Arcadia
Nov 6, 2013 17:01:08 GMT
Post by rueful on Nov 6, 2013 17:01:08 GMT
Laila, I missed your post with the New Yorker article--thanks for finding it. I love Arcadia, not just because of Rufus as Septimus, but because it's such a beautiful play. It allows such endless analysis and discussion and yet tells such a complete story. (And in this I find it to be much better than the other play the author mentions, Waiting for Godot. To write something obscure and sparse and then say, "Well, that leaves things open to the audience's interpretation," is one thing; to write a story that makes such real, three-dimensional people, with real lives, and then still leave the audience thinking and interpreting, is sheer brilliance. Existentialism for the real world.)
Apparently it's the 50th anniversary of the National Theatre, and there have been a few articles on favorite and history-making productions, and they have mentioned the original production of Arcadia.
www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/listed-nights-remember-national-theatre
7. Arcadia (1993)
"What is carnal embrace?" the precocious young Thomasina Coverly asks her adored tutor, Septimus Hodge, in the opening line of Tom Stoppard's dizzyingly wondrous play. That Thomasina never gets to find out lends a terrible ache to a play that put to rest forever the stale canard that Stoppard writes for the head and not the heart. Trevor Nunn's glorious NT premiere featured an as yet unsurpassed (in this play, that is) double-act in Rufus Sewell and Emma Fielding (pictured right; photo credit: Richard Mildenhall), whom I can still see dancing their way into the abyss.
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/10364511/National-Theatres-50th-the-best-shows-from-1993-2003.html
Arcadia, directed by Trevor Nunn, starring Rufus Sewell and Felicity Kendal, 1993
Tom Stoppard has contributed to the intellectual adventure of the National more than almost any other single living playwright but it was with Arcadia that he guaranteed his place in the pantheon future generations will turn to. Shuttling between 1809–1812 and the present day, the play is set in an English country house in which forward-looking learning in one era is set against the historical investigations of the other. Erudite wit, an abundance of romantic intrigue, and a melancholy appreciation of time passing combined with star turns from the likes of Rufus Sewell, Felicity Kendal, Bill Nighy and Emma Fielding left Charles Spencer in little doubt that he “had just witnessed a masterpiece".
Please note the poll results (poll closed, but Arcadia won even without our help--unless others here knew about this).
Which of these was the best NT show from 1993-2003 (Poll Closed)
Arcadia 28.57% (70 votes)
Ken Campbell: Jamais Vu 0.82% (2 votes)
Rutherford and Son 1.22% (3 votes)
Absolute Hell 4.9% (12 votes)
A Little Night Music 28.16% (69 votes)
Closer 11.02% (27 votes)
King Lear 8.16% (20 votes)
Merchant of Venice 3.67% (9 votes)
Blue/Orange 9.8% (24 votes)
Far Side of the Moon 3.67% (9 votes)
Apparently it's the 50th anniversary of the National Theatre, and there have been a few articles on favorite and history-making productions, and they have mentioned the original production of Arcadia.
www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/listed-nights-remember-national-theatre
7. Arcadia (1993)
"What is carnal embrace?" the precocious young Thomasina Coverly asks her adored tutor, Septimus Hodge, in the opening line of Tom Stoppard's dizzyingly wondrous play. That Thomasina never gets to find out lends a terrible ache to a play that put to rest forever the stale canard that Stoppard writes for the head and not the heart. Trevor Nunn's glorious NT premiere featured an as yet unsurpassed (in this play, that is) double-act in Rufus Sewell and Emma Fielding (pictured right; photo credit: Richard Mildenhall), whom I can still see dancing their way into the abyss.
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/10364511/National-Theatres-50th-the-best-shows-from-1993-2003.html
Arcadia, directed by Trevor Nunn, starring Rufus Sewell and Felicity Kendal, 1993
Tom Stoppard has contributed to the intellectual adventure of the National more than almost any other single living playwright but it was with Arcadia that he guaranteed his place in the pantheon future generations will turn to. Shuttling between 1809–1812 and the present day, the play is set in an English country house in which forward-looking learning in one era is set against the historical investigations of the other. Erudite wit, an abundance of romantic intrigue, and a melancholy appreciation of time passing combined with star turns from the likes of Rufus Sewell, Felicity Kendal, Bill Nighy and Emma Fielding left Charles Spencer in little doubt that he “had just witnessed a masterpiece".
Please note the poll results (poll closed, but Arcadia won even without our help--unless others here knew about this).
Which of these was the best NT show from 1993-2003 (Poll Closed)
Arcadia 28.57% (70 votes)
Ken Campbell: Jamais Vu 0.82% (2 votes)
Rutherford and Son 1.22% (3 votes)
Absolute Hell 4.9% (12 votes)
A Little Night Music 28.16% (69 votes)
Closer 11.02% (27 votes)
King Lear 8.16% (20 votes)
Merchant of Venice 3.67% (9 votes)
Blue/Orange 9.8% (24 votes)
Far Side of the Moon 3.67% (9 votes)