Fall in love with the wit, intelligence, chaos and romance in Tom Stoppard’s much-loved Arcadia. Recognised as one of the 20th century’s greatest plays – a cocktail of ravishing comedy, literary sleuthing, romantic entanglements and scientific discoveries.
In a stately home in the British countryside, poets, tutors, academics and lovers roam the corridors some 200 years apart, each uncovering their own particular mystery. In April 1809, bright young Thomasina and her tutor Septimus are inventing chaos theory a century too early – or perhaps they are simply falling in love?
Two hundred years later, two scholars try to piece history together from the puzzling fragments that remain. Along the way, there will be indiscrete affairs, mistaken identities, hermits, duels and … horticulture.
Directed by Richard Cottrell, whose production of Stoppard’s Travesties was a hit in 2009, Arcadia brings back to STC the delightful talents of Ryan Corr (Sex with Strangers), Blazey Best (Travesties), Andrea Demetriades (Arms and the Man), Glenn Hazeldine (After Dinner) and Josh McConville (Noises Off) in a play that will entrance, stimulate and illuminate.
Tom Stoppard is a British playwright, who has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and The Real Thing.
He co-wrote the screenplays for Brazil, The Russia House, and Shakespeare in Love, and has received one Academy Award and four Tony Awards. Themes of human rights, censorship and political freedom pervade his work along with exploration of linguistics and philosophy. He was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1972, and appointed a Knight Bachelor (Kt) in 1997. Stoppard was awarded the Order of Merit (OM) in 2000.
“I have never left a play more convinced that I had just witnessed a masterpiece.” – The Daily Telegraph, UK
Arcadia
Drama Theatre – Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point, Sydney
Season: 13 Feb – 2 Apr 2016
Bookings: 02) 9250 1777 or online at: www.sydneytheatre.com.au
For more information, visit: www.sydneytheatre.com.au for details.
Image: Ryan Corr features in Arcadia – photo by James Green