Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia: Concepts of Order and Disorder
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia; a magnificent play in its time and beyond, that has arose many critical discussion in the past 20 years. The scholar Jim Hunter discusses the may concepts presented in the play Arcadia. Many of his discussions are presented around the concept of order and disorder which reflects the conflict between romanticism and Enlightenment, being one of the core concept our theater company has focused on to bring the play from page to stage. Jim Hunter talks about how ‘ In the Enlightenment, everything might eventually prove capable of explanation, within a rational of God-given order.’ This critical analysis influences our production to bring forth this idea onto stage to intensify this passionate conflict between these two periods and also compares it to the romanticism period whereby Jim Hunter speaks of romanticism challenging the assumptions of the enlightenment and some what reversing them so that irrationality is promoted over rationality and the following of the heart is promoted over the head.
Alison E Weatley, another Academic analysing Tom Stoppards Arcadia, discusses the human desire to control or order nature and how human nature is shown to be as difficult as to control as the natural world. Reflecting one of our concepts presented by our theater production, Alison talks about metaphor of the play referring to loss and recovery, as samantha talked about her concept of chaos theory. Alison states that play does not really reflect or ultimately support Septimus’s claim that “ nothing is lost” but in fact the play is trying to demonstrate that loss inevitable which encourages our theater production to look at certain scenes in the play and focus on them to bring forth a message of the concept being presented, for example the last dance reflects the concept of loss is inevitable and our production will certainly focus on this scene in order to enhance the concept and give it some meaning. As Alison had put ‘ Consolation is needed for loss,
Alison E Weatley, another Academic analysing Tom Stoppards Arcadia, discusses the human desire to control or order nature and how human nature is shown to be as difficult as to control as the natural world. Reflecting one of our concepts presented by our theater production, Alison talks about metaphor of the play referring to loss and recovery, as samantha talked about her concept of chaos theory. Alison states that play does not really reflect or ultimately support Septimus’s claim that “ nothing is lost” but in fact the play is trying to demonstrate that loss inevitable which encourages our theater production to look at certain scenes in the play and focus on them to bring forth a message of the concept being presented, for example the last dance reflects the concept of loss is inevitable and our production will certainly focus on this scene in order to enhance the concept and give it some meaning. As Alison had put ‘ Consolation is needed for loss,