Arcadia: A Play by Tom Stoppard Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Arcadia: A Play
Book Review: The science of love
Summary: 5 Stars
Tom Stoppard is a genius. Math and love and English gardens and waltzing and the river of time.Book Review: The second law
Summary: 5 Stars
An excellent mingling of science and literature with the adaptation of the second law of thermodynamics to the lives of the characters.Book Review: Tom Stoppard is a step behind Anton Chekhov.
Summary: 4 Stars
With the release of "Guildenstern and Rosencratz are Dead", Tom Stoppard emerged as an original voice in a literary theater world already overpopulated by past geniuses. Applying a deft combination of law of probability, nihilistic philosophizing, and comely tribute to the rich inheritance of Shakespeare, Stoppard articulated a definition of human death that was powerful and, most significantly, uniquely in his own words.
In "Arcadia", an unmistakable shot at greatness, Stoppard expands both his thematic concerns and billing of characters to artistically express his own sensitivities to human drama. A quick description of the play, that it involves thermodynamics, time-travelling, and the parallelism of lives being lived in two different time periods, is enough to raise a curious eyebrow from most anyone. Does the play succeed?
Yes and no. The characters are a mixed bag of lively personalities and terrible bores. Septimus Hodge and Thomasina Coverly dominate the play as the most engaging characters given the best lines to speak. Their swordsman-like rapport on the algebra of determinism is rapt, and Stoppard's blending of the wonders of science in a literary world largely allergic to numbers game is a breath of fresh air. Concurrently, how future characters Hannah Jarvis and Valentine Coverly react to the characters Septimus and Thomasina as they discover their personalities through old letters and mathematical proofs is the genius of the play, since their discovery of the past allows the audience to see how lives go on even after death and participates with our own in the present.
Unfortunately, this thematic concern of life after death is fumbled a bit by ancillary characters which are necessary to clarify thematic concerns and move the plot forward but whose characterization got away from Tom somehow. Ezra Chater is a vacuous air that takes up space, Lady Croom's purported sexual attraction to Septimus goes nowhere, and Bernard Nightingale is drawn too simply as a paperthin 'villain' meant to act principally as a foil to Hannah and Valentine's pursuit of the past without true pathos of his own. To be considered a masterpiece, all the characters have to be legitimate realizations in their own way and the characterization has to be tight as a drum. Stoppard sightsees too often with ancillary characters and the result is a slightly out-of-focus play.
To critically speak, Stoppard's philosophy on life as presented in "Arcadia" bears too close a resemblance to Anton Chekhov and his theatrical masterpieces "Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard". Chekhov's cleverness and wit is all over the pages of "Arcadia", and the result is a voice that is only half Stoppard's own. Stoppard handles Chekhovian dramaturgy beautifully, but the end result is not the dark energy of "Rosencratz And Guilderstern are Dead", which so painfully captures Tom Stoppard's own young voice in torment, but a sort of amalgamation between Chekhov [in the treatment of the past] and Ibsen [in the treatment of the future.] And if a playwright speaks principally through one or even two characters in his play, then Stoppard is most assuredly speaking through Thomasina Coverly. And yet her own philosophy and angst towards life, if we can attribute it to Tom Stoppard's own, is only a beautiful recitation of Anton Chekhov's genius sublimed with algebra, calculus, and physics.
In conclusion, it's a welcome sound to hear the beauty of math and science being given their proper due diligence in a literary work instead of being lambasted as somehow apart and irrelevant to the human experience. Science has a lot of wonderful things to relate to mankind in the field of humanities. And it's also equally wonderful to see a playwright fully push the limits of audience patience, intelligence, and attention with sensationally dense dialogue reserved for the conversation halls of MIT. But the play as a play, as a tragedy, does not hit its mark of greatness due to the aforementioned shortcomings. It fails to decline from thinking to feeling, and in so doing, has no heartbreak to call its own.
Book Review: Very Good
Summary: 5 Stars
A very hard book to review, it takes a number of reads to try and understand it. Nevertheless, it is interesting, funny, has great characters - the deeper stuff you will have to work out yourself! I only wish it was a bit longer.Book Review: Wonderful and important dramatic work.
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been trying to get away from the sort of highbrow self-referential philosophical literature that one thinks of when they hear the name Stoppard, but after reading Arcadia I found that this reputation proved to be only half the story.Don't get me wrong-- Arcadia is an intellectual work of drama. It can be read and analyzed for symbolism and layering and all the fun that one typically associates with "Great Literature". Stoppard demands elementary knowledge of thermodynamics (entropy), modern mathematics (iterations and chaos theory), gardening history (Classic/Romantic), and literary history (Byron, Romanticism, etc.) There is tons of symbolism and contrast and notions about human nature. But despite all the intellectual games and word play, Arcadia manages to retain a profound sense of humanness.
The characters are vibrant and full of desire. They are not merely facades through which Stoppard can show off his literary prowess. Arcadia is simply a wonderful story. In the end, one cares about the characters and this is what redeems the play from mere intellectual showmanship. The plot moves and weaves and twists and if you can follow it, the play is truly rewarding.
My only misgiving is that I never got to see Arcadia in production. The last scene incorporates two different time periods on the same stage as they couples dance side by side in almost mirror image. I would have loved to see it done on stage and I'm eagerly awaiting an Arcadia revival.