Arcadia
Theater review by Regina Robbins
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia unfolds across two timelines. In the early 19th century, a Cambridge graduate works as a tutor on an English country estate, overseeing the education of a precocious young lady; nearly two centuries later, in the same house, three scholars seek to unravel mysteries left unsolved in the past. Among the subjects it surveys are mathematics, physics, history and music, and these interests are not merely academic; they are directly related to the play’s structure and plot. Real talk: This isn't a carefree evening at the theater. It is, however, a balm to the soul as much as a workout for the brain, and its current Off Broadway revival reminds us why this 1993 play about what’s lost to time has, so far, proven timeless.
Bedlam, a small but mighty ensemble company that reinvigorates the classics by ruthlessly reconstructing them, gets high marks for this production. As usual, director Eric Tucker lets the audience see the theatrical gears turning, staging the action on a set (by John McDermott) that erodes both the boundary between past and present and the one that separates performers from the audience. Yet he keeps the strands of the story from becoming a confusing tangle, which is no mean feat considering how much Stoppard puts on our plates: Regency Era sexual liaisons, modern-day professional rivalries (complicated by sex) and glorious questions about science, art and the meaning of life. The playwright has cultivated thi