Arcadia (play)
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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.
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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 Derbyshire with tutor Septimus Hodge trying to distract his 13 year-old pupil Thomasina Coverly 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 Ezra Chater, a guest at the house. 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 "carnal embrace" 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 centring on hermits and the romantic imagination. Bernard Nightingale enters, escorted by Chloe Coverly, 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 Coverly, is doing research 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 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 duel, 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 iteration 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.
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 science, 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.
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 pudding. Lady Croom then invites Septimus to an amorous rendezvous.
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 entropy, 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 proves 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, gives Hannah Thomasina's drawing of Septimus and the tortoise together. This development 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 had become the hermit obsessed with applying "honest English algebra" to the question of the future of the universe.
