The UTS Backstage Production of Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia is playing in Sydney at The Factory in Marrickville – a venue that reminds me of the artistic haunts in Berlin; very lively and chock full of young people enjoying themselves.
The production is in an intimate theatre with a small, uncluttered set; a room with a table and chairs and a series of French doors and windows suggesting rather than showing a garden. The set, well designed by Tanwee Shrestha, remains constant throughout the two and a half hour production with the additions of a sketched garden design and a fireplace which serve the plot and underpin the themes.
The play opens and remains in Sidley Estate, England – only the time changes. Scene one is in the year 1809 and we watch a delightful, precocious thirteen year old girl, Thomasina Coverly, (Georgia McGinness) studying under the tutelage of Septimus Hodge (Justin Westlake). These two characters are humorous, charming and engaging. Through Tomasina’s musing and her tutor’s responses we are treated to an exploration of the mathematical, scientific, artistic and philosophical ideas of the time.
An Oscar Wilde type humour at times manifests in the play, for example from the Lady of the estate, Thomasina’s mother who disapproves of the new modern style of her garden; particularly a hermitage without a hermit. When a solution to advertise for one is suggested she rejects it saying “But surely a hermit who takes a newspaper is not a hermit in whom one can have complete confidence.”
Comedy combines with mystery as the play takes a time shift into the next century; 1993. Iterated algorithms, thermodynamics and chaos theory, art, sex and love are all subjects explored in the dialogue as the mystery unfolds.
Michael Mulvenna gives a stellar performance as Bernard Nightingale, a pompous insufferable visiting academic intent on success in presenting a theory about Lord Byron.
The Director (Anna Rushmer) does justice to the play particularly in the last scenes where the timeframes and the characters converge on stage.
Tom Stoppard’s plays are dialogue driven. Arcadia is a long play requiring a pacey delivery where every word is clearly heard, where the characters are well defined and where comedy and complexity are often entwined; in other words, a play that needs a confident and competent cast. I was somewhat worried when I saw how young this ensemble was and the program had no bios suggesting theatrical experience. I need not have worried.  This young enthusiastic cast handled the complex subject matter and character portrayal with finesse.
If you are after a play brim full of ideas, if you want to muse on the notion of reality and the fate of our species and this planet and if you want to be amused at the farce of life then this production is for you.
Liz O’Toole, Theatre Now
