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Review: Arcadia

★★★★☆
Four Stars

In the open air of Magdalen’s exquisite gardens, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia flourishes. The intertwining plots share an English stately home, and the pastoral idyll allows afternoon sunshine to segue into twilight, which, in the second, tortured act, yields to nightfall. Minimal staging permits fluid transition from one strand, set in 1809, to the other, in the modern day. A strong cast for the most part capture the vulnerability and discord at the heart of the play.

Stoppard’s wit starts the performance on a strong footing, as Septimus (Ben Goldstein) and Thomasina (Julia Gibbon) enjoy full control of the stage. The dialogue is swift and delivery fresh, crisp and candid. Both actors sustain creditable and appealing performances throughout. With glances and twitches, Goldstein reveals the chinks in Septimus’ swashbuckling confidence and Gibbon conveys Thomasina’s intellect and naïveté admirably. 

The events set in 1989 were dominated by Mary Clapp’s Hannah Jarvis and Tom Dowling’s Bernard Nightingale. Dowling’s enthusiasm and energy were commendable, but his weak command of the lines meant that coherence was lost in quick-paced dialogue. Several stumbles meant that scenes were interrupted. His performance was good, and at times engaging, but not as consistent or impressive as some of those with whom he shared the stage, with occasional lapses into overacting.

Clapp, by contrast, was a delight to watch. From her first pained conversations with Nightingale, through to her teasing conversation and final dancing scene, the impression is given that far more simmers beneath the surface than we are permitted to see. A dedicated performance where her face and physicality never slacken, she manages to balance commitment with credibility gracefully. Her comic lines, of which there are many, were offered almost always as natural and her forced composure at moments of vulnerability was arresting.

Hannah’s foil, Chloe Coverly, was embraced by Susannah Cohen, whose faultless comic timing leavened scenes of intensity. Ellie Page made many bids from the sidelines for star of the show through her impeccably dry and well-timed delivery of Lady Croom’s wittiest lines. Valentine Coverly (Nathan Ellis) was sensitive and cogent, his subtleties of feeling expressed elegantly. Despite a slightly forced drunken epiphany, it was a touching and commendable performance. Andrew Wynn Owen was fair as Ezra Chater and supporting characters varied in quality, with the general effect strong and moving. The final waltz shows characters from both eras dancing in unending circles and it supplied an affective denouement.

This play, heavy with dramatic irony, searches for human connection in an apathetic world. Stoppard’s writing swings from sharp to sensitive and the cast excel at both. Even in Arcadia there is death, and under Mimi Goodall’s superb direction, transience and loss flicker in the wings of Arcadia.

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