Caroline Lowry
Ms. Sara Christian
Theater 1020
23 March 2018
Arcadia
1. Who was your favorite character and why?
My favorite character was Ezra Chater. One of my also favorites parts and one I believe was a bit comical, was when Chater confronted Septimus about what exactly his intentions with his wife were. Concluding, Septimus finally admitted that he did have ill intentions with his wife. Septimus manipulates Chater into thinking he is this great guy and Chater even decides to forgive him. Chater simply states in the play, “Did Mrs. Chater know of this before she – before you – “ and Septimus replies, “I think she very likely did.” and Chater responds back with, “There is nothing that woman would not do for me!”
2. Was the plot hard or easy to follow? Depending on your answer, explain the ins and outs of the plot and why you did or didn't have trouble following along.
I, personally, had trouble following along with the plot. I feel due to the time period, and really just what the play was based off of made it hard to follow along and understand. Generally speaking, theatre is not my strong point, but I have been to broadway and seen a handful of shows. The scenes switched a lot from the 19th century to present day, making it harder to follow along. I felt the plot was very science based with a little landscaping and gardening mixed in. Those are all kind of my weak points, so some of the conversations they were having it was hard for me to pick up on and follow along. I would 10/10 recommend this play to anyone interested in science and gardening, or even those interested in history.
“When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backwards, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?”
Thomasina says this to Septimus. This quote reveals Thomasina’s scientific curiosity while eating her rice pudding, which I feel kind of relates back to the plot and where science comes in. Through all of this, she attempts to find scientific explanations in the world around her and finally see a “theory” in her bowl of jam. She sees it as the iteration or stirring continues and the equation continually changes.
3. What do you feel the play was trying to communicate?
I think this play could be attempting to communicate many different lessons. It has multiple themes throughout. First. Being wisdom and knowledge. Most people believe why should you learn about something if it has absolutely nothing to do with you or your future, why learn it or try to know about it? But through Arcadia, they look at it like you should want to know about everything in the world because we only have one. Through writing, Arcadia examines how we piece together the past through text. “Septimus: If the margin of his copy of Arithmetica, Fermat wrote that he had discovered a wonderful proof of his theorem but, the margin being too narrow for his purpose, did not have room to write it down. The note was found after his death, and from that day to this –”
Thomasina says, “Oh! I see now! The answer is perfectly obvious! […] There is no proof, Septimus. The thing that is perfectly obvious is that the note in the margin was a joke to make you all mad.” In this quote, Thomasina is reading between the lines. No matter what, it is known that she is depicting to reliability through text and the saying “you can’t sense tone through words” comes in hand. We can;t exactly know what a person was thinking or how they meant it through only words. To conclude, using writing as evidence requires some critical thinking. Another theme closely presented in the production is truth. In Arcadia, the “truth” is rarely plain and almost never simple. “Thomasina: There is no proof, Septimus. The thing that is perfectly obvious is that the note in the margin was a joke to make you all mad.” The "joke" Thomasina guesses at only works if people really want to believe that truth exists – they'd rather go mad searching after the proof they are sure is there than admit that the proof never existed at all. Lastly, through science, Arcadia portrays this theme by showing the audience that science could change in ways more than we could ever imagine.
4. What are your thoughts on the overall production? Did you like the sets, costumes, acting performances, the script and the show overall? Feel free to use this question to answer honestly about your feelings about the production.
Overall, I felt the production was great. Though, my only complaint would be that it was somewhat hard to follow. The costumes fit right in with the setting and time period. Also, considering it was in England, the accents that all of these characters had to hold throughout the entire production, despite the fact that they may be from different countries or ethnic backgrounds. Completely changing your accent for 3+ hours and constantly practicing as that, I would find that a bit difficult. All of the characters played each character very well. Some of the scenes felt a bit skippy and it seemed like things would happen in the blink of an eye. For example, conversations, huge hints or textual evidence would be said in a 2 minute conversation, and considering they have accents as well as talking super fast, it can easily be missed. The sets- the sets were AMAZING! Probably one of my favorite things about the production and productions in general. I felt the set obviously closely related to the tim period, and not only that, the characters and parts of the play would always have a different way to use the sets. Things I wouldn’t know were there, or you could go around or behind, each scene was different and the characters made sure to include the set in a different way each time also.