Shira Concool (Hannah), Isaac Lunt (Gus), Ryan Tisch (Valentine), Karissa Strawley (Chloe), and David Forrer (Bernard). Photo by Kristine Smets.
Emotion versus intellect, the mystery of romance, and the path of knowledge are the timeless themes in Tom Stoppard’s time-shifting masterwork, Arcadia, now playing through November 23rd at the Memorial Players in Baltimore City.
Arcadia first opened at the Royal National Theatre in London on 13 April 1993 where it went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. In 1995, Arcadia went on to win the Tony Award for Best Play.
The Memorial Players are to be commended for tackling this challenging play by Tom Stoppard.
If you’ve never heard of Tom Stoppard before, then perhaps you have seen some of his films. Stoppard wrote the screenplay for such notable movies as Brazil, Empire of the Sun, and Shakespeare in Love, a collaboration with Marc Norman, which won the 1999 Academy Award for Best Picture.
The action of the play toggles between the 1800s and the present day, making the importance of costumes all the more important. The costumes, especially the ones featured from the 1800s, are beautifully crafted and designed by Derek Sullivan and April Forrer. Septimus Hodge’s elegant blue coat with turquoise buttons, white breeches,and black boots look stunning under the lights. Lady Croom wears many dresses throughout the play, out-doing herself with each scene. A favorite costume to look for is in scene six as she gracefully wears a lovely brown dress with bow and gold trim.
The play begins in the front room of an old English estate called Sidley Park located in Derbyshire in 1809. Thomasina Coverly, played by a naturally gifted Isa Guitian, is the daughter of Lord and Lady Croom (Laura Weeldreyer). This precocious student of “thirteen years and ten months” has many ideas about mathematics, nature and physics well ahead of her time. But she also can’t fight the urge to discover other mysteries, such as romance. Asking quite seriously a question to her tutor, “Septimus, what is carnal embrace?” Septimus Hodge (a handsome and debonair Alan Rosenberg) answers by saying, “Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef.” He doesn’t want her to be distracted by romance, challenging her to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem. What is more, he also wants her to focus on reading the poem “The Couch of Eros” by Ezra Chater (Terry O’Hara), a guest at the house.
Other characters from the 1800s include Jellaby (John Lisch), the Crooms’ butler, Richard Noakes (John Seeley), Lady Croom’s gardener, and Captain Brice (Jamie Griffith), a sea captain and the brother of Lady Croom (of 1809).
In scene 2 we have the same set, same room (designed by John Seeley) at Sidley Park where Thomasina took her lessons, only now it is modern times. Here we meet Hannah Jarvis, played by a no-nonsense Shira Concool, who is an author and historian that is researching the “Sidley Hermit,” whose death she attributes to the breakdown of the romantic imagination. Who was the “Sidley Hermit?” is just one of the mysteries in the story. David Forrer skillfully plays the role of Bernard Nightingale, a historian who visits in hopes of working with Hannah on his theory about Lord Byron staying at the estate. This modern fool and fop, however, could not be more off-putting to the no-nonsense Hannah who has no intentions of working with him.
Other characters from 1993 include, Chloe Coverly (Karissa Strawley),who is Thomasina’s modern day equivalent, Valentine Coverly (Ryan Tisch), Chloe’s older brother who is a graduate student studying mathematics, and Valentine and Chloe’s younger brother, Gus Coverly (Isaac Lunt), who has been mute since the age of five.
Tom Stoppard’s use of language is elegant, and sometimes entrancing. Sometimes, however, his use of expletives is jarring and I feel that he is so intelligent that surely he could have found a different way to express what he was trying to say. Some audience members will walk away from the play thinking that it was a long running time. It is, after all about 3 hours. Others will find fascinating Stoppard’s exploration of the chaos theory, entropy, the Second Law of thermodynamics, iterated algorithms, fractals, and other concepts culled from the realms of math and science.
Directors Darren McGregor and Rina Steinhauer did a fine job at staging the play with the performers moving naturally across the stage. What is more, all of the actors performed their roles naturally and spoke each line beautifully and clearly.
One aspect that would have made the play drag a little bit less would have been to add some incidental music during the 30 to 40 second scene changes. It may have also helped to set up the time period of the scene.
The Memorial Players are to be commended for tackling this challenging play by Tom Stoppard.
You might be leaving the theatre asking youself some of the same questions that Thomasina was asking. Questions like, “When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backwards, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?”
Running Time: 3 hours with one, fifteen minute intermission.
Advisory: strong language and mature themes.
Arcadia by the Memorial Players plays through November 23rd, 2014 at the Memorial Episcopal Church, 1407 Bolton Street, Baltimore, MD 21217. For more information and tickets, visit online.
