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Arcadia
By Tom Stoppard
Directed by Charles Newell, SSDC
At Court Theatre
5535 S. Ellis Ave.
Chicago, IL
Call 773-753-4472, tickets $36 - $54
Wednesdays & Thursdays at 7:30 pm
Fridays at 8 pm
Saturdays at 3 & 8 pm
Sundays at 2:30 & 7:30 pm
Running time is 3 hours with one intermission
Through June 10, 2007
“When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backwards, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?"
- Tom Stoppard, Arcadia
"If you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if your mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so cleaver to do it, the formula must exist just as if one could."
- Tom Stoppard, Arcadia
Stoppard’s Arcadia unfolds as a thrilling exercise in language of ideas
Arcadia is Tom Stoppard’s 1993 masterpiece was a stunning night of theatre! Director Charles Newell utilizes his three quarter thrust stage effectively at Court Theatre on Matthew York’s drawing room set complete with a large rectangular table and a tall book case. Newell’s casting is superb featuring a wonderful assortment of classical actors led by Mary Beth Fisher as Hannah and Kevin McKillip as Bernard Nightingale.
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Arcadia is a whimsical work is part comedy of manners, part scientific mystery, part romantic drama and part historical discourse on mathematics, physics, Romanticism, Classicism and human nature all presented in a fast paced, marvelously acted, beautifully written play. Arcadia is a time-traveling detective story that jumps from 1809 to 1989 as the same English country house (Sidley Manor) is the scene of both past and present events as scholars from both eras struggle to solve the mysteries involving ideas including classic, gothic and modern ideas and modes of scientific thinking. Arcadia is a most entertaining scholarly work—not an easy task.
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Stoppard is recognized as a master playwright with hints of Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde together with sprinkles of Arthur Miller, Clifford Odets and Noel Coward. He is basically a teacher whose command of language makes subject matter such as mathematics, chaos theory, landscape architecture, Lord Byron, Romanticism and investigative historical scholarship not only interesting, but understandable. As a playwright, Stoppard’s craftsmanship has him seamlessly weaving a romantic comedy within a mystery in two separate time periods utilizing exquisite verbiage filled with sharp word play, double-entendres in a poetically gorgeous dialogue that contains laughs, poignancy and drama in a cleverly structured coherent story. His characters are fully developed, memorable and adroitly underscore their ideas with wily traits and quirks.
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Arcadia opens in an 1809 drawing room of Sidley Manor as Septimus (Grant Goodman) is tutoring thirteen year-old Thomasima (Bethany Caputo) whose amazing insights into physics and mathematical theory astounds Septimus. During the lesson, the girl wants him to explain what “carnal embrace” means. He mumbles some cute banter but she insists he become more specific as she learns a life lesson. Her mother, Lady Croom (Kate Fry) is having an affair with the tutor and others as she also has a new garden being designed to include a hermitage. References to the poet Ezra Chater (Raymond Fox) whose wife the tutor had sex with and a copy of his poetic works are clues to set up the mysteries of the past.
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Next we flash forward to the present day Sidley Manor where methodical investigative writer Hannah Jarvis (Mary Beth Fisher) is staying at Sidley to research the hermit for a book. Her friend/fiancé and current master of the estate, Valentine Coverly (Erik Hellman) is a mathematics professor working on probability theories. When the passionate, eccentric, pure romantic, pompous academic Bernard Nightingale (Kevin McKillip) arrives to research his theory that Lord Byron killed the obscure poet Ezra Charter in 1809 at Sidley Manor, he immediately enters into a love/hate, joint venture research project with Hannah. Add the sensual Chloe (Cassandra Bissell) and the savant Gus (Gregory Anderson) who adores Hannah and Stoppard has set up a modern intellectual romantic mystery.
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With excellent work from Grant Goodman as Septimus and the atriculate Kate Fry as Lady Croom and sparkling turns from Nethany Caputo as Thomasina, the early 19th Century manor is ripe with indiscrete sexual trysts as their actions lead the modern investigators astray. Director Newell effectively moves his cast back and forth in time to weave an easily understandable story. In the modern scenes, I liked the manic, passionate, yet funny work from Kevin McKillip as the arrogant professor. Erik Hellman intense Valentine and Mary Beth Fisher repressed and angry Hannah were excellently performed.
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Stoppard’s complex plot and multi-themed work is an exercise highlighting the dilemma in trying to understand the past and the problems science faces in its attempt to quantify all life experiences. Sexual attraction is the variable that thwarts scientific formulas for human behavior. Stoppard, ever the teacher, cleverly gets us pondering ideas like the nature of truth as he entices us with the twin mysteries of who was the hermit in Sidley Manor and did Lord Byron really kill the obscure poet in a duel? You’ll have to get to Court Theatre to see for yourself. Once more, Court Theatre proves why they are among the best theatre companies in Chicago.
Highly Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: May 12, 2007
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