Sunday, March 20, 2011
A Second Run For Stoppard's Duality-Driven 'Arcadia'
NPR: "In a career that's encompassed four decades, Tom Stoppard has written many witty, challenging and provocative plays — and the masterpiece among them, many critics feel, is Arcadia, which premiered in London in 1993, came to Broadway in 1995 and opens March 17 in its first New York revival.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
"Arcadia" is one of my theatrical white whales. I've missed working on it twice now; once as TD and once (WAY BACK) as an actor. I love any play that can potentially educate an audience whilst still entertaining them. "Proof" does this extremely well; as the play's subject (HIGH math) isn't really what the play's about. "Wittenburg" and Stoppard's "Arcadia" are good examples, too. Scenically it can be a challenge too since we go from two very different locals very often. I'd be interested to see how more modern scenic technologies could help with switching scenes in a remount.
I agree with Jake-Having only read Arcadia, I found it hard to imagine just how the two worlds would balance that coexistence and separateness that they need (both are absolutely necessary). It's also nice to see that in an age where in some senses the intellectual fodder of Broadway is on the decline (on the whole, jukebox musicals and the like don't demand much thinking from their viewers, just in-the-moment processing). Reading Arcadia, I was forced to be tracking changes at all times, following the historical information being provided by Hannah and Bernard as the event happened to Thomasina as Septimus. I'd be excited to see how a live production makes that balance easier to maintain, and what strategies they use.
Post a Comment