The Hampstead Players have chosen ARCADIA by Tom Stoppard as their autumn production. It will be directed by John Hester and John Willmer.
This is an absorbing play that takes us back and forth between the centuries and explores the nature of truth and time, the difference between the Classical and Romantic temperament and the disruptive influence of sex on our orbits in life “the attraction which Newton left out”.
Preliminary auditions will take place on July 18th and August 16th. If these dates are inconvenient please contact either of the Johns.
Rehearsals will start in mid-September for performances on the 24th, 25th and 26th November.
There are seven scenes and there are two distinct casts. One appears in 3 scenes set in 1809 and the other in 3 scenes set in the present. They appear together in the seventh scene. This means that nobody will have to rehearse more than twice a week until near the production dates.
In a large country house in Derbyshire in April 1809 sit Lady Thomasina Coverly, aged 13, and her tutor Septimus Hodge. Through the window can be seen some of the ‘500 acres inclusive of lake’ where Capability Brown’s idealized landscape is about to give way to the ‘picturesque’ Gothic style: ‘everything but vampires’ as the garden historian Hannah Jarvis remarks to Bernard Nightingale when they stand in the same room 180 years later. Bernard has arrived to uncover the scandal which is said to have taken place when Lord Byron stayed at Sidley Park.
“This is a brilliant, brilliant play, a play of ideas, of consummate theatricality, of sophisticated entertainment and of heartache for time never to be regained.” Sunday Times.
John Hester and John Willmer
Arcadia