Arcadia
By Tom Stoppard
Directed by David Leveaux
Duke of York’s Theatre

When I first saw Arcadia, about 15 years ago, I was impressed by how well Tom Stoppard had managed to intertwine the world of science and art. Unfortunately, and perhaps it might be me, this production left me depleted. I found the references to Newton just a bit too sixthformish, dropped into the play because Mr Stoppard had heard about them, without any true explanation of their meaning or true significance in our understanding of the world. Then I wondered what was the play trying to tell us, was it about infidelity in the 1800’s? Or how the countryside was rape by architectural gardeners? Or how fragile are conclusions based upon flimsy and piecemeal items of evidence whose context is dubious? Or was it about the very dubious practice of modern day historians? Or could it be self glory and how we build our edifices upon such shaky foundations? Then I wondered was it about none of these at all?
If you want to put that scientific world into context read ‘The Sleepwalkers’ and if you want a play that does explores the scientific world and how scientists manage to wrap their brains around very abstract ideas then watch ‘Copenhagen’.
That’s not to say that this play did not have its merits. Jessie Cave was absolutely outstanding as Thomasina Coverly and managed to take her character through the development of a young girl of 12, almost 13 through to the night before she was 17, only four or so years but heck of a lot of growing up. Neil Pearson gave us a very accomplished performance as Bernard Nightingale and Ed Stoppard was equally impressive as the erudite Valentine Coverly. Some of the other performers I was not so impressed with. The set had a distinct echo, as you might expect from an English country house, but that does mean that the actors must be accurate with their diction and exact with their projection and unfortunately the other actors were not always so understandable.
This is not to say that this was a bad production, indeed it is not, it is just that there was so much more that I wanted. Although there are and indeed were many laughs in the first scene, those titters faded as the play progressed. This was not the witty Mr Stoppard of ‘Shakespeare in Love’ and yet it could have been there were plenty of opportunities. While we have the more basic and matter of fact sex of the modern world counterbalanced with the raunchy and the romantic sex and love of the past we could have had so much more empathy between the two different sets of characters and a very distinct non-distinction between the ages, that is to say what went on then, goes on now and nothing new is invented, just our perceptions alter things.
Was it worth reviving this play? Well good plays are always worth reviving and this is a good play, but what would have been better would have been a new Stoppard play.

Reviewed by Evan Rule