Arcadia
by Sir Tom Stoppard
Royal Theatre, Northampton
Friday
11th to Saturday 26th October, 2002
Tickets: £4.00 to £26.00
Box Office: 01604 624811 |
If
you like to go to the theatre to sit back and be effortlessly entertained
for a couple of hours,
don't go to see Arcadia.
To
enjoy this play, you need to concentrate hard and allow your brain
a workout. The rewards are sublime, writes Martin Borley.
It's
no wonder Arcadia is an 'A' Level text. It's the sort of play to
excite academics because it touches on such themes as The Age of
Reason, romanticism, Newtonian physics, thermodynamcs and chaos
theory.
Poetry,
physics and love
 |
| Chloe
Coverly (Alice Hart) and Valentine Coverly (Tobias Menzies) |
The
action is set in Sidley Park, a stately home in Derbyshire, in 1809
- and in 2002. We flit back and forth between the two periods, gradually
learning more about the characters, their lives and their understanding
of the world.
It's
a detective story as bit by bit we discover more about poetry, physics
and love. We witness the merging of the arts, sciences - and even
horticulture.
Most
of the cast were excellent at making a complex script understandable.
Tobias Menzies' eccentric description of algebra was riveting -
I wish I had explanations like that when I was at school!
Perplexed
The
characters' enthusiasm for discovery shone out of this production,
which was directed by the Royal's artistic director Rupert Goold.
By
the curtain call, it was clear that some members of the audience
remained perplexed. (Judging from Have
Your Say some had had enough by the interval.)
But
I found it a challenging but very fulfilling evening in the theatre.
Some of the jokes weren't bad either!
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