He'll be sadly missed
“Oh well, another damn tricksy play by Tom Stoppard”. (Arcadia – first performed in 1993).
And one which very much encapsulates why he dominated at least part of the theatrical scene from 1966 with his Edinburgh Rosencrantz…
Take an aristocratic country house in 1810, with a preternaturally bright teenage girl being tutored by a friend of Byron’s and spin that house forward to the very late twentieth century – add in events in 1810 which trigger a mystery in the 1990s, a cast of family and visitors in both eras, throw in bad blood, intellectual arguments that spin the head, unlikely and likely liaisons, oh – and a cascade of jokes; run it as both a seminar (actually part is staged as a rehearsal for a seminar) and a ‘who-dun-what’ – fill it full of linguistic and philosophical and scientific discussion (with some historical asides on landscape gardening through the ages), add in some sex (but little passion) – light the blue touch-paper – well you get the drift.
Set on a single revolve in the round (with banked seating where the stage normally is) this is a thoughtful production, with a strong ensemble cast (and particularly Seamus Dillane; Prasanna Puwanarajah; Isis Hainsworth; Leila Farzad) interweaving the centuries – the furnishings, and a tortoise, the commonality across the play.
Like so many Stoppards this is designed to make you think, and argue, and look things up. And so much the better.
The run is fully booked, but there may be cancellations.