Newton's classical mechanics posited an order underlying a seemingly disordered world. He saw its 'laws' operating via cause-and-effect mechanisms, leading to determinism: given adequate information, one could predict future events. His near- contemporary, however, the wittily named heroine of Stoppard's play, Thomasina [Tom 'as seen a Coverly, has seen another future, one ordered by disorder, what is now known as 'chaos theory.' (Stoppard found the seed of his play in James Gleick's Chaos: The Making of a New Science.) The opposition of order and disorder, past and future (our present), provides the structuring principle of Arcadia.
Its action takes place in a large room in a large English country house. Here in 1809 Thomasina, a mathematically and scientifically precocious thirteen-year-old, is being tutored by Septimus, whose friend the poet Lord Byron visits long enough to shoot a hare and, perhaps, another visiting poet, Ezra Chater, in a duel. The opposition of science and poetry is repeated, more than a century and a half later, in the second scene and the same room, when a twentieth-century member of the Coverly family, Valentine, a graduate student 'chaotician,' tells a visiting literary biographer and theoretician, Hannah Jarvis, about his researches in the new science. The ana
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lytically inclined Hannah and a rival, romantically inclined literary critic, Bernard Nightingale, are each embarked on a quest for the truth of Byron's role (if any) in the death of Ezra Chater.
The five principal characters of Arcadia are, thus, each engaged in the quest for knowledge. While truth, the whole truth scientific and humanistic, eludes the questers, the interwoven themes of the play reach their resolution in a final scene of astonishing technical virtuosity. After three scenes set in the past and three in the present, the seventh and longest brings past and present?the Romantic age and the postmodern?together. Characters from both periods are on stage simultaneously, all wearing Regency costume (the modern ones for a fancy-dress ball). The scene is at once 'chaotic' and supremely ordered, ending?like so many Renaissance and later comedies?with a dance. Here, on the verge of tragedy, humanist and mathematician/ scientist from each period join hands and start to waltz. As the Russian Yevgeny Yevtushenko put it in a war poem called 'Weddings,' even on the verge of tragedy, 'you can't not dance.'
Stoppard's most recent plays are Indian Ink (1993); The Invention of Love (1997), which brings together in one galaxy A. E. Housman, Oscar Wilde, and a sparkling constellation of Victorian worthies; and The Coast of Utopia (2002), an epic trilogy that follows the trajectory of romantics and revolutionaries in the twilight of Czarist Russia. He shared an Oscar for the screenplay of Shakespeare in Love (1998) and has also written for radio and television, alternating?sometimes in the same work? between a serious handling of political themes and arabesques of exuberant fantasy. As he says: 'I never quite know whether I want to be a serious artist or a siren.' He has succeeded in being both, often?as in Arcadia?at the same time.
Stoppard was knighted in 1997 and three years later was appointed a member of the Order of Merit.
Arcadia1
CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)
THOMASINA COVERLY, aged thirteen, HANNAH JARVIS, an author, late later sixteen thirties SEPTIMUS HODGE, her tutor, aged CHLOE COVERLY, aged eighteen
twenty-two, later twenty-five BERNABD NIGHTINGALE, a don,1 late JELLABY, a hutler, middle-aged thirties EZRA CHATER, a poet, aged thirty-one VALENTINE COVERLY, aged twenty-five RICHARD NOAKES, a landscape to thirty
architect, middle-aged GUS COVERLY, aged fifteen LADY CROOM, middle thirties AUGUSTUS COVERLY, aged fifteen CAPT. BRICE, RN,2 middle thirties
Act One
SCENE ONE
A room on the garden front of a very large country house in Derbyshire in April 1809. Nowadays, the house would be called a stately home. The upstage wall is mainly tall, shapely, uncurtained windows, one or more of which work as doors. Nothing much need he said or seen of the exterior beyond. We come to learn that
1. A mountainous region of central Peloponnese, its shepherds are called 'Arcades.' Greece; scene of idealized and idyllic country life 2. Royal Navy. in the pastoral poetry of ancient Greece, notably 3. University teacher of English literature, that of Theocritus, and Italy, notably that of Virgil;
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2754 / TOM STOPPARD
the house stands in the typical English park of the time. Perhaps we see an indication of this, perhaps only light and air and sky.
The room looks bare despite the large table which occupies the centre of it. The table, the straight-backed chairs and, the only other item of furniture, the architect's stand or reading stand, would all be collectable pieces now but here, on an uncarpeted wood floor, they have no more pretension than a schoolroom, which is indeed the main use of this room at this time. What elegance there is, is architectural, and nothing is impressive but the scale. There is a door in each of the side walls. These are closed, but one of the french windows4 is open to a bright but sunless morning.
There are two people, each busy with books and paper and pen and ink, separately occupied. The pupil is THOMASINA COVERLY, aged 13. The tutor is SEPTIMUS HODGE, aged 22. Each has an open book. Hers is a slim mathematics primer.5 His is a handsome thick quarto,1' brand new, a vanity production,' with little tapes to tie when the book is closed. His loose papers, etc, are kept in a stiff- backed portfolio which also ties up with tapes.
Septimus has a tortoise which is sleepy enough to serve as a paperweight. Elsewhere on the table there is an old-fashioned theodolite8 and also some other books stacked up.
THOMASINA Septimus, what is carnal embrace?9 SEPTIMUS Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one's arms around a
side of beef. THOMASINA IS that all? SEPTIMUS No ... a shoulder of mutton, a haunch of venison well hugged,1
an embrace of grouse . . . caro, carnis;2 feminine; flesh. THOMASINA Is it a sin? SEPTIMUS Not necessarily,
