'Arcadia' – Stoppard’s Intellectual Repartee Reigns at Dramaworks

Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece Arcadia is a play of ideas.  Although the love of learning is a central theme, it explores the dangers of deducing history from tidbits of clues.   Matters of the heart and sexual desire are laid bare, as well as the connectedness of all who have come before and those who will follow, questioning the very fate of the human species.  Conflicting views of free will vs. determinism, chaos vs. predictability are among a dizzying array of concepts explored, and yet the play is basically a farce, laugh out loud at times.  The language is elegant, poetic, and profound, even Shakespearian.

Arcadia is a challenging play to produce and equally challenging to watch, Stoppard asking the best from both sides of the 4^th wall.  If you are willing to let the ideas just flow and not get caught up in the myriad cerebral details, Dramaworks delivers the goods in a remarkable production.

The action takes place in the Coverly’s country home in Derbyshire England, Sidley Park, alternating from scene to scene between the early 19^th and the late 20^th centuries.  One is an age of change as Classical is giving way to Romanticism, only years after the American and French Revolutions.  This part of the play is juxtaposed to the beat of today’s scientific and exploratory pulse.  The 20^th century characters are trying to unravel what happened there nearly 200 years before from remnants of documents and some preconceived assumptions. 

Caitlin Cohn and Ryan Zachary Ward

In 1809 a brilliant 13 year old mathematics and science student, Thomasina Coverly, is being tutored by a gifted young man, Septimus Hodge.  She spurns his preference for Euclidean geometry, seeing instead – way before her time – a more complicated mathematical representation of nature itself.  She also craves a more thorough knowledge of “carnal embrace” as she is cognizant of a number of sexual dalliances happening on the estate.  Both roles are played by actors making their PBD debuts.  Caitlin Cohn is the playful and mercurial young genius Thomasina, who hangs onto every word her tutor utters.  Although Cohn is only in her early 20’s, she is an experienced actor of exceptional talent, craftily mesmerizing the audience. 

Ryan Zachary Ward’s Septimus is an attentive teacher and scholar who never is at a loss for words.  His performance is always riveting, whether he is toying with an adversary or discussing a tryst, and particularly when he delivers a consoling monologue which encapsulates the play’s philosophical foundation, saying to Thomasina “…your lesson book…will be lost when you are old.  We shed as we pick up, like travelers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind.  The procession is very long and life is very short.  We die on the march.  But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it….Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again.” 

Caitlin Cohn and Margery Lowe

The estate’s matriarch is Thomasina’s mother, Lady Croom, whose libido as well as her nobility must be indulged.  She is considering her landscape architect’s recommendation to abandon the garden’s classical motif in favor of the increasingly popular romantic, gothic design.  The always dependable PBD veteran, Margery Lowe, plays Lady Croom with an imperiousness befitting the role.

Septimus and Thomasina have three academic counterparts in the 20^th century, each tackling a scholarly endeavor.  There is the caustic Hannah Jarvis, a published author, currently researching the transformation of the estate’s garden, as well as attempting to unravel the mystery of the “hermit of Sidley Park.”  She is in a battle of wits with Bernard Nightingale, a don who has arrived to score what he thinks will be a major scholarly scoop, that the romantic and mystical poet, Lord Byron, was in a duel at the estate and killed a minor poet of the time, Ezra Chater, currently a guest of Lady Croom. We never see Byron on stage although he is an important part of the play.

Peter Simon Hilton and Vanessa Morosco

Peter Simon Hilton who plays Nightingale and Vanessa Morosco as Hannah are also making their PBD debuts.  They are husband and wife who have played opposite one another in many other productions, and they reveal that edge of familiarity, delivering Stoppard’s barbed dialogue to perfection.  Their acerbic and competitive sparring is delectable and their performances outstanding.

The 20^th century estate is still in the Coverly family.  Valentine Coverly, generations removed from Thomasina, is the mathematical sleuth, frequently asked by Hannah to interpret the shreds of evidence from the past.  He too is involved in research, centering on the estate’s grouse population revealed in the records kept in the family Game books, “his true inheritance…two hundred years of real data on a plate.”  He views this data as fodder for chaos theory, another dominant theme of the play, life moving from order to disorder.  Hannah asks to what end?  “I publish,” he says and Hannah amusingly replies, “Of course.  Sorry, Jolly good.”  Valentine is played by Britt Michael Gordon (his PBD debut as well) with a breathless enthusiasm as well as a deepening frustration explaining the complexity of the mathematical concepts, all the while hoping to seduce Hannah. 

Dispassionate Hannah, while rejecting the romantic advances of both Valentine and Bernard, focuses on the garden of that era, calling it "the Gothic novel expressed in landscape.  Everything but vampires."    As to the hermit, she says "He's my peg for the breakdown of the Romantic imagination... the whole Romantic sham….It's what happened to the Enlightenment, isn't it? A century of intellectual rigor turned in on itself. A mind in chaos suspected of genius. In a setting of cheap thrills and fake beauty... The decline from thinking to feeling, you see."

Morosco emphatically delivers a key takeaway for the audience as Hannah says to Valentine, “It’s all trivial – your grouse, my hermit, Bernard’s Byron. Comparing what we’re looking for misses the point.  It’s the wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we’re going out the way we came in.”

Among the farcical hilarity of the 19^th century sexual dalliances are those of Charity Chater who we never see on stage.  Veteran PBD actor Cliff Burgess plays the undistinguished poet, her dandy husband, Ezra, to perfection as he hopelessly and hilariously tries to defend his wife’s “honor,” challenging Septimus Hodge to a duel, demanding “satisfaction.”  This leads to an irresistibly quotable retort by Septimus, delivered by Ryan Zachary Ward with precise comic timing: “Mrs. Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction.  I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the Chater family.” 

Captain Brice, Lady Croom’s brother, is yet another paramour of Mrs. Chater who finally sweeps her off her feet and takes her, as well as her husband to the West Indies.  Brice is haughtily played with righteous indignation by Gary Cadwallader, who is also PBD’s Director of Education and Community Engagement.

Finally, the two halves of the play come together, with both the 19^th century and the 20^th century casts on stage at the same time, talking over one another, sometimes turning pages of books in tandem, but never interacting.  One thinks of Valentine’s statement earlier in the play, “The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is,” as two couples, one from each century, waltz on stage.  After such an intellectual exercise, these are the tender, loving moments the audience has longed for.  Stoppard saves the best for last.

Veteran PBD director, J. Barry Lewis, had a vision which prevails throughout the play and can be appreciated by his deft handling of his talented cast.  As he said, “Symbolism is significant in the work but if it eclipses the reality that would be a failure.  It must be about human nature and the unpredictability of love. How do we filter out the noise that encroaches on our lives to find the truth?”

Arcadia Scenic Design by Anne Mundell

Lewis has been aided by an outstanding team of collaborators.  The scenic design is by Ann Mundell, her PBD debut.  Her ethereal set is a marvel to admire, representing both the classical and romantic elements.  There are French glass doors to the garden and two solid doors on each side, perfect for slamming, fast entering and exiting, as in a traditional British farce.  The monochromatic set has led veteran Brian O'Keefe’s costume designs to showcase his creativity and skill, as he said, “to develop costumes which do not disappear into the set on the one hand, but not have them be so bold that they stand out too much.” They are of course period appropriate, easily taken for granted as they so perfectly match the characters’ personalities.

Donald Edmund Thomas’ lighting design shows no distinction between the two time periods, further reinforcing connectivity.  Sound design by Steve Shapiro has incorporated the requisite barking dog, gun shots from the outdoors, and as piano music figures prominently in the play, some classical piano during the 19^th century scenes, transitioning to more modern, yet still a classical feel for the 20^th century.  He even dramatically clues us into the first such change by a very conspicuous roar, presumably a jet plane.

It is a large cast.  Stoppard knows how to draw distinctive, passionate characters and everyone is spot on.  In addition to those already mentioned are Dan Leonard as Jellaby, the 19^th century butler who facilitates gossip, James Andreassi as Richard Noakes (PBD debut), the dashing landscape architect who is always trying to placate Lady Croom’s whims, Arielle Fishman, a flirtatious Chloë Coverly (PBD debut), Valentine’s sister who thinks sex might impact chaos theory, and Casey Butler playing two roles, Augustus, Thomasina’s bratty older brother as well as Valentine and Chloë’s mute brother, Gus.

Widely acclaimed as one of the greatest intellectual plays of the 20^th century, Arcadia is brought vividly to life by Dramaworks, characters dancing at the end “…till there’s no time left.  That’s what time means.” 

 

New Orleans – The WWII Museum, Jazz, and Culinary Delights

We recently returned from a four day trip to the Big Easy.  Our last visit was in 1972 and we felt that we wanted to see the city again and also incorporate a meeting with the archivist at the WWII Museum to which I donated my father’s WWII scrapbook, his letters and hundreds of photographs as well as 16mm films.  My father was a Signal Corp photographer in the European side of the battle.  I’ve written about it extensively in my blog.

 I called him the accidental soldier, but weren’t most?  The Museum was very grateful to receive his collection (and I was relieved that it went to a good home).  That’s the good news but Jennifer Waxman, the museum’s archivist, indicated there is a long backlog in cataloging, digitizing and arranging for exhibitions of materials.  The museum is also involved in a substantial physical expansion.  So maybe in 2018 my father’s materials will see the light of day there.   

We toured the museum and marveled at the scope and quality of the exhibitions, including the traveling exhibition from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda.  Posters, photos, and newsreels tell the story of how the Nazi propaganda machine used biased information to sway public opinion during World War II.  There are obvious ominous parallels today to our ubiquitous fake-news-laden social media, so could it happen here?  Yes, unless we are capable of learning from the past.

The museum gives you a dog tag so you can follow the story of just one ordinary GI, with various posts to hear his story.  It makes you feel connected to the content.  This massive war was not just something you read about in the history books, it touched everyone and those who had to fight it, like my father, are heroes, each in his or her way.  Other well known GI’s have plaques in the museum, such as the writer Kurt Vonnegut who was a POW, and the filmmaker George Stevens who became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Signal Corps.  I felt a special connection to each as I worked with Vonnegut publishing The Vonnegut Encyclopedia and Stevens would have been my father’s ultimate commanding officer in the European Theatre.

Special efforts have been made by the museum to give credit also to the Afro-Americans and Japanese who fought courageously for the U.S. although one group was still segregated and the other had families living in internment camps.  And efforts are made to memorialize the women who “manned” the posts in heavy industry normally held by the men who were now toiling on the various battlefields.  I left with tears in my eyes, just trying to take in what this country sacrificed in lives, and how they all pulled together.  Indeed, they were the greatest generation. Compare that to today as we are coming apart at the seams, where the words sacrifice, compassion, and pulling-together are absent.

The Tom Hanks film, Beyond All Boundaries, sets the stage for a tour of the museum.  A must see. You can get a sense of what it must have been like to man a bomber, or be on a battlefield, to participate in the "war to end all wars."

From there, you can visit separate exhibits for the European and Pacific Theatres.  The US Freedom Pavilion: The Boeing Center is also a must visit with vintage aircraft and armed vehicles of the era.  Watch the exhibit come into being by clicking onto the video at this link.  In particular, watch the reassembly of the B-17 ‘My Gal Sal” after it was recreated after countless hours of volunteer work, having been retrieved from where it lay abandoned on a Greenland ice cap for decades.

Be sure to visit their vintage 1940's soda shop where Ann and I shared an old fashioned malted milk shake.  I told her that as a kid I couldn't afford one, so we had NYC's famous "egg cream" which I remembered cost 10 cents vs. the malted milk's 25 cents.  (Now they're $7.00! at the WWII soda shop, but worth every drop of chocolate sweetness!) No wonder the WWII Museum has become a #1 must see when in NOLA.

Of course, there were other reasons to be in New Orleans: to soak up the jazz culture and to indulge in its culinary pleasures.  No grass grew under our feet in either department, Ann having researched restaurants and made reservations.  Luckily, our friends David and his sister, Nina, were great reconnoiters as they had recently been there for David’s daughter’s first jazz performance in the US.  She is a young jazz singer going to school in France and flew over to NOLA for an internship with the Parks Department.

David is a professional bass player and knew the “in” spots.  And with a recommendation from Nina, upon our arrival Sunday morning we made a beeline for the brunch at Atchafalaya –where we had made reservations a month in advance.  Knowledgeable locals go there for the best jazz and Bloody Mary’s (you make the latter yourself from a side bar brimming over with an extensive stash of ingredients, a virgin for me, vodka for Ann).  We took the St. Charles streetcar to get there, and ended up with a very long walk working up a hardy appetite which was more than fulfilled by an incredibly delicious brunch!

One thing about walking in NOLA, watch your feet!  Many of the old oak trees are forcing their roots towards the sidewalks, making them crack and heave.  We imagined an endless number of injuries as a consequence.  Half the time Ann needed me to hold onto her when it was very treacherous going.  Yet, NOLA’s streets invite walking, Mardi Gras beads still hanging from fences, trees. 

It is senseless to name all the great restaurants we ate at, but Felix’s had to be our favorite as we went back for a second lunch.  Raw oysters by the dozen or charbroiled!  The raw oysters were unlike any we’ve ever had, large, sweet, juicy, and served with personality at the bar.  At the Oyster Bar in NYC they’d cost a fortune.  A dozen at Felix’s cost $15!

The Royal Sonesta Hotel’s Jazz Playhouse features the incredible Germaine Bazzle who at 84 can still scat with the best of them.  It’s first come first serve to see her Sunday 8.00 PM show so we were seated at 7.15, enjoying their appetizers which satisfied as dinner (imagine, fried chicken and waffles!).   My Twitter entry has a brief clip of her performance.

The Royal Sonesta is on the infamous Bourbon Street which has always been and still is a tourist Mecca, particularly for the very inebriated so we were grateful to get an Uber back to our hotel which was in the business district, right around the corner from the French Quarter, but a good place to stay if you are allergic to all night noise as we are.

Another night we had a fabulous fish dinner at GW Fins, chatted with the very debonair owner and then followed that up with a visit to a local dive, Fritzel’s European Jazz Pub (serving drinks only) to see the local jazz legend Richard Scott.  Finding a seat is a battle. He has a huge following and plays with such abandoned joy as one can see from his face (upper left in the photograph).  This place is also on Bourbon Street so, again, Uber back to the hotel. 

A visit to the Mississippi River was a must which also involved touring the French Market (mostly tourist shops unfortunately, but, still, Ann bought a beautiful African-design dress there), and then we enjoyed the obligatory consumption of NOLA’s famous Beignets and chicory coffee.   

The New Orleans Holocaust Memorial is located in Woldenberg Park, right on the Mississippi as well, an “optical and kinetic sculpture, which is both a somber and hopeful tribute to Holocaust victims and Jewish people,” which looks different depending on your viewpoint.  It’s an unusual place for it, but its message powerful.

The river itself is the muddy one I remember, broad and powerful currents, one of the longest rivers in the world.  By its banks I caught a violinist engrossed in his music and the river’s flow.

Much of our last day was spent at the old US Mint, which is also near the French Market.  The New Orleans Jazz Museum is currently housed here and so we had the double enjoyment of touring what was once a fully operating Mint as well as the Jazz Museum which is operated by the US Parks Department (where David’s daughter, Stacy, interned).   

There are free 2 PM concerts there and we were lucky enough to catch the Kris Tokarski Trio which plays traditional NOLA jazz.  It was so enjoyable that my cheeks ached from smiling during the one hour performance.  A brief video can be seen on my Twitter feed here

There is also a special exhibit honoring the great Louis Armstrong, such an innovator and symbol of the city itself.  One can see the white piano of Fats Domino there as well.  Together, the concert and the exhibits make for a very moving history and keeping this going represents such a small expense, one that is apparently slated for elimination in the new US budget.  How we can abandon our very culture in favor of buying a few more bullets is dismaying.

That final night we saved the best for last, dining in a very innovative space, Restaurant Rebirth, housed in an old warehouse is now a farm to table restaurant with an unusual and creative menu.  The photograph of the shrimp-stuffed-with-eggplant appetizer speaks for itself!

Our hotel was across the street from what we came to call the “shop around the corner,” in this case a Watch and Clock Shop.  Every time we returned to the hotel its lamppost, clock and eagle grabbed our attention and so we finally decided to take a closer look.  I was curious how it still survived in this age of electronic everything and the answer is simple: old fashioned friendliness, service, and craftsmanship.  There we found a very reasonably priced pocket watch, one Ann can wear at the end of a necklace, so she can abandon her wrist watch and look stylish as well.  This has mechanical elements and one has to wind up the watch.  How many remember doing that in this age?  I also enjoyed their cat who they call Venus, as she’s like a fly trap, enticing you to pat her belly and then grabbing your arm by all fours.  I respectfully said hello to the kitty from a distance.

Early the next morning we were on our way home. What a great city to visit for a few days and to take in a culture unlike any other.