Arcadia

Description

This play takes readers back and forth between the 19th and 20th centuries. Set in a large country house in Derbyshire, a cast of characters from each century play out their respective dramas. The text explores topics such as the nature of truth and time and the difference between the classical and the romantic temperament, and the disruptive influence of sex on our orbits in life.

Tom Stoppard was born in 1937 in Czechoslovakia. His first major success, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, was produced in London in 1967 at the Old Vic after critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival. Subsequent plays include Enter a Free Man, The Real Inspector Hound, Jumpers, Travesties, Night and Day, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (with Andre Previn), After Magritte, Dirty Linen, The Real Thing, Hapgood, Arcadia, Indian Ink and The Invention of Love.

There's no doubt about it. 'Arcadia' is Tom Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date, a play of wit, intellect, language, brio and ... emotion. It's like a dream of levitation: you're instantaneously aloft, soaring, banking, doing loop-the-loops and then, when you think you're about to plummet to earth, swooping to a gentle touchdown of not easily described sweetness and sorrow. "Vincent Canby, The New York Times"" "There's no doubt about it. 'Arcadia' is Tom Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date, a play of wit, intellect, language, brio and ... emotion. It's like a dream of levitation: you're instantaneously aloft, soaring, banking, doing loop-the-loops and then, when you think you're about to plummet to earth, swooping to a gentle touchdown of not easily described sweetness and sorrow." --Vincent Canby, The New York Times "There's no doubt about it. 'Arcadia' is Tom Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date, a play of wit, intellect, language, brio and ... emotion. It's like a dream of levitation: you're instantaneously aloft, soaring, banking, doing loop-the-loops and then, when you think you're about to plummet to earth, swooping to a gentle touchdown of not easily described sweetness and sorrow." --Vincent Canby, "The New York Times"