'Arcadia' at Chautauqua: The desire to know and to love
CHAUTAUQUA — What would happen if all the world’s complex riddles were finally sorted out? For one thing, should the mysteries of quantum physics, cold fusion or peace in the Middle East reveal themselves, the planet would be free of suffering. For another, we’d probably all be bored to death.
That’s more or less the beating heart of Tom Stoppard’s epic play “Arcadia,” now receiving a scintillating production by the Chautauqua Theater Company that opened Saturday in the Chautauqua Institution’s Bratton Theatre.
The show traces the intellectual pursuits of two separate groups of neurotic intellectuals, one arguing loudly in the present day and the other doing much the same at the dawn of the 19th century. The first group consists of Septimus Hodge (Zach Appelman), a clever tutor and sometime literary critic; Thomasina Coverly (Auden Thornton), his young and brilliant charge; Ezra Chater (Daniel Pearce), a failed poet; and a smattering of secondary characters. The second group includes the ebullient and self-involved academic Bernard Nightingale (Andrew Borba); the far less ebullient but no less self-involved academic Hannah Jarvis (Vivienne Benesch); the snarky mathematician Valentine Coverly (Matt Citron); and some others. Not the sort of folks you’d invite for tea, necessarily, but a heck of a lot of fun to watch from a distance.
Stoppard’s psycho-sexual tale is so laden with thematic complexity and so open to interpretation that it should suffice to say that “Arcadia” is about the human desire for knowledge — and what motivates, complicates, twists or satisfies it. It’s therefore also about the human desire for sex and the curious ways in which the pursuit of reason and knowledge can get inextricably tied up in the libido.
At its heart, the lesson of “Arcadia” lies in Hannah’s pronouncement that “It’s wanting to know that makes us matter” and in Septimus’ musing, in a similar vein, that “It’s the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.”
The CTC’s production, directed with economy and grace by Davis McCallum, most everything is right. McCallum executes Stoppard’s clever transitions between 1809 and the present day with consummate skill, employing a jarring score by Michael Roth and jolting lighting design by Tyler Micoleau. And the acting, especially from principals Benesch and Appelman — as well as Bianca Amato and, to a lesser extent, Borba and Citron — turns a potential prelude to a nap into a consistently engaging three hours.
Benesch gives a husky-voiced and petulant interpretation of the gruff and unsentimental Jarvis, a character self-assured to a fault. Her interactions with Borba, who bleeds disingenuousness as the bumbling Nightingale, are full of subtle and familiar truths and rank as some of the best moments in a production littered with them.
As the impossibly mannered Lady Croom, Amato employs Stoppard’s sharp sarcasm and cutting repartee with magnificent effect, imbuing Croom with her full potential for weighty comic relief and nicely shrouded exposition.
If this is your first exposure to Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” as it was for me, you’ll likely be intrigued to dive deeper into the playwright’s oeuvre. And that’s no mean accomplishment for CTC, whose 26th season has gotten off to a smart and engaging start.
Theater Review
“Arcadia”
★★★½
Presented through Sunday in Bratton Theater at Chautauqua Institution. For more information, call 357-6250 or visit www.ctcompany.org.
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