal embrace’ means and he responds that it is embracing a side of meat. Soon other Coverly family members and friends are introduced including the foolish Mr Chater (James Thorne), Chloe Coverly (Florence Roberts), the booming Captain Brice (Robert Kingsland), the silent Augustus Coverly (Jacob Seelochan) and Lady Croom. For fans of 18th century English drama Lady Croom may well be the most rewarding character of the piece, as Stoppard gives her many of the play’s funniest lines, here enunciated with wonderful pedantic clarity by Lizzy McInnerny.
It is Lady Croom’s troubled relationship with garden designer Mr Noakes (Mark Jardine) - who is set on transforming her landscaped Derbyshire land into a fashionably wild ‘picturesque’ garden, complete with hermit’s hovel - which sets up some of the bigger themes and connects to the other story. When the action switches to the present day we are still at Sidley Park country house but now the main characters are garden researcher Hannah Jarvis (Teresa Banham), a vain Eng Lit academic called Nightingale, played with appropriate gusto by David Bark-Jones, and scientific researcher Valentine Coverly (Ilan Goodman) who has the task of delivering Stoppard’s various deadening science lectures.
Like Valentine, sister Chloe appears in both stories but her contribution to both is nowhere near so well defined. As the drama unfolds the unseen presence lurking behind the scenery is Lord Byron who Nightingale is convinced fought a duel at Sidley Park back in Lady Croom’s time. Actually, he’s not completely convinced - but there is sufficient evidence hidden away in the crevices of the library that he can write a paper, deliver a lecture and further build up his already overbearing ego. It is upon such little matters that the academic mind feeds - but, Stoppard suggests, it is also the quest for knowledge that keeps the human flame alive. Indeed, the smallness of Nightingale’s discovery is inevitably contrasted with the unassuming but much more impressive scientific discovery of Thomasina Coverly, the tragic teenage girl in whom the various plotlines finally converge with the perfection of ancient Greek drama, and who thus provides the play’s memorable final scene. Because, in the face of a mechanical universe which is slowing down and growing cold, what else can you do but dance?
Arcadia can be seen at the Playhouse until Saturday 15 November
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