Fleming 2008, p.1"Tom Stoppard has ranked as one of the most significant contemporary playwrights…many critics cite Arcadia as [his] finest play." The first New York production opened in March 1995, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. [40] It was again directed by Trevor Nunn, but with an entirely new cast. 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 won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and was nominated for the 1995 Tony Award for Best Play, losing to Terrence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion!. Stoppard leaped on these ideas with excitement and poured them into his play. As always he relished the technical language of specialist disciplines. “Noise,” for instance, is the scientist’s word for “error,” or “observational uncertainty.” It is “what scientists blame for the inaccuracy of their measurements.” Too much noise, in Arcadia, is what drives Valentine off course in his research. In the play, “noise” becomes a metaphor for extravagant and ridiculous behavior, especially that of the fame-seeking literary don Bernard, a very noisy character. “Trivial” means, for scientists, redundant information that doesn’t lead anywhere or proofs with no value. In the play, it is a telling word for what matters and what doesn’t. Personal relationships and the achievements of individuals, says Valentine, are “trivial” compared with the search for knowledge itself. Comically and poignantly, Stoppard shows how easy it is for the present to misinterpret the past, even as the play depicts the way the past shapes our future. Beyond the jokes and the intellectual joie de vivre, Arcadia cuts deep." - Charles Spencer, The Telegraph

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. Instead of seeking further evidence, he announces on TV his theory that Lord Byron killed Ezra Chater in a duel. At the end of the play, Hannah proves him wrong, much to his chagrin. Chloe's older brother, Valentine is a graduate student studying mathematics. He reluctantly helps Hannah understand Thomasina's genius. Arcadia by Tom Stoppard: Analysis Consciously echoed phrases, across the time frames, help to unify the play. For example, Chloe asks Valentine if "the future is all programmed like a computer", and whether she is the first to think that theory discredited "because of sex". [22] Thomasina has been there before: "If you could stop every atom in its position and direction ... you could write the formula for all the future," she tells Septimus, then adds, "Am I the first person to have thought of this?" [23] The difference is significant: Chloe's intuitive version allows for the effects of chaos, illustrating Stoppard's theme of the interdependence of science and art, and between professional and amateur thinking. [24] Title [ edit ] The title Arcadia alludes to a pastoral ideal. Et in Arcadia ego is most known as the title of this painting by Nicolas Poussin, also known as Les bergers d'Arcadie ("The Arcadian Shepherds") Scene seven switches constantly between time periods with no obvious divisions. The scene begins with a discussion between Chloe and Valentine. Valentine tells Chloe that the universe is deterministic; one might be able to predict everything to come if he had a computer large enough. Chloe interjects that the formula wouldn't work because of sex—people might fancy people who weren't part of the plan or proper formula. Thomasina is now sixteen. Septimus gives Thomasina an essay from the Scientific Academy in Paris that is like Thomasina's own work—the scientist has found a contradiction in Newton's theory of determinism. Thomasina tells Septimus that she was right; the problem with determinism is likely hidden in the author's observations about the action of bodies in heat. Thomasina understands the second law of thermodynamics (which states that heat is irreversible). Nonetheless, Hannah, like Thomasina, Septimus, and Gus all waltz at the conclusion of the play. Hannah cannot refuse emotion or the bashful Gus by the end of the play and is drawn into an uncomfortable and uneasy dance. The conflict between emotion and intellect is resolved because Hannah suddenly understands that the two are inseparable. Hannah is unlike Thomasina, who unconsciously understands this, driven forcefully by the mystery of both. The Mystery of Sex

Eventually a waltz starts, and Septimus dances with Thomasina, revealing that their relationship is increasingly complicated by hints of romance. Gus (Valentine and Chloe's younger brother, who has been silent for the entire play) hands another of Thomasina's drawings to a surprised Hannah. It depicts Septimus and the tortoise, confirming her suspicion that the hermit, who had a tortoise called Plautus, was Septimus. After Thomasina's tragic death, he apparently became a hermit. Accepting her challenge to the laws of the universe as propounded by Newton, he worked for the rest of his life to apply "honest English algebra" to the question of the universe's future. The science may seem heady, but it is really straightforward, and though it does take some effort to follow the many threads it is more than worthwhile. Set at the start of the nineteenth century and in the late twentieth century, it brings together two kinds of revolutions. One is the shift between Enlightenment and Romantic culture. The other is the recent shift between classical science and new ways of thinking in maths, physics and biology. Neither of these happened all at once. Nobody wakes up one morning to find they are suddenly a Romantic poet as opposed to an Enlightenment satirist (Byron was both), and Newton’s laws weren’t instantly replaced by quantum physics. But the play suggests turning points.

Emotion and reason are constantly put in conflict with one another throughout Arcadia—from Lady Croom's and Noakes's fight over the garden to Septimus's disdain for talking about carnal knowledge to Hannah's rejection of the men at Sidley Park. Arcadia returned to Broadway, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, on 17 March 2011, again directed by David Leveaux. The cast included Margaret Colin (Lady Croom), Billy Crudup (Septimus in the original Broadway version, now playing Bernard Nightingale), Raúl Esparza (Valentine Coverly), Glenn Fleshler (Captain Brice), Grace Gummer (Chloë Coverly), Edward James Hyland (Jellaby), Byron Jennings (Richard Noakes), Bel Powley (Thomasina Coverly), Tom Riley (Septimus Hodge), Noah Robbins (Gus Coverly/Augustus Coverly), David Turner (Ezra Chater), and Lia Williams (Hannah Jarvis). [43] The production was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. [44] Reception [ edit ] Which force has more influence over social change: science or emotion? What is more central to a person's ability to connect with others: love or knowledge? Tom Stoppard (1937-) explores these questions and more in his two-act play Arcadia (1993). Alternating between two distinct time periods, Arcadia follows the intellectual discoveries of two young scholars who attempt to uncover the truth of the world around them. Both central female characters are academic geniuses; however, they prioritize science over love and reason over emotion, leaving them oblivious to love and sexuality. Stoppard's Arcadia explores themes such as emotion vs. reason and the mystery of the human heart. Arcadia by Tom Stoppard: Summary The play's scientific concepts are set forth primarily in the historical scenes, where Thomasina delivers her precocious (or even anachronistic) references to entropy, the deterministic universe and iterated equations in improvised, colloquial terms. [9] In the modern era, Valentine explains the significance of Thomasina's rediscovered notebook with careful detail, reflecting Stoppard's research into his play's scientific materials. [20] [21] I know of few serious plays that are as funny as Arcadia, and even fewer funny plays that are as serious." - Terry Teachout, Wall Street JournalCohen, J.M.; Cohen, M.J. (1960). The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books. Valentine, the twentieth-century computer scientist and biologist in Arcadia, puts it like this, with excitement and delight: “The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is . . . the smallest variation blows prediction apart.”

The confusion of who did what (and, in some cases, to whom) work to great comedic and dramatic effect. Set around a single large table, the intimacy of the proceedings thrills in this unaffected revival. Lee's openness is beautifully contrasted by the witty artifice of her mother, Lady Croom (an enjoyably stylish turn by Dorothea Myer-Bennett), and Polly Frame and Matthew Thomas are terrific value as an emotionally distanced writer reluctant to join the dance of life, and an arrogant academic who believes he knows why Byron departed England in 1809. But then as Thomasina's tutor, Septimus, says: "When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be alone on the empty shore." The columnist Johann Hari confidently asserted the other day that Tom Stoppard's 1993 play Arcadia is " perhaps the greatest play of its time". A bold claim: suitably brash and impossible to measure. Even so, you can see what he means. Stoppard's wise and yearning play spans the Georgian sublime and the disillusioned days of the last Tory government, spinning ideas about the shape of the universe and the needs of the heart. I can't wait to see it again this week in David Leveaux's new production. 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. (Gus and Augustus are played by the same actor.) A scholar at a major university, Bernard Nightingale is more interested in proving his theory than actually discovering the truth. Bernard travels to Sidley Park, hoping to find evidence that Lord Byron killed the poet Chater in a duel. Before finding any solid evidence, Bernard goes on television to present his theory. He is ashamed when Hannah disproves his ideas. Chloe CoverlyAs a Stoppard fan attending a later performance, I had long admired him (who hadn’t?) for the intelligence and wit that deeply infused his introductory Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and then accumulating works. But after the likes of, for instance, the superb Travesties (1974) and The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia was something else again. The workings of the heart that often went unexamined by the exceptional wordsmith were suddenly revealed, their emotions newly displayed.