Those of us fortunate enough to be a member of a university department of “Mathematics, Physics and Computing,” as I am, can certainly appreciate the 1993 Tom Stoppard play Arcadia. But if one does not grasp the references in the play to “Hobbes and geometry,” the explication of “the laws of thermodynamics,” the delight of “iterated algorithms,” or the implied terrors of “chaos theory,” one is left entirely with the aesthetics of Stoppard’s time-warping creation to appreciate.
My companion at the performance by the Austin Playhouse, who has seen many hundreds of plays since 1956, put Arcadia on a unique pedestal after seeing it. It is, he says, “the worst play of all time.” Contrast this with the fact it is regularly cited as one of the greatest plays of the last 50 years (an assessment that was written 10 years ago).
While much ink has been spilt on this play in the past 31 years, one aspect seems to have been glossed over. There is a character in the play (Bernard) that reviewers have characterized as an “arrogant academic.” He is actually a foil creates by Stoppard to portray academia in a very bad light, and as an academic myself I can’t say I appreciate it. I am the first to admit that not all academics are paragons of scientific rigor. Indeed, I revealed a fraud perpetrated on the scientific community in 1932 by Knut Lundmark, in which he fabricated a text by Hipparchus to prove that ancient Greek fellow created the numerical stellar magnitude system. But Stoppard seems to take particular delight in giving us a buffoon whose own publicity-seeking clouds his judgment. His cartoonish portrayal of an academic merely feeds into the anti-intellectual sentiment that is so much a part of modern anti-culture.
And the anti-academic thread does not end with him. There is a brief scene between Bernard and his collaborator/antagonist Hannah, where he brandishes a journal containing a paper that conclusively shows the artist Fuseli was not portraying Byron in a certain important sketch in a particular place. She throws it on the table, saying she doesn’t believe it. All this takes place in the ‘current timeline’ of the play, set in 1995. The theatrical advantage Stoppard has is that he can then switch the action back to the early 19th century, with a different cast of characters, who actually have met Byron. In a throw-away line that I suspect few actually notice, one the characters mentions having seen Fuseli sketch Byron earlier that very day in the very place in question. So Bernard, who has every right to believe the sketch in question was of someone else, is proven wrong again; whereas Hannah, with nothing other than a belief that it was Byron, is proven correct. Again, aesthetics wins out over scholarship.
Other reviewers have cast the early 19th century scenes here as “high comedy in the Oscar Wilde vein.” At best Stoppard is Wilde without the sparkling wit that only he was able capture and deploy on stage. Stoppard does, however, rise to Wildean wit once: when the naïve Tomasina asks “Is sexual congress love?” Her tutor retorts “No, it is much nicer than that.”
I will not torture the reader with explanations of what the play is really supposed to mean. I imagine an entire book could be written on it, so Arcadia does have that going for it: few other plays would merit more than a couple of pages. I will say, however, that this is a brilliant ensemble cast of 11 members. Tobie Minor [an associate professor at Texas State University] as Bernard is utterly insufferable, as Bernard is meant to be; a great portrayal by a real academic!; Alyssa Hurtado as Thomasina puts her natural charm to work as a budding mathematician that could easily inspire other young ladies to enter that field of study; and Andrea Osborn as Hannah accepts the abuse thrown at her with the same equanimity she dishes it out. All sterling performances.
lead photo, from the 20th century portion of the play: Osborn and Minor
second photo, from the 19th century portion: the excellent Ismael Soto III as the tutor to Thomasina, played by Hurtado.
Arcadia runs thru Oct. 6, 2024.
Visit the website for tickets: www.austinplayhouse.com/arcadia
science nerds can read my study of Hipparchus at this link to the Journal of Astronomical History & Heritage:
https://www.sciengine.com/JAHH/doi/10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2020.02.01