Stoppard's Arcadia at Oxford Playhouse

Tom Stoppard's Arcadia is twenty years old. It is still popular and often played. The piece is a well balanced mixture of comedy, romance, and a few intellectual topics. It comments on topics through the learning, development, and debates of the characters on determinism, on the development of physics and mathematics, on differences between rationalism and romanticism, as well as on some difficulties of research. During all this it still manages to be witty, in the good, Oscar Wilde-sense. (Note: in one of his other plays, Travesties, Stoppard uses parts of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest).

The play was now performed at the Oxford Playhouse to celebrate it's twentieth anniversary. It was produced by the Oxford Student Company: Milk and Two Sugars. (Cast here.) It's hard to evaluate it in detail: the play has lots and lots of complicated discussions, and a storyline with several interrelated twists. I won't go into the details here. You can read the whole piece, or go and see it if interested.

The richness of detail draws away part of one's attention from the performance of the actual play. As one has to keep in mind many things, track all the relations between the characters - their romances, flirts, and rivalries - there isn't much energy left. Of course that I had this feeling tells that the actors were doing well. They managed to convey the story in an entertaining and accessible way. Some of the actors did excellently: David Shield's Septimus Hodge was clever, quick and critical, but a warm hearted young man at the same time. Amelia Sparling's Thomasina was charming and bright, brimming with ideas and youthful excitement. And Carla Kingham's Hannah was just as careful and a bit awkward as the written text suggests. I found a bit of difficulty with taking Ed Barr-Sim serious in Bernard's role. But I understand that for a student company it is hard to find anyone suitable for the role of a mature, established and donnish academic. Nevertheless, his performance in the scenes when Bernard becomes angry was a bit of a disappointment. Instead of a quick and clever, but dominant man, he rather portrayed a hysterical and self-important fake.

My only complaint would be about the directors work. The performance placed a lot of emphasis on the comical elements, and the characters rarely adopted serious tones. This way much of the darker tones and darker humor became too light, and its significance got lost among the many clever and cheerful riposts. Also, the more complicated elements of the plot were sometimes rushed through - the characters were portrayed as becoming very excited and quickly pouring out their ideas. This might have been disturbing for audiences who haven't met the text earlier or saw the play for the first time. And if one misses any of the story elements, some of the great jokes and surprises might be later incomprehensible.

All in all, the performance was a good interpretation of the play, focusing mainly on the fun site of the comedy. I do not want to suggest that the serious issues were downplayed, but they could have given more weight. Still, it was an entertaining performance, very good entertainment for Saturday afternoon, and material for interesting discussions with one's company.