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Arcadia (play)
Encyclopedia
Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard
concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge. It has been cited by many critics as the finest play from one of the most significant contemporary playwrights in the English language.
In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics well ahead of her time. She studies with her tutor Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron who is an unseen guest in the house. In the present, a writer and an academic converge on the house: Hannah Jarvis, the writer, is investigating a hermit who once lived on the grounds; Bernard Nightingale, a professor of literature, is investigating a mysterious chapter in the life of Byron. As their investigations unfold, helped by Valentine Coverly, a post-graduate student in mathematical biology, the truth about what happened in Thomasina's lifetime is gradually revealed.
The play's set features a large table, which is used by the characters in both past and present. Props are not removed when the play switches time period, so that the books, tortoise, coffee mugs, quill pens, portfolios, and laptop computers appear alongside each other in a blurring of past and present.
with tutor Septimus Hodge trying to distract his 13 year-old pupil Thomasina from her enquiries as to the meaning of a "carnal embrace" by challenging her to prove Fermat's Last Theorem
so he can focus on reading the poem 'The Couch of Eros', a piece written by another character, Mr. Ezra Chater. Thomasina starts questioning why the jam in rice pudding can never be unstirred, which leads her on to the topic of determinism
, beginning to develop a theory regarding the chaotic shapes of nature. This however is interrupted by Mr. Chater himself who is shortly revealed to be angry that his wife, Mrs. Chater, was caught engaging in sexual intercourse in the gazebo with Septimus, and has come intending to challenge Septimus to a duel. Septimus attempts to defuse the situation by heaping oleaginous praise on "The Couch of Eros", a tactic that works, as at this point Chater doesn't realise that it was Septimus who had previously negatively reviewed an earlier work of his, "The Maid of Turkey". Landscape architect Noakes enters, shortly accompanied by Captain Brice and Lady Croom, who then proceed to discuss the proposed modifications to the gardens, with Thomasina drawing a picture of an imaginary hermit (in the biblical style of John the Baptist) onto Mr. Noakes's picture of the garden (with its fantasy hermitage) as he sees it in the future.
, having finally realised, learning off-stage from Lord Byron, that Septimus was behind the negative reviews of his work.
and chaos theory
, recalling the previous scene's assertion that what is lost is eventually rediscovered. Valentine reacts with interest to this, as his own research in the present day centres on similar areas and concepts.
, before departing to share the lecture in the capital and make promotional appearances in the media. Hannah meanwhile begins to suspect that the hermit of Sidley Park, who was reportedly obsessed with algebra and the heat death of the universe
, the theory suggested in Thomasina's diagram, and who was also born in the same year, could have been Septimus.
. Lady Croom then invites Septimus to an amorous rendez-vous.
, and whether or not it was Thomasina or Septimus who was the genius behind the theories. Hannah and Valentine mention that "the girl" died in a fire on the eve of her seventeenth birthday.
Meanwhile, Thomasina (who is approaching her seventeenth birthday at this point) asks Septimus to teach her to dance. Lady Croom enters, complaining to Mr. Noakes about the noise of his steam engine
, before Thomasina explains that the machine operates under the laws of entropy (not yet propounded at the time) which prove that the universe
is winding down. In the present, Bernard arrives at the house where he is met by Hannah, who has discovered evidence, a letter showing the true cause of Mr. Chater's death, that totally discredits his argument and vindicates Lord Byron. While Septimus waits for appropriate music for a dance lesson that Thomasina has asked for, he examines the picture she made to illustrate the irreversibility of heat, an action mirrored in the present setting with Valentine and Hannah also looking at the same diagram
and discussing its significance. Bernard is forced to depart having been caught in a compromising position with Chloe. Eventually a waltz
starts. Septimus dances with Thomasina, their relationship of teacher and pupil increasingly complicated by hints of romance. Gus—Valentine and Chloe's brother, who has remained silent for the entire course of the play, brings Hannah Thomasina's drawing of Septimus and the tortoise together. This confirms Hannah's belief that the hermit, who owned a tortoise called Plautus, is Septimus; after the death of Thomasina, and faced with her challenge to the laws of the universe as propounded by Newton, he indeed becomes the hermit obsessed with applying "honest English algebra" to the question of the future of the universe.
in the specialized, modern sense of being somewhere between a tragedy
and a comedy
. It involves some elements of classical tragedy—"noble
" characters and the audience's knowledge of Thomasina's impending death—but the predominant element is comedy, in the way that the characters interact with each other and their witty, epigram
matic dialogue.
: the plot is both logical and probable, following linear series of events. Arcadias only true deviation from this definition is the inclusion of two separate, though interrelated, plotlines: both follow a linear structure along parallel lines. An example of this comes after we see the historical Thomasina deriving her mathematical equations to describe the forms of nature; we later see Val, with his computer, plotting
them to produce the image of a leaf.
to make plain the relationships between the characters. For example, Septimus, after failing to deflect a question from Thomasina with a joke, bluntly explains to his thirteen-year-old pupil the nature of "carnal embrace", but this is far removed from the bluntness with which he repudiates Chater's defence of his wife's honour, which "could not...be defended with a platoon of musketry". With Lady Croom, for whom Mrs Chater is a "harlot", Septimus delicately admits that "her passion is not as fixed" as a suitor might wish.
In the modern sequences the dialogue is more realistic, but Bernard consciously assumes some stylization of language: he not only tries out his forthcoming public lecture using heightened, flamboyant rhetoric, but also engages in a polemical piece of "performance art" to diminish Valentine's belief in the supremacy of scientific thought: not through spite, but merely as a "recreation". The scientific aspects of the play are set out in its historical sections, but Thomasina's precocious (or even anachronistic) references to entropy
, the deterministic universe and iterated equations
are delivered in an artless, throwaway, manner. The counterpoint in the modern era is when Valentine explains to Hannah the significance of Thomasina's rediscovered notebook with detail that reflects Stoppard's careful research in the scientific basis of his play.
There are conscious textual echoes, across the time frames, of phrases throughout the play. The most notable is when Chloë asks Valentine if, "the future is all programmed like a computer", is she the first to think that the theory is discredited, "all because of sex". Thomasina had been there before her: "Am I the first person to have thought of this? ...If you could stop every atom in its position and direction...you could write the formula for all the future". The difference is significant: Chloë's version allows for the effects of chaos
, thus illustrating Stoppard's theme of interdependence of science and art.
, mathematics
and physics
. It shows how the clues left by the past are interpreted by scholars. The play refers to a wide array of subjects, including mathematics
, physics
, thermodynamics
, computer algorithms, fractals, population dynamics
, chaos theory
vs. determinism
(especially in the context of love and death), classics
, landscape design
, romanticism
vs. classicism
, English literature
(particularly poetry
), Byron
, 18th century periodicals, modern academia
, and even South Pacific botany
. These are the concrete topics of conversation; the more abstract philosophical resonances veer off into epistemology, nihilism
, the origins of lust
and madness
.
The themes presented within Arcadia are based in a series of dichotomies. The most prominent of these is the idea of chaos versus order, presented through Stoppard's discussion of chaos theory within the play. The action of Arcadia and the characters within it reflect this theory; everything is gradually dispersing into a state of chaos and entropy (represented by the final scene), and yet within that chaos, order can be found. Valentine summarizes this idea: "In an ocean of ashes, islands of order. Patterns making themselves out of nothing." Within the chaos that develops over the course of the play—through the overlap of time periods, through increasingly complicated ideas that are presented, through the variances between what is correct and what is assumed—connections and order can still be recognized. The characters attempt to define the order of the world through their ideas and theories, and they are continually overturned (as with Bernard's theory).
The table which collects props from both time periods throughout the play is a strong example of the chaos/order dichotomy. In Science in Hapgood and Arcadia Paul Edwards, professor of English and History of Art at Bath Spa University
, explains what this represents: "At the end of the play, the table has accumulated a variety of objects that, if one saw them without having seen the play, would seem completely random and disordered. Entropy is high. But if one has seen the play, one has full information about the objects and the hidden 'order' of their arrangement, brought about by the performance itself. Entropy is low; this can be proved by reflecting that tomorrow night's performance of the play will finish with the table in a virtually identical 'disorder'—which therefore cannot really be disorder at all."
A secondary theme within Arcadia is the dichotomy of Classicism
versus Romanticism
. It is exemplified primarily through the argument between Lady Croom and Mr. Noakes over the changes being made to the garden. This shows a direct shift between the tidiness and order of Classic style to the rugged, Gothic appearance of the Romantic. This dichotomy is also presented through Septimus and Thomasina, as she argues her new theories and ideas that refute classic Newtonian ideals while he defends them. Hannah's search for the poetic meaning behind the hermit of Sidley Park also remarks on this theme. She passionately exclaims to Bernard, "The whole Romantic sham, Bernard! It's what happened to the Enlightenment, isn't it? A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself. A mind in chaos suspected of genius...The decline from thinking to feeling."
Another theme of the play, which falls under the category of chaos, is the irreversibility of time. This is examined scientifically through Thomasina's remarks on Newtonian equations, which work both backwards and forwards. And yet in reality, things, like Thomasina's rice pudding (which inspires these remarks), cannot be "unstirred." Heat flows in only one direction. The idea of heat (and the second law of thermodynamics) is thus represented through the actions of the characters. They burn bridges in relationships, they burn letters, candles burn, and in the end, it is revealed that Thomasina will burn to death. The finality of things is always present.
Thomasina's insights into thermodynamics and heat transfer, and the idea that the universe is cooling, echo the poem "Darkness" by her "real life" contemporary, Lord Byron. Written by in 1816—the "Year Without Summer" caused by atmospheric volcanic ash from the Mount Tambora eruption in the Dutch East Indies – "Darkness" depicts a world grown dark and cold because the sun has been extinguished.
The end of the play brings all of these dichotomies and themes together, showing that though things may appear to contradict—Romanticism and Classicism, intuition and logic, thought and feeling — they can exist, paradoxically, in the same time and space. Order is found amid the chaos.
The title is an abbreviation of an initial, pre-publication, title: "Et in Arcadia ego
" (with Arcadia referring to the pastoral ideal of Arcadia
), a phrase most commonly interpreted as a memento mori
spoken by Death. The phrase translates as "and in Arcadia I am", frequently rendered as "I [Death] too am in Arcadia" or "Even in Arcadia I [Death] am", although the meaning of the phrase is enigmatic and the subject of much academic discourse.
Discussing paintings of pleasant landscapes, Lady Croom mistranslates the phrase as "here I am in Arcadia", on which Thomasina drily comments, "Yes Mama, if you would have it so". Thomasina's tutor Septimus notices; later, knowing that she will appreciate the true meaning, he offers the translation "Even in Arcadia, there am I". He is right: "Oh, phooey to Death!" she replies. Although these brief exchanges are the only direct references in the work to the play's title, they presage the fates of the two main characters: Thomasina's early death and Septimus's voluntary exile from life. Stoppard originally wanted to make this connection plainer by using Et in Arcadia Ego for the title but "box office sense prevailed".
In a more obvious sense, the title also alludes to the ideal of nature as a rustic paradise, with the landscaping of the estate to give a less stylised, irregular form as a major theme in the play. This serves as a recurring reference to the different ways in which "true nature" can be understood, and as a pragmatic parallel to Thomasina's theoretical method of describing the structure of the natural world using mathematics.
One of the main thematic concepts in the show is chaos theory. Two authors describe this extremely complicated concept within the context of Arcadia.
The first of these is Paul Edwards in his essay "Science in Hapgood and Arcadia" in the Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard.
"Chaos mathematics is about the recovery of information from apparently chaotic and random systems where entropy is high... It is 'asymmetric' (unlike the equations of classical physics), yet it finds regularities that prove to be the regularities of nature itself. Strikingly, this mathematics can generate patterns of amazing complexity, but it also has the power to generate seemingly natural or organic shapes that defeat Newtonian geometry. The promise, then, (however questionable it is in reality) is that information, and by extension, nature itself, can overcome the tendency to increase in entropy" (p. 181).
The second is an excerpt from the chapter on Arcadia in John Fleming's book Stoppard's Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos.
"Deterministic chaos deals with systems of unpredictable determinism, but the uncertainty does not result in pure randomness but rather in complex patterns. Traditionally, scientists expected dynamic systems to settle into stable, predictable behavior. However, deterministic chaos has shown that as many of these systems respond to variations in input... Surprisingly, within these random states, windows of order reappear... 'There is order in chaos—an unpredictable order, but a determined order nonetheless, and not merely random behavior...'"
Further scientific and mathematical concepts covered in Arcadia are the second law of thermodynamics
, and in relation to it, entropy
. Fleming describes these two principles. "Entropy is the measure of the randomness or disorder of a system. The law of increase of entropy states that as a whole the universe is evolving from order to disorder. This relates to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that heat can flow in only one direction, from hotter to colder. Since these equations, unlike Newton's laws of motion, do not go backward and forward, there is an 'arrow of time
' that points toward the eventual 'heat death' of the universe"
By using all of these concepts within Arcadia, Stoppard exposes how "there is an underlying order to seemingly random events." The characters in the play discuss these topics while their interactions reflect them.
Some ideas in the play recall Goethe's novella Elective Affinities
: Stoppard's characters "Thomasina" and "Septimus" have parallels in Goethe's "Ottalie" and "Eduard", and the historical section of the play is set in 1809, the year of the novella.
Arcadia first opened at the Royal National Theatre
in London on 13 April 1993 in a production directed by Trevor Nunn
and featuring Rufus Sewell
as Septimus Hodge, Felicity Kendal
(Stoppard's then-lover) as Hannah Jarvis, Bill Nighy
as Bernard Nightingale, Emma Fielding
as Thomasina Coverly, Alan Mitchell
as Jellaby, Derek Hutchinson as Ezra Chater, Sidney Livingston as Richard Noakes, Harriet Walter
as Lady Croom, Graham Sinclair as Captain Brice, Harriet Harrison as Chloe Coverly, Timothy Matthews as Augustus Coverly and Gus Coverly and Samuel West
as Valentine Coverly. It won the 1993 Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Play.
The first New York production opened in March 1995 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre
. It was again directed by Trevor Nunn
, but the entire cast changed. 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!
.
In 1996–1997, the first major U.S. regional production was mounted at the Arena Stage
in Washington, D.C.
On 27 May 2009, David Leveaux
as director opened the latest London production of Arcadia at the Duke of York's Theatre
with Samantha Bond, Nancy Carroll
, Jessie Cave
, Trevor Cooper
, Sam Cox, Lucy Griffiths, Tom Hodgkins, Hugh Mitchell
, Neil Pearson
, George Potts, Dan Stevens
and Ed Stoppard
. The production recouped its production costs and closed on 12 September 2009.
The show returned to Broadway, at Ethel Barrymore Theatre
, on 17 March 2011, with closing scheduled on 19 June 2011, again directed by David Leveaux. The cast includes Margaret Colin
(Lady Croom), Billy Crudup
(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). The production was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play
.
, reviewing the first production in 1993, praised the "perfect marriage of ideas and high comedy", but for some the ideas overwhelmed the comedy: "...too clever by about two-and-three-quarters. One comes away instructed with more than one can usefully wish to know..." noted The Daily Mail. The play's West End
transfer, after an eight-month run at the National, gave an opportunity for re-appraisal and The Daily Telegraph
commented: "I have never left a play more convinced that I had just witnessed a masterpiece".
Vincent Canby
of The New York Times
described the play as "Tom Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date, a play of wit, intellect, language, brio and, new for him, emotion" but many New York reviews were mixed or unfavourable, citing anachronisms and a lack of realism in Stoppard's conception.
The London revival of 2009 prompted more critics to laud the play as "Stoppard's finest work". Michael Billington
wrote in The Guardian
that "[The] play gets richer with each viewing ... there is poetry and passion behind the mathematics and metaphysics." Johann Hari
of The Independent
speculated that the work would come to be recognised "as the greatest play of its time".
The 2011 Broadway production, directed by David Leveaux
, met with a mixed reception. Ben Brantley
of The New York Times
called it "a half-terrific revival of Mr. Stoppard's entirely terrific Arcadia", noting that "several central roles are slightly miscast", and "some of the performances from the Anglo-American cast are pitched to the point of incoherence." Similar concerns over the production's casting and performances were also raised by critics from the New York
magazine, The Hollywood Reporter
, The Wall Street Journal
, New York Daily News, Time Out New York and Bloomberg News
.
Awards
Nominations
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge. It has been cited by many critics as the finest play from one of the most significant contemporary playwrights in the English language.
Synopsis
Arcadia is set in Sidley Park, an English country house, in both the years 1809–1812 and the present day (1993 in the original production). The activities of two modern scholars and the house's current residents are juxtaposed with the lives of those who lived there 180 years earlier.In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics well ahead of her time. She studies with her tutor Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron who is an unseen guest in the house. In the present, a writer and an academic converge on the house: Hannah Jarvis, the writer, is investigating a hermit who once lived on the grounds; Bernard Nightingale, a professor of literature, is investigating a mysterious chapter in the life of Byron. As their investigations unfold, helped by Valentine Coverly, a post-graduate student in mathematical biology, the truth about what happened in Thomasina's lifetime is gradually revealed.
The play's set features a large table, which is used by the characters in both past and present. Props are not removed when the play switches time period, so that the books, tortoise, coffee mugs, quill pens, portfolios, and laptop computers appear alongside each other in a blurring of past and present.
Scene 1
The play opens on 10 April 1809, in a garden front room of a country house in DerbyshireDerbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
with tutor Septimus Hodge trying to distract his 13 year-old pupil Thomasina from her enquiries as to the meaning of a "carnal embrace" by challenging her to prove Fermat's Last Theorem
Fermat's Last Theorem
In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem states that no three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation an + bn = cn for any integer value of n greater than two....
so he can focus on reading the poem 'The Couch of Eros', a piece written by another character, Mr. Ezra Chater. Thomasina starts questioning why the jam in rice pudding can never be unstirred, which leads her on to the topic of determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
, beginning to develop a theory regarding the chaotic shapes of nature. This however is interrupted by Mr. Chater himself who is shortly revealed to be angry that his wife, Mrs. Chater, was caught engaging in sexual intercourse in the gazebo with Septimus, and has come intending to challenge Septimus to a duel. Septimus attempts to defuse the situation by heaping oleaginous praise on "The Couch of Eros", a tactic that works, as at this point Chater doesn't realise that it was Septimus who had previously negatively reviewed an earlier work of his, "The Maid of Turkey". Landscape architect Noakes enters, shortly accompanied by Captain Brice and Lady Croom, who then proceed to discuss the proposed modifications to the gardens, with Thomasina drawing a picture of an imaginary hermit (in the biblical style of John the Baptist) onto Mr. Noakes's picture of the garden (with its fantasy hermitage) as he sees it in the future.
Scene 2
The setting shifts to the present day, with Hannah Jarvis researching about the house, garden and specifically the hermit, for a study centering on Hermits and the romantic imagination. Bernard Nightingale enters, escorted by Chloe Coverley, who fails to impart to Hannah the true identity of Bernard, as he gave Hannah's last book a poor review. Chloe's brother, Valentine Coverley, is doing research, though into the population biology of the grouse in the surrounding grounds, based on data from the historical "game books". When eventually Bernard's identity is revealed after a verbal misstep by Chloe, Hannah initially reacts angrily but regardless she agrees to share the research material he requested, allowing him to propose his theory that one of the 1809 inhabitants, Mr. Ezra Chater, was killed in a duel by Lord Byron. Bernard notes that records of Chater disappear after 1809; the only other notable Ezra Chater is a botanist.Scene 3
The third scene reverts back to the initial timeframe, again in a tutorial session between Septimus and Thomasina, this time in Latin translation. Again the focus of the lesson diverts somewhat, here on to the destruction of the Alexandrian Library, which upsets Thomasina, who mourns the loss of the knowledge contained there, though Septimus's response is that all that is lost will eventually turn up again. The discussion is once again interrupted by Mr. Chater, who once again challenges Septimus to a duelDuel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...
, having finally realised, learning off-stage from Lord Byron, that Septimus was behind the negative reviews of his work.
Scene 4
Hannah rediscovers Thomasina's primer containing her ideas on iterationIteration
Iteration means the act of repeating a process usually with the aim of approaching a desired goal or target or result. Each repetition of the process is also called an "iteration," and the results of one iteration are used as the starting point for the next iteration.-Mathematics:Iteration in...
and chaos theory
Chaos theory
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
, recalling the previous scene's assertion that what is lost is eventually rediscovered. Valentine reacts with interest to this, as his own research in the present day centres on similar areas and concepts.
Scene 5
In the first scene of act 2, Hannah, Valentine and Chloe are given a preview of Bernard's lecture detailing Byron's supposed role in what he believes was Chater's murder. Bernard becomes agitated when Hannah and Valentine challenge the solidity and logic of his argument, responding by launching into a diatribe about the irrelevance of scienceScience
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, before departing to share the lecture in the capital and make promotional appearances in the media. Hannah meanwhile begins to suspect that the hermit of Sidley Park, who was reportedly obsessed with algebra and the heat death of the universe
Heat death of the universe
The heat death of the universe is a suggested ultimate fate of the universe, in which the universe has diminished to a state of no thermodynamic free energy and therefore can no longer sustain motion or life. Heat death does not imply any particular absolute temperature; it only requires that...
, the theory suggested in Thomasina's diagram, and who was also born in the same year, could have been Septimus.
Scene 6
Reverting to 1809, scene 6 reveals that the duel never occurred, with the Chaters instead having departed for the West Indies along with Captain Brice; Mr. Chater is accompanying the expedition as a botanist, and Mrs. Chater as Captain Brice's paramour. Byron has left also. Septimus has killed a rabbit for Thomasina. Septimus returns to find Lady Croom searching for him, after finding two letters that Septimus had written in case he was killed by Chater, one a love letter addressed to herself and the other, written to Thomasina, regarding rice puddingRice pudding
Rice pudding is a dish made from rice mixed with water or milk and sometimes other ingredients such as cinnamon and raisins. Different variants are used for either desserts or dinners. When used as a dessert, it is commonly combined with a sweetener such as sugar.-Rice pudding around the world:Rice...
. Lady Croom then invites Septimus to an amorous rendez-vous.
Scene 7
The seventh scene takes place in both 1812 and the present day, with the action of each in the shared setting effectively running concurrently. Furthermore, in the present day, some of the characters are in fancy dress for a party, meaning that the clothes and appearance of both casts are to some extent similar. Chloe is reading newspaper reports on the Byron murder theory as proposed by Bernard, before talking about determinism with Valentine, in a conversation echoing the one between Septimus and Thomasina earlier; Chloe, however, believes that sex is the force throwing off the universe's ordered plan. Valentine uses his computer to further advance the ideas proposed by Thomasina, and discusses the concept of entropyEntropy
Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
, and whether or not it was Thomasina or Septimus who was the genius behind the theories. Hannah and Valentine mention that "the girl" died in a fire on the eve of her seventeenth birthday.
Meanwhile, Thomasina (who is approaching her seventeenth birthday at this point) asks Septimus to teach her to dance. Lady Croom enters, complaining to Mr. Noakes about the noise of his steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
, before Thomasina explains that the machine operates under the laws of entropy (not yet propounded at the time) which prove that the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
is winding down. In the present, Bernard arrives at the house where he is met by Hannah, who has discovered evidence, a letter showing the true cause of Mr. Chater's death, that totally discredits his argument and vindicates Lord Byron. While Septimus waits for appropriate music for a dance lesson that Thomasina has asked for, he examines the picture she made to illustrate the irreversibility of heat, an action mirrored in the present setting with Valentine and Hannah also looking at the same diagram
Diagram
A diagram is a two-dimensional geometric symbolic representation of information according to some visualization technique. Sometimes, the technique uses a three-dimensional visualization which is then projected onto the two-dimensional surface...
and discussing its significance. Bernard is forced to depart having been caught in a compromising position with Chloe. Eventually a waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
starts. Septimus dances with Thomasina, their relationship of teacher and pupil increasingly complicated by hints of romance. Gus—Valentine and Chloe's brother, who has remained silent for the entire course of the play, brings Hannah Thomasina's drawing of Septimus and the tortoise together. This confirms Hannah's belief that the hermit, who owned a tortoise called Plautus, is Septimus; after the death of Thomasina, and faced with her challenge to the laws of the universe as propounded by Newton, he indeed becomes the hermit obsessed with applying "honest English algebra" to the question of the future of the universe.
Characters of 1809
- Thomasina Coverly: The 13 year-old (later 16-year-old) daughter of Lord and Lady Croom, Thomasina is a precocious young genius. She comes to understand chaos theory and theorizes the second law of thermodynamics, before either is officially recognized and established in mathematical and scientific communities.
- Septimus Hodge: Thomasina's tutor and the academic colleague and friend of Lord Byron (an unseen but important character in the play). While teaching Thomasina he works on his own research, and has affairs with the older women of the house. When she is older, he begins to fall in love with her, and after her death it is implied that he becomes the "hermit of Sidley Park", working on the young girl's theories until his own death.
- Jellaby: The Crooms' butler at Sidley Park. His chief functions are to spread gossip and deliver letters.
- Ezra Chater: An unsuccessful poet staying at Sidley Park. His wife's affairs lead him to challenge Septimus to a duel. Later, it is revealed that he is the same person as a Mr. Chater, the botanist who dies of a monkey bite in Martinique (after he has travelled there with his wife and Captain Brice).
- Mrs. (Charity) Chater: Though she never appears on stage, Mrs. Chater and her affairs play a vital role in the conflict of the story. She sleeps with Septimus, and the repeatedly cuckolded Mr. Chater challenges him to a duel. She sleeps with Lord Byron and gets him, her husband, Captain Brice, and herself essentially kicked out of Sidley Park.
- Richard Noakes: Mr. Noakes is Lady Croom's gardener. Throughout the play he is working on transforming the classical, Arcadia-like landscape of Sidley Park into the Gothic style popular at the time (an idea that Lady Croom begrudgingly agrees to). He is key in discovering and exposing Septimus and Mrs. Chater's affair.
- Lady Croom: Thomasina's mother, who rules the Coverly estate with an iron fist. There is a good deal of flirtation between her and Septimus (as well as other gentlemen) through the play. A second Lady Croom, Chloe's mother in the modern half of the play, never appears on stage.
- Captain Brice: The brother of Lady Croom (of 1809) 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. After Mr. Chater's death, Captain Brice marries Mrs. Chater.
- Augustus Coverly: Augustus is Thomasina's trouble-making younger brother, who appears in only a few brief scenes. Gus and Augustus are played by the same actor, and span the gap between past and present.
Characters of the present
- Hannah Jarvis: The author of a popular best-seller on Byron's mistress Lady Caroline Lamb, Hannah is researching the elusive hermit of Sidley Park, who lived in the hermitage there in the early 19th century. Hannah collaborates (sometimes warily) with Bernard (and also with Valentine), though she rejects the romantic advances of both in order to focus on her work.
- Chloe Coverly: At 18, Chloe is the modern day equivalent of Thomasina (likewise, she is the daughter of the modern Lady Croom). Like Thomasina, Chloe is very perceptive and intelligent. She proposes a theory that the Newtonian universe does not work because of sex and the problems that it causes between people. Chloe initially tries to set up Hannah and Bernard, but later ends up sleeping with him herself.
- Bernard Nightingale: A don at a modern university, Bernard comes to Sidley Park hoping to work with Hannah on his theory about Lord Byron staying at the estate. Foolishly, he disregards searching for further proof of his theories, and, hoping for fame, 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.
- Valentine Coverly: A graduate student of mathematics, Valentine is Chloe's older brother. After poring over several old documents, he comes to acknowledge Thomasina's genius.
- Gus Coverly: Gus is 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, and span the gap between past and present.
Genre
The genre of Arcadia is, at the surface, a dramaDrama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
in the specialized, modern sense of being somewhere between a tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
and a comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
. It involves some elements of classical tragedy—"noble
Integrity
Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions...
" characters and the audience's knowledge of Thomasina's impending death—but the predominant element is comedy, in the way that the characters interact with each other and their witty, epigram
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
matic dialogue.
Style
Stoppard scholar Jim Hunter writes that Arcadia is a relatively realist play, compared to Stoppard's other works, although the realism is "much enhanced and teased about by the alternation of two eras". The setting and characters are true-to-life, without being archetypal. It is comprehensibleComprehension (logic)
In logic, the comprehension of an object is the totality of intensions, that is, attributes, characters, marks, properties, or qualities, that the object possesses, or else the totality of intensions that are pertinent to the context of a given discussion...
: the plot is both logical and probable, following linear series of events. Arcadias only true deviation from this definition is the inclusion of two separate, though interrelated, plotlines: both follow a linear structure along parallel lines. An example of this comes after we see the historical Thomasina deriving her mathematical equations to describe the forms of nature; we later see Val, with his computer, plotting
Graph of a function
In mathematics, the graph of a function f is the collection of all ordered pairs . In particular, if x is a real number, graph means the graphical representation of this collection, in the form of a curve on a Cartesian plane, together with Cartesian axes, etc. Graphing on a Cartesian plane is...
them to produce the image of a leaf.
Language
In its simplest form, the language of Arcadia switches between the colloquialisms of early 19th century England and those of modern England. Although Stoppard uses language reflective of his periods—historical or modern speech patterns and lexicons in keeping with his characterizations—this is a stylised dialogue used to convey "look and feel" according to the perceptions of the modern audience. The stylization, however, allows sufficient latitude in registerRegister (sociolinguistics)
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal...
to make plain the relationships between the characters. For example, Septimus, after failing to deflect a question from Thomasina with a joke, bluntly explains to his thirteen-year-old pupil the nature of "carnal embrace", but this is far removed from the bluntness with which he repudiates Chater's defence of his wife's honour, which "could not...be defended with a platoon of musketry". With Lady Croom, for whom Mrs Chater is a "harlot", Septimus delicately admits that "her passion is not as fixed" as a suitor might wish.
In the modern sequences the dialogue is more realistic, but Bernard consciously assumes some stylization of language: he not only tries out his forthcoming public lecture using heightened, flamboyant rhetoric, but also engages in a polemical piece of "performance art" to diminish Valentine's belief in the supremacy of scientific thought: not through spite, but merely as a "recreation". The scientific aspects of the play are set out in its historical sections, but Thomasina's precocious (or even anachronistic) references to entropy
Entropy
Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
, the deterministic universe and iterated equations
Iteration
Iteration means the act of repeating a process usually with the aim of approaching a desired goal or target or result. Each repetition of the process is also called an "iteration," and the results of one iteration are used as the starting point for the next iteration.-Mathematics:Iteration in...
are delivered in an artless, throwaway, manner. The counterpoint in the modern era is when Valentine explains to Hannah the significance of Thomasina's rediscovered notebook with detail that reflects Stoppard's careful research in the scientific basis of his play.
There are conscious textual echoes, across the time frames, of phrases throughout the play. The most notable is when Chloë asks Valentine if, "the future is all programmed like a computer", is she the first to think that the theory is discredited, "all because of sex". Thomasina had been there before her: "Am I the first person to have thought of this? ...If you could stop every atom in its position and direction...you could write the formula for all the future". The difference is significant: Chloë's version allows for the effects of chaos
Chaos theory
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
, thus illustrating Stoppard's theme of interdependence of science and art.
Themes
Arcadia explores the nature of evidence and truth in the context of modern ideas about historyHistory
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
. It shows how the clues left by the past are interpreted by scholars. The play refers to a wide array of subjects, including mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, thermodynamics
Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a physical science that studies the effects on material bodies, and on radiation in regions of space, of transfer of heat and of work done on or by the bodies or radiation...
, computer algorithms, fractals, population dynamics
Population dynamics
Population dynamics is the branch of life sciences that studies short-term and long-term changes in the size and age composition of populations, and the biological and environmental processes influencing those changes...
, chaos theory
Chaos theory
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
vs. determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
(especially in the context of love and death), classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
, landscape design
Landscape design
Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practised by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice landscape design bridges between landscape architecture and garden design.-Design scope:...
, romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
vs. classicism
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
, English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
(particularly poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
), Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
, 18th century periodicals, modern academia
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
, and even South Pacific botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
. These are the concrete topics of conversation; the more abstract philosophical resonances veer off into epistemology, nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
, the origins of lust
Lust
Lust is an emotional force that is directly associated with the thinking or fantasizing about one's desire, usually in a sexual way.-Etymology:The word lust is phonetically similar to the ancient Roman lustrum, which literally meant "purification"...
and madness
Insanity
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...
.
The themes presented within Arcadia are based in a series of dichotomies. The most prominent of these is the idea of chaos versus order, presented through Stoppard's discussion of chaos theory within the play. The action of Arcadia and the characters within it reflect this theory; everything is gradually dispersing into a state of chaos and entropy (represented by the final scene), and yet within that chaos, order can be found. Valentine summarizes this idea: "In an ocean of ashes, islands of order. Patterns making themselves out of nothing." Within the chaos that develops over the course of the play—through the overlap of time periods, through increasingly complicated ideas that are presented, through the variances between what is correct and what is assumed—connections and order can still be recognized. The characters attempt to define the order of the world through their ideas and theories, and they are continually overturned (as with Bernard's theory).
The table which collects props from both time periods throughout the play is a strong example of the chaos/order dichotomy. In Science in Hapgood and Arcadia Paul Edwards, professor of English and History of Art at Bath Spa University
Bath Spa University
Bath Spa University is a university based in, and around, Bath, England. The institution was previously known as Bath College of Higher Education, and later Bath Spa University College...
, explains what this represents: "At the end of the play, the table has accumulated a variety of objects that, if one saw them without having seen the play, would seem completely random and disordered. Entropy is high. But if one has seen the play, one has full information about the objects and the hidden 'order' of their arrangement, brought about by the performance itself. Entropy is low; this can be proved by reflecting that tomorrow night's performance of the play will finish with the table in a virtually identical 'disorder'—which therefore cannot really be disorder at all."
A secondary theme within Arcadia is the dichotomy of Classicism
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...
versus Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
. It is exemplified primarily through the argument between Lady Croom and Mr. Noakes over the changes being made to the garden. This shows a direct shift between the tidiness and order of Classic style to the rugged, Gothic appearance of the Romantic. This dichotomy is also presented through Septimus and Thomasina, as she argues her new theories and ideas that refute classic Newtonian ideals while he defends them. Hannah's search for the poetic meaning behind the hermit of Sidley Park also remarks on this theme. She passionately exclaims to Bernard, "The whole Romantic sham, Bernard! It's what happened to the Enlightenment, isn't it? A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself. A mind in chaos suspected of genius...The decline from thinking to feeling."
Another theme of the play, which falls under the category of chaos, is the irreversibility of time. This is examined scientifically through Thomasina's remarks on Newtonian equations, which work both backwards and forwards. And yet in reality, things, like Thomasina's rice pudding (which inspires these remarks), cannot be "unstirred." Heat flows in only one direction. The idea of heat (and the second law of thermodynamics) is thus represented through the actions of the characters. They burn bridges in relationships, they burn letters, candles burn, and in the end, it is revealed that Thomasina will burn to death. The finality of things is always present.
Thomasina's insights into thermodynamics and heat transfer, and the idea that the universe is cooling, echo the poem "Darkness" by her "real life" contemporary, Lord Byron. Written by in 1816—the "Year Without Summer" caused by atmospheric volcanic ash from the Mount Tambora eruption in the Dutch East Indies – "Darkness" depicts a world grown dark and cold because the sun has been extinguished.
The end of the play brings all of these dichotomies and themes together, showing that though things may appear to contradict—Romanticism and Classicism, intuition and logic, thought and feeling — they can exist, paradoxically, in the same time and space. Order is found amid the chaos.
Title
Et in Arcadia ego
"Et in Arcadia ego" is a Latin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin . They are pastoral paintings depicting idealized shepherds from classical antiquity, clustering around an austere tomb...
" (with Arcadia referring to the pastoral ideal of Arcadia
Arcadia (utopia)
Arcadia refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. The term is derived from the Greek province of the same name which dates to antiquity; the province's mountainous topography and sparse population of pastoralists later caused the word Arcadia to develop into a poetic byword for an...
), a phrase most commonly interpreted as a memento mori
Memento mori
Memento mori is a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die". It names a genre of artistic work which varies widely, but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their own mortality...
spoken by Death. The phrase translates as "and in Arcadia I am", frequently rendered as "I [Death] too am in Arcadia" or "Even in Arcadia I [Death] am", although the meaning of the phrase is enigmatic and the subject of much academic discourse.
Discussing paintings of pleasant landscapes, Lady Croom mistranslates the phrase as "here I am in Arcadia", on which Thomasina drily comments, "Yes Mama, if you would have it so". Thomasina's tutor Septimus notices; later, knowing that she will appreciate the true meaning, he offers the translation "Even in Arcadia, there am I". He is right: "Oh, phooey to Death!" she replies. Although these brief exchanges are the only direct references in the work to the play's title, they presage the fates of the two main characters: Thomasina's early death and Septimus's voluntary exile from life. Stoppard originally wanted to make this connection plainer by using Et in Arcadia Ego for the title but "box office sense prevailed".
In a more obvious sense, the title also alludes to the ideal of nature as a rustic paradise, with the landscaping of the estate to give a less stylised, irregular form as a major theme in the play. This serves as a recurring reference to the different ways in which "true nature" can be understood, and as a pragmatic parallel to Thomasina's theoretical method of describing the structure of the natural world using mathematics.
Contextual information
In Arcadia, Stoppard presents his audience with several highly complicated mathematical and scientific concepts. Stoppard uses these theories and ideas within the play to illuminate relationships between characters that otherwise would not be conveyed as poignantly.One of the main thematic concepts in the show is chaos theory. Two authors describe this extremely complicated concept within the context of Arcadia.
The first of these is Paul Edwards in his essay "Science in Hapgood and Arcadia" in the Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard.
"Chaos mathematics is about the recovery of information from apparently chaotic and random systems where entropy is high... It is 'asymmetric' (unlike the equations of classical physics), yet it finds regularities that prove to be the regularities of nature itself. Strikingly, this mathematics can generate patterns of amazing complexity, but it also has the power to generate seemingly natural or organic shapes that defeat Newtonian geometry. The promise, then, (however questionable it is in reality) is that information, and by extension, nature itself, can overcome the tendency to increase in entropy" (p. 181).
The second is an excerpt from the chapter on Arcadia in John Fleming's book Stoppard's Theatre: Finding Order amid Chaos.
"Deterministic chaos deals with systems of unpredictable determinism, but the uncertainty does not result in pure randomness but rather in complex patterns. Traditionally, scientists expected dynamic systems to settle into stable, predictable behavior. However, deterministic chaos has shown that as many of these systems respond to variations in input... Surprisingly, within these random states, windows of order reappear... 'There is order in chaos—an unpredictable order, but a determined order nonetheless, and not merely random behavior...'"
Further scientific and mathematical concepts covered in Arcadia are the second law of thermodynamics
Second law of thermodynamics
The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and...
, and in relation to it, entropy
Entropy
Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
. Fleming describes these two principles. "Entropy is the measure of the randomness or disorder of a system. The law of increase of entropy states that as a whole the universe is evolving from order to disorder. This relates to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that heat can flow in only one direction, from hotter to colder. Since these equations, unlike Newton's laws of motion, do not go backward and forward, there is an 'arrow of time
Arrow of time
The arrow of time, or time’s arrow, is a term coined in 1927 by the British astronomer Arthur Eddington to describe the "one-way direction" or "asymmetry" of time...
' that points toward the eventual 'heat death' of the universe"
By using all of these concepts within Arcadia, Stoppard exposes how "there is an underlying order to seemingly random events." The characters in the play discuss these topics while their interactions reflect them.
Some ideas in the play recall Goethe's novella Elective Affinities
Elective Affinities
Elective Affinities , also translated under the title Kindred by Choice, is the third novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1809. The title is taken from a scientific term once used to describe the tendency of chemical species to combine with certain substances or species in preference...
: Stoppard's characters "Thomasina" and "Septimus" have parallels in Goethe's "Ottalie" and "Eduard", and the historical section of the play is set in 1809, the year of the novella.
Productions
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
in London on 13 April 1993 in a production directed by Trevor Nunn
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
and featuring Rufus Sewell
Rufus Sewell
Rufus Frederik Sewell is an English actor. In film, he has appeared in The Woodlanders, Dangerous Beauty, Dark City, A Knight's Tale, The Illusionist, Tristan and Isolde, and Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. On television, he starred in the 2010 mini-series The Pillars of the Earth...
as Septimus Hodge, Felicity Kendal
Felicity Kendal
Felicity Ann Kendal, CBE is an English actor known for her television and stage work.Born in 1946, Kendal spent much of her childhood in India, where her father managed a touring repertory company. First appearing on stage at the age of nine months, Kendal appeared in her first film, Shakespeare...
(Stoppard's then-lover) as Hannah Jarvis, Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy
William Francis "Bill" Nighy is an English actor and comedian. He worked in theatre and television before his first cinema role in 1981, and made his name in television with The Men's Room in 1991, in which he played the womanizer Prof...
as Bernard Nightingale, Emma Fielding
Emma Fielding
Emma Georgina Annalies Fielding is an English actress.-Biography:The lapsed Roman Catholic daughter of a British Army soldier, Fielding spent much of her childhood in Malaysia and Nigeria, and a period in Malvern above her grandparents' betting shop...
as Thomasina Coverly, Alan Mitchell
Alan Mitchell
Alan F. Mitchell was a British forester, dendrologist and botanist, and author of several books on trees.He almost single-handedly measured every notable tree in the British Isles, founding the Tree Register of the British Isles , which held records of over 100,000 individual notable trees at the...
as Jellaby, Derek Hutchinson as Ezra Chater, Sidney Livingston as Richard Noakes, Harriet Walter
Harriet Walter
Dame Harriet Mary Walter, DBE is a British actress.-Personal life:She is the niece of renowned British actor Sir Christopher Lee, as the daughter of his elder sister Xandra Lee. On her father's side she is a great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The TimesShe was educated at...
as Lady Croom, Graham Sinclair as Captain Brice, Harriet Harrison as Chloe Coverly, Timothy Matthews as Augustus Coverly and Gus Coverly and Samuel West
Samuel West
Samuel Alexander Joseph West is an English actor and theatre director. He is perhaps best known for his role in Howards End and his work on stage. He also starred in the award-winning play ENRON...
as Valentine Coverly. It won the 1993 Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Play.
The first New York production opened in March 1995 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre
Vivian Beaumont Theatre
The Vivian Beaumont Theater is a theatre located in the Lincoln Center complex at 150 West 65th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The structure was designed by Finnish American architect Eero Saarinen, and Jo Mielziner was responsible for the design of the stage and interior.The Vivian...
. It was again directed by Trevor Nunn
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
, but the entire cast changed. It starred Billy Crudup
Billy Crudup
William Gaither "Billy" Crudup is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish, and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film Dedication, alongside Mandy Moore...
as Septimus, Blair Brown
Blair Brown
Bonnie Blair Brown is an American theater, film, and television actress. She has had a number of high profile roles, including a Tony Award-winning turn in the play Copenhagen on Broadway, as well as a run as the title character in the television comedy-drama The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,...
as Hannah, Victor Garber
Victor Garber
Victor Joseph Garber is a Canadian film, stage and television actor and singer. Garber is known for playing Jesus in Godspell, Jack Bristow in the television series Alias, Max in Lend Me a Tenor, and Thomas Andrews in James Cameron's Titanic.-Early life:Born in London, Ontario, Canada, Garber is...
as Bernard, Robert Sean Leonard
Robert Sean Leonard
Robert Sean Leonard is an American actor, who has regularly starred in Broadway and off-Broadway productions. Since 2004 he has played the role of Dr. James Wilson on the TV series House...
as Valentine and Jennifer Dundas as Thomasina. This production was the Broadway debut of Paul Giamatti
Paul Giamatti
Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti is an American actor. Giamatti began his career as a supporting actor in several films produced during the 1990s including Private Parts, The Truman Show, Saving Private Ryan, The Negotiator, and Man on the Moon, before earning lead roles in several projects in the...
, who played Ezra Chater. The other actors were Lisa Banes
Lisa Banes
Lisa Banes is an American stage and screen actress. She played Lady Croom in the U.S. premiere of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia in 1995 and won a 1981 Theatre World Award for her performance in Look Back in Anger. A graduate of the Juilliard School, she recently appeared on Broadway in the 2010 revival...
(Lady Croom), Richard Clarke (Jellaby), John Griffin (Gus/Augustus), Peter Maloney (Noakes), David Manis (Captain Brice, RN) and Haviland Morris
Haviland Morris
Haviland Morris is an American film, television, and Broadway actress.-Early life:Morris was born in New Jersey and spent much of her childhood in Hong Kong. Her father worked in the electronics industry...
(Chloe). This production won the New York Drama Critics' Circle
New York Drama Critics' Circle
The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...
Award, and was nominated for the 1995 Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Play, losing to Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...
's Love! Valour! Compassion!
Love! Valour! Compassion!
Love! Valour! Compassion! is a play by Terrence McNally. Its off-Broadway premiere took place at the Manhattan Theatre Club on October 11, 1994, in a staging by Joe Mantello that ran for 72 performances...
.
In 1996–1997, the first major U.S. regional production was mounted at the Arena Stage
Arena Stage
Arena Stage is a not-for-profit regional theater based in Southwest Washington, D.C. Its declared mission"is to produce huge plays of all that is passionate, exuberant, profound, deep and dangerous in the American spirit. Arena has broad shoulders and a capacity to produce anything from vast epics...
in Washington, D.C.
On 27 May 2009, David Leveaux
David Leveaux
David Leveaux is a British theatre director who has been nominated for five Tony Awards as director of both plays and musicals...
as director opened the latest London production of Arcadia at the Duke of York's Theatre
Duke of York's Theatre
The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End Theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre, until her death in 1935. It opened on 10 September 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre, with Wedding...
with Samantha Bond, Nancy Carroll
Nancy Carroll (British actress)
Nancy Carroll is a British actress. Trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, she graduated in June 1998.-Family:She is married to actor Jo Stone-Fewings. The couple has two children...
, Jessie Cave
Jessie Cave
Jessica "Jessie" Cave is an English actress who is best known for her role as Lavender Brown in the film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.-Personal life:...
, Trevor Cooper
Trevor Cooper
Trevor "Trev" Cooper is an English actor.-Background:Cooper studied law at Kingston Polytechnic and graduated with a masters degree in law from the University of Warwick...
, Sam Cox, Lucy Griffiths, Tom Hodgkins, Hugh Mitchell
Hugh Mitchell
Hugh Burnton Mitchell , an American politician, served as a member of the United States Senate from 1945 to 1946 and as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1953. He represented the state of Washington...
, Neil Pearson
Neil Pearson
Neil Joshua Pearson is a British actor best known for his work on television.-Biography:Pearson grew up in Battersea, London, the son of a panel beater, who left home when he was five, and a legal secretary, and was educated at Woolverstone Hall School, Suffolk, a boarding school, where he first...
, George Potts, Dan Stevens
Dan Stevens
Daniel Jonathan Stevens is a British actor.-Education:Stevens was educated at Tonbridge School, an independent school in the market town of Tonbridge in Kent, in South East England, followed by Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he read English...
and Ed Stoppard
Ed Stoppard
Edmund Stoppard , often credited as Ed Stoppard, is a British actor.-Life and career:Stoppard was born in London, United Kingdom, the son of playwright Tom Stoppard and physician/author Miriam Stoppard , through whom he is related to former MP Oona King...
. The production recouped its production costs and closed on 12 September 2009.
The show returned to Broadway, at Ethel Barrymore Theatre
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
The Ethel Barrymore Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 243 West 47th Street in midtown-Manhattan, named for actress Ethel Barrymore....
, on 17 March 2011, with closing scheduled on 19 June 2011, again directed by David Leveaux. The cast includes Margaret Colin
Margaret Colin
Margaret Colin is an American actress. She is known for her role as Margo Montgomery Hughes # 1 on As the World Turns and for her role as Eleanor Waldorf-Rose on Gossip Girl.-Early life:...
(Lady Croom), Billy Crudup
Billy Crudup
William Gaither "Billy" Crudup is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish, and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film Dedication, alongside Mandy Moore...
(Bernard Nightingale), Raúl Esparza
Raúl Esparza
Raúl Eduardo Esparza is an American stage actor, singer, and voice artist noted for his award winning performances in Broadway shows...
(Valentine Coverly), Glenn Fleshler (Captain Brice), Grace Gummer
Grace Gummer
-Early life:The daughter of actress Meryl Streep and sculptor Don Gummer, Gummer grew up in Los Angeles and Connecticut with brother, Henry and sisters, Mamie Gummer and Louisa.-Career:...
(Chloë Coverly), Edward James Hyland (Jellaby), Byron Jennings (Richard Noakes), Bel Powley
Bel Powley
Isobel Dorothy Powley is a British actress best known for playing Daisy Millar in the CBBC television series M.I. High. She is the daughter of British actor Mark Powley.-Career:...
(Thomasina Coverly), Tom Riley (Septimus Hodge), Noah Robbins (Gus Coverly/Augustus Coverly), David Turner (Ezra Chater), and Lia Williams
Lia Williams
Lia Williams is an English actress and film director, notable for many stage, film, and television appearances. She is possibly best known for her role in the motion picture, Dirty Weekend...
(Hannah Jarvis). The production was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play
Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play
The Tony Award for Best Revival has only been awarded since 1994. Prior to that, plays and musicals were considered together for the Tony Award for Best Revival...
.
Reception
The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, reviewing the first production in 1993, praised the "perfect marriage of ideas and high comedy", but for some the ideas overwhelmed the comedy: "...too clever by about two-and-three-quarters. One comes away instructed with more than one can usefully wish to know..." noted The Daily Mail. The play's West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
transfer, after an eight-month run at the National, gave an opportunity for re-appraisal and The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
commented: "I have never left a play more convinced that I had just witnessed a masterpiece".
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
described the play as "Tom Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date, a play of wit, intellect, language, brio and, new for him, emotion" but many New York reviews were mixed or unfavourable, citing anachronisms and a lack of realism in Stoppard's conception.
The London revival of 2009 prompted more critics to laud the play as "Stoppard's finest work". Michael Billington
Michael Billington (critic)
Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. Drama critic of The Guardian since October 1971, he is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts; most notably, he is the authorised...
wrote in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
that "[The] play gets richer with each viewing ... there is poetry and passion behind the mathematics and metaphysics." Johann Hari
Johann Hari
Johann Hari is an award winning British journalist who has been a columnist at The Independent, the The Huffington Post, and contributed to several other publications. In 2011, Hari was accused of plagiarism; he subsequently was suspended from The Independent and surrendered his 2008 Orwell Prize...
of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
speculated that the work would come to be recognised "as the greatest play of its time".
The 2011 Broadway production, directed by David Leveaux
David Leveaux
David Leveaux is a British theatre director who has been nominated for five Tony Awards as director of both plays and musicals...
, met with a mixed reception. Ben Brantley
Ben Brantley
Benjamin D. "Ben" Brantley is an American journalist and the chief theater critic of The New York Times.-Life and career:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
called it "a half-terrific revival of Mr. Stoppard's entirely terrific Arcadia", noting that "several central roles are slightly miscast", and "some of the performances from the Anglo-American cast are pitched to the point of incoherence." Similar concerns over the production's casting and performances were also raised by critics from the New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
magazine, The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, New York Daily News, Time Out New York and Bloomberg News
Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg L.P. is an American privately held financial software, media, and data company. Bloomberg makes up one third of the $16 billion global financial data market with estimated revenue of $6.9 billion. Bloomberg L.P...
.
Awards and nominations
Awards
- 1994 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play
Nominations
- 1995 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding PlayDrama Desk Award for Outstanding PlayThis is a list of winners of the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play initially introduced in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre.-1950s:Vernon Rice Award for Best Production...
- 1995 Tony Award for Best PlayTony Award for Best PlayThe Tony Award for Best Play is an annual award celebrating achievements in live American theatre, including musical theatre, honoring productions on Broadway in New York. It currently takes place in mid-June each year.There was no award in the Tony's first year...
- 2006 Arcadia was voted onto the shortlist for the Royal InstitutionRoyal InstitutionThe Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organization devoted to scientific education and research, based in London.-Overview:...
award for "the best science book ever written". The winner, announced on 19 October 2006, was The Periodic TableThe Periodic Table (book)The Periodic Table is a collection of short stories by Primo Levi, published in 1975, named after the periodic table in chemistry. In 2006, the Royal Institution of Great Britain named it the best science book ever ....
by Primo LeviPrimo LeviPrimo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...
. - 2011 Tony Award for Best Revival of a PlayTony Award for Best Revival of a PlayThe Tony Award for Best Revival has only been awarded since 1994. Prior to that, plays and musicals were considered together for the Tony Award for Best Revival...
External links
- A list of Arcadia-related articles and other links
- Chaos, Fractals, and Arcadia, written by Robert L. Devaney from Boston UniversityBoston UniversityBoston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
.