Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Philip's Commentary on

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

"A SHEPHERD I . . . . . . "A SHEPHERD HE OF ARCADY" . . . . . . OF ARCADEE"

Arcadia, ancient home of the Greek demigod Pan, setting of poems by Virgil, symbol of pastoral simplicity, title of a heroic 16th century romance by Sir Philip Sidney, reference for the above quote from Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe . . .

When: Monday February 14, 2005 at 7:00
Where: Fireside Room
What: ARCADIA by
TOM STOPPARD
Who: UUCPA Thespians
Why: And you thought Stoppard's Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern was confusing.

The place is the baronial hall in Sidley Park, Derbyshire, ancestral home of the Coverlys. Scene 1: The time is 1809.
Sidley Park is, "a most amiable picture. The slopes are green and gentle. The trees are companionably grouped . . . The rill is a serpentine ribbon . . . The right amount of sheep are tastefully
arranged . . . It is nature as God intended. . . Arcadia." But
that is only the surface. There are people, complex people exhibiting brilliance and stupidity, jealousy and love and sex.
They include, among others, a precocious teenager, her virile tutor, a pretentious would-be poet and his "easy" wife, and an architect who is bound to transform Arcadia into something "modern" and chaotic.

We are just beginning to get to know these people when in Scene 2 time jumps forward 180 years. The baronial hall is virtually unchanged but the people now include a couple of "scholars" trying to research the early 1800's and some descendent Coverlys. These people, too, have their interrelationships, and we get to know and sympathize with them. Thereafter, in alternate scenes we view the unfolding events in the 1809 period, and the logical but totally false conclusions being reached in 1989. The final scene is an intricate "dance" with both time periods swirling about the stage but never colliding.

It is a complex play. To get the maximum appreciation you should probably understand thermodynamics, the history of English Gardens, chaos theory, the poetry of Lord Byron, and Fermat's last theorem. But Stoppard does such a wonderful job of developing his characters and managing his subplots, that you can get a lot from the play even if you are totally ignorant of all of the above specialties.

Join us on February 14 and give it a try. At the end of the evening you may want to take your copy of the script home with you and reread it a couple of times to get even more appreciation of it.

Send me an email: thespians-info@uucpa.org or call me if you'd like more information.
Let me know you're coming - or just show up.

UUCPA Thespians
Philip Hodge, Chair