Arcadia moves back and forth between 1809 and the present at the elegant estate owned by the Coverly family. The 1809 scenes reveal a household in transition. As the Arcadian landscape is being transformed into picturesque Gothic gardens, complete with a hermitage, thirteen year-old Lady Thomasina and her tutor delve into intellectual and romantic issues.
Present day scenes depict the Coverly descendants and two competing scholars who are researching a possible scandal at the estate in 1809 involving Lord Byron.
This brilliant play moves smoothly between the centuries and explores the nature of truth and time, the difference between classical and romantic temperaments, and the disruptive influence of sex on our life orbits - “the attraction Newton left out”.
Report by: Niall Hickman on Friday 12 November 2021
Venue: Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond
Director: Kathryn Torbet
Science, sex, hermits, poetry, chaos, rice pudding and finally a tortoise. What more could you possibly wish for on a night out in Richmond? Just weeks before it was due to go on stage the Covid pandemic halted this production in the spring of 2020 of arguably Tom Stoppard’s finest work, Arcadia – a drama which is about pretty much everything, including the age-old battle between romanticism and classicism. Coronation Street this is emphatically not.
First, the play, then the players:
Stoppard’s 1993 work received a rapturous response nearly three decades ago and is rightly regarded as one of his masterpieces. Well done to Richmond Amateur Dramatic Society (RADS) for taking it on as it’s a play long on theory and not for the faint-hearted. You need to concentrate hard at Richmond’s Georgian Theatre Royal because Stoppard’s every word has meaning and value.
The action spills between a stately home in Derbyshire in 1809 and the present day. Well, at least the early 90’s. As the drama unfolds Arcadia explores the ground between evidence and truth, fact and fiction, using a variety of scientific theories. Above all, it is a tragi-comedy and there are some terrifically funny lines, but this laughter all revolves around the dichotomy of chaos versus order. As I told you, it’s not exactly a ‘he’s behind yooooo’ Christmas panto.
Brainbox Valentine Coverly (Daniel West) asserts that order can be found everywhere. “In an ocean of ashes, islands of order. Patterns making themselves out of nothing.” It’s important not to be put off by this high-brow stuff as it is a very accessible play. That’s because although the central themes are PhD-level academic discourses on everything from thermodynamics to Newtonian mathematics, there is plenty of dialogue which centres around modern human emotions, reactions and actions.
Take for example slippery academic Bernard Nightingale (Chris Wellings) who sees the main chance to make a name for himself and bugger off anyone who gets in his way. Tutor Septimus Hodge (Jasper Worrallo) initially comes across as a straight shooter, only for us to discover he has bedded the older women of the stately house and then turns his attention to his teenage student Thomasina Coverly (Katrianna Torbet). Again, Hodge is a likeable rogue, but one who is connected to the modern day.
Hannah Jarvis (Fiona Dutton) rejects the various sexual advances made to her – yes, of course Nightingale was one of those. While Chloe Coverly (Martha Templeton) tries to set up Hannah with the lecherous Nightingale, only to end up sleeping with him herself. It’s a modern take on Jane Austen’s Emma.
The players were outstanding. At around two and a half hours long Arcadia is a tough nut to crack and RADS did a sterling job of it. Expertly directed by Kathryn Torbet, the acting was precise and dramatic. OK, so the best lines were gifted by Stoppard to Lady Croom (Jennifer Roberts) and Nightingale, but at all times RADS kept up a lively pace. With byzantine theories here there and everywhere it would be fairly understandable if an audience occasionally lost the thread, but at no time did this happen, underlining the strength of the players and direction.
There are few plays which delve into the world of the heat death of the universe, with evidence supported by the cooling of a dish of rice pudding, but then Stoppard has always been something of a maverick. His most famous works remain Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and The Coast of Utopia while the octogenarian who fled Nazi persecution just days before the start of the Second World War, has co-written Oscar-winning screenplays such as Shakespeare in Love and Brazil.
With Arcadia he showed how versatile and complex he could be, while retaining the element of humour which enriches his works. RADS certainly did our greatest living playwright proud with a performance of precision and some degree of panache.
Reviews
Report by: John Holliday on Saturday 13 November 2021 (edited)
Venue: Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond
Director: Kathryn Torbet
RADS have never been afraid to take on a challenging play and in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, they certainly took on a very complex project. Whilst being regarded as one of the finest plays from a contemporary author, it requires a director who understands the play inside out, alongside a very talented cast to bring it to life.RADS had originally been planning to perform this show back in the spring of 2020 and due to the timescale had to make numerous cast changes ready for their performance.
Kath Torbet deserves huge praise for tackling the complexity of this show head on and not being afraid to use a very youthful, and extremely talented cast alongside some very familiar faces on the Georgian Stage.
Arcadia is split into two sections, both within the same setting. The 1st part, set in 1809, tells the story of a young and slightly obnoxious teenager who, alongside her lothario tutor is studying deep ideologies of mathematics and physics whilst clearly exploring her own curiosities of “carnal embrace”.
Katrianna Torbet, in the role of Thomasina was a delight to watch, she perfectly portrayed the cheeky and mischievous teenager, her words were delivered so cleverly as her flirtatious behaviour with Jasper Worrallo in the role of Septimus Hodge developed during the play.
The connection between these two was fantastic, with Jasper brilliantly taking on the huge role of her Tutor. Sometimes in this show the monologues can drag on but the whole cast and Jasper in particular kept the audience following every single word in great detail. His sleazy and arrogant behaviour was a joy to watch on stage and you truly understood how he had seduced so many of the family, including the lady of the house, Lady Croom, wonderfully played by Jennifer Roberts. Jennifer had a great aristocratic pomp about her leaving a trail of men including the poet Ezra Chater, well played by Stewart Kerr, hopelessly running around after her. I really enjoyed his failed attempts to duel with Septimus over his dalliances with his wife.
All characters in the historic setting of the play worked tirelessly on a very tricky script with great cameos all well played by Charles Lambert, Warnock Kerr and David Cadman.
The second element of this play is set in modern day, set in the same house and the clever use of servants to just change a few props made the jumps between periods of time seamless yet showing the clear change effectively. Well done to the whole team behind the scenes.
The modern day period sees the house, still in the Coverley family, visited by an up and coming historian Bernard Nightingale who tries to convince friend of the family and author Hannah Jarvis to help him prove the presence of Lord Byron at the family dwelling back in 1809.
Chris Wellings, in the role of Nightingale, had a huge surge of energy about his character which contrasted well with the relaxed pace of the rest of the cast. His enthusiastic performance made the long monologues very entertaining and his relationship, often at loggerheads, with Fiona Dutton in the role of Hannah Jarvis was highly entertaining.
In complete contrast to Nightingale was the elder son of the household, Valentine played exceptionally well by Daniel West. His laid back, yet highly intelligent character was a refreshing break from the high energy portrayed everywhere else and he made the character his own. Clearly the only logical one in the household, Daniel spent a great chunk of the show trying to bring his sister, Chloe Coverley back down to planet earth – not an easy task.
Martha Templeton was truly wonderful in this role, her dreamy eyed, hopeless infatuation of Valentine was a joy to watch and her acting, whilst off script is a true art and a very hard skill to master. You really felt her emotions as she is finally rejected in pretty brutal fashion by the sleazy and pompous Nightingale.
I am guessing Martha and Alex Dyson-Birkin have been sharing tips in how to engross an audience whilst off script. In the role of her mute brother Gus, Alex used his posture, facial expressions, movement, and body language to full effect, I found him captivating and had me truly invested in his character.
Despite being a very wordy script and often using very complex scientific language, the pace from both periods of time never dipped and was very amusing throughout. I am not ashamed to admit that I was in the production of Arcadia when RADS last performed it and finished the production a bit lost and still unsure of the full story. So to sit back and watch these thrilling performances and wonderful direction form Kathryn was a joy.
The attention to detail through was wonderful, from the use of Button, a real-life tortoise who interacted with both sides of the cast wonderfully through to the playout music, a modern pop track transposed into an 18th century piece of music. This sort of detail and hard work by a cast was truly appreciated by the audience and I left the theatre with a new-found passion for the play. Well done RADS and I look forward to your next production.
