There has been a link between landscaping and scholarship dating back to the Greeks. In the Golden Age, Socrates had his classes among the trees, giving rise to the phrase “The Groves of Academe.” In the present age, Tom Stoppard sets his satire/treatise of the academic world in a Devonshire manor house famous for its beautiful and literarily significant garden. Arcadia, named after the pastoral romping grounds of the ancient Greeks, spins the story of a neurotic group of academics converging on the aforementioned house to study a group of equally eccentric people who had lived there 200 years prior. Discussing Newtonian physics, iterated algorithms, Romanticism, poetry, literature and sex, the players in this 19th and 20th century Arcadia are linked by their connections to English Romantic poet Lord Byron, who, while never appearing in the flesh, is as much a part of the show as any of the flesh and blood characters.
There are many things to consider when judging a play. But really, when it’s an English script performed Stateside, it all comes down to the accent: Do we buy it, or do we not? In director Caitlin Lowans’ (SFS ‘03) production, the accents are a good reflection of the production itself: a little grating and slow to start, but they pick up speed and fluidity to end charmingly.
Opening in the drawing room of Siddley Park (the Coverly family manse), we see tutor Septimus Hodge (Michal Slaby (CAS ‘04)) giving lessons to his charge, 13-year-old Thomasina Coverly (Kate Einspanier (SFS ‘05)), a mathematical prodigy and waltzing enthusiast. When their lecture is interrupted by aspiring poet Ezra Chater (James Salandro (CAS ‘04)), we learn that Hodge and Chater’s wife have been caught “in carnal embrace” in the gazebo, and that Chater is definitely a sucker for the insult concealed as flattery. We also learn that sexual congress in the gazebo is soon to be a concern of the past, as the structure is slated for destruction in an overhaul of the garden, aimed at bring it from a neatly-ordered reflection of the Enlightenment to a wild and rugged child of Romanticism.
And thus are sown the seeds of the mystery puzzled over generations later by Byron scholars Hannah Jarvis (Meredith Grasso (CAS ‘02)) and Bernard Nightingale (Mario Hernandez (CAS ‘02)).
As Thomasina, Einspanier is winsome enough to deliver lines such as, “Is God a Newtonian?”, although she can come off as just too darn cute to have the academic chops to pull off her ideas. As her indirect descendent, Valentine Coverly, Joe Hammond (CAS ‘04) ’s delivery is so dry it sucks moisture from the surrounding air. (This, of course, is ideal for British mathmeticians). Slaby is decently suave-yet-tortured as tutor and 19th century loverman Hodge, if a little awkward when he doesn’t have anything specific to do with hands.
Battling Byron scholars Nightingale and Jarvis are sharply rendered by Hernandez and Grasso. Hernandez’ academic daredevil is charismatic and loud. Very loud, actually, which occasionally takes his appropriately flamboyant characterization over the top. Grasso stands her ground in the face of this dominating performance, but is occasionally stiffer and more abrasive than she needs be. However, their scenes together have a definite chemistry that gives a charge to the entire second act.
Despite all the talk of gardening and frequent changing into and out of galoshes, Arcadia doesn’t show us first-hand the garden-in-transition that gives the play its name. Rather, the two-act play takes place in a minimalist drawing room washed in shades of delft blue. The set, designed by Charles Nailen (SFS ‘04), is functional and pretty when the lights are up?if a little barren. With the play’s entire running time set in one room, it would be nice to have some other objects to hold interest. However, it is an entirely different affair in the dark. With the lights off, the windows are silhouetted against the swirling Starry Night-like backdrop that lights up like a candle, a postmodern Arcadia standing in for both versions in the script.
Stoppard’s dialogue is commonly acknowledged to be as layered and dense as week-old baklava, and in order to fully enjoy the experience?or let’s be honest, just to follow the action?lines must be delivered smoothly and slowly enough to be understood, yet quickly enough that the brilliant conversational tone is preserved. This is difficult, and it is understandable, if a little disappointing, that this balance is not struck until the second act is underway. Where the first act seemed to drag, the second act flows: During the second act scene when Bernard is practicing his speech, the dialogue is tight, the actors are natural, and the cast chemistry hums in a way that reveals just how well it all can jibe.
Arcadia is playing in Poulton Hall Jan. 17-19 and 23-26 at 8:00 p.m. General admission is $9, $6 for students.
