About the work
Tom Stoppard's „Arcadia" was premiered at the National Theatre in London in 1993 and is considered his masterpiece. The play interweaves mathematics, chaos theory, English landscape gardening, Romantic studies and a comedy of love across two time-interleaved narrative levels — early nineteenth and late twentieth century.
Plot
Sidley Park, a country estate in Derbyshire, alternates between 1809-12 and the present. In 1809 the thirteen-year-old Thomasina Coverly — a mathematical genius — is the pupil of the young house tutor Septimus Hodge, friend of Lord Byron. She intuitively develops concepts of chaos theory, non-Euclidean geometry and thermodynamics — 150 years before her time. Love entanglements: Mrs Chater (wife of a mediocre poet) has affairs with everyone; Septimus, who has slept with Mrs Chater, is also in love with Lady Croom; Byron appears as an unseen offstage figure. In the present, the literary scholar Hannah Jarvis and the ambitious academic Bernard Nightingale (rivals) investigate Sidley Park's history. Bernard mistakenly believes he has uncovered a Byron scandal (that Byron killed Mr Chater). Valentine Coverly, today's son of the house and a mathematician, works on computer models of animal populations — and discovers Thomasina's notebooks. In the closing scene the time-levels flow into each other: in 1812 Thomasina (a night before her seventeenth birthday, when she will burn to death) waltzes with Septimus; in the present Hannah and Gus (Valentine's mute brother) dance to the same music. Two worlds, one choreography.
Cultural significance
Arcadia is Stoppard's most masterful work and is considered one of the greatest plays in the English language. The combination of the history of science, literary detective work and love comedy is unique. Productions by Trevor Nunn (premiere), David Levaux (Broadway 2011), with Carey Mulligan and Bel Powley as Thomasina shape the performance tradition. The work is studied in English schools and is a standard text of theatre studies in the Anglophone world.