Whatever Experience You Bring to Arcadia, It Illuminates

We are all Thomasina Coverly, in our own way.    

In her innocence and youth, she embodies the persistence of curiosity, the puzzled determination in finding answers, and the explosive excitement of wanting to be the first to have ever thought a specific thought.  Arcadia’s budding intellectual, played so delightfully by apprentice Alex Wiles, (whose blogs on the process of creating her character have been in this space over the last month) brings wonder to all that unfolds in front of her. Though we may be older than 13, we remember Thomasina and carry her with us.  

Thomasina’s tutor, Septimus Hodge inspires plenty of laughs, and in his eyes one easily sees the ebbing of youth: he is challenged and provoked by his younger pupil.  We laugh because we experience ourselves, as parents or teachers or older siblings, within him.  

The rigorous and independent scholar in Arcadia, (Hannah Jarvis), strongly played by Jennie Meharg, evades introspection and delightfully misses her primary subject: herself.  The splashy rock-star scholar, brought to life by Adrian Rieder, makes glaring errors in his research that we find funny----his gut-reactions blind him to the facts.  

And on and on.  We find parts of ourselves in each of the characters.  

Director Foster Solomon and his company of actors, crew, and designers have created a beautifully haunting, delicious romp between two time periods.  Becky Cairns is designing in her favorite period, and it shows.  The costumes reflect her brilliance and excitement.  Brian Barker (Sound of Music, others) has crafted an elegant set---designing each piece to fit through a barely-six-foot-wide door into the Gottwald.  Some are as high as 16’ and complete an arc across that expanse, but in sections. No mean feat. Gregg Hillmar’s lights include sunrises and sunsets, echoes of fireworks, chandeliers and wall lamps that flicker so believably you’d swear they were gas.  Our volunteers gave time, effort, and (sometimes back-breaking) work.  I want to say thank you to all of them.  I have been (and am) thrilled with the work of every single artist on Arcadia, and proud to be associated with them.

Light, love, life and energy flow out of all their work, (and Stoppard’s) in which

“…the unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is.  It’s how nature creates itself, on every scale, the snowflake and the snowstorm.”

…And human beings.  “It’s wanting to know that makes us matter.”

It’s for this reason that Richmond Shakespeare is performing Arcadia. It’s why I selected the play, and why our artists, staff, board and volunteers struggled to bring it to you---to our audiences.  It’s the closest to Shakespeare we’re likely to find for many years to come.   Daniel Hannan from the London Telegraph gives his thoughts on Shakespeare and Stoppard:

“I’ve made this observation before about the greatest writer of them all – whom Stoppard rather sweetly refers to as “The Champ”. Not many authors in the intervening 400 years achieve the same effect – which is perhaps the highest compliment I can offer our chief living playwright.”

 Hannan describes:

“I recalled, in particular, staggering out of a performance of Arcadia 15 years ago, convinced that it was the supreme theatrical work of our era. Whatever experience you bring to it, it illuminates your experience more than your experience illuminates it.” [emphasis mine]

Watching Arcadia, we see how elements combine, how time periods intertwine, how people and aspects of human nature interact.  Sometimes they are quiet and clear, sometimes producing tension or explosions.  This play is music and gunfire.  It contains Byron’s poetry, Newton’s science, sex, travel, nature, and religion.  These are not what this play is about, but merely elements used to demonstrate Stoppard’s reaching out to teach the Thomasina in each of us.

“When we have found all the mysteries, and lost all the meaning, we will be alone, on an empty shore.”

Come see this play.  Bring your experiences.  Find yourself surrounded in childlike wonder at finding the meaning within.  

Grant Mudge
October 27, 2010

The Rehearsal Process: Arcadia (Installment 4)

Well, we've reached opening night of Arcadia! and thus the final installment in Alex Wiles blog of glimpses behind-the-scenes.  Now, you must come to see the performance, which runs only through October 30. Alex is a marvel, and the entire cast is truly outstanding.  I hope you will join us.  Grab tickets here. -GM

I guess you could say acting is a way of taking a walk in someone else’s shoes, only they more than likely don’t exist in reality, and if you’re doing it right, they’re kind of your shoes, too.

A few weeks ago as we began to have final costume fittings, Liz Blake White (playing Chloe) told me how excited she was to get her shoes for the show and start wearing them in rehearsal: “They just add something special to getting into character!”

She’s quite right--and it’s not just the shoes, either.  While the clothes don’t make the man (or woman), they certainly help you craft your character’s movement vocabulary, particularly in a period play.  Grant teased me one day in rehearsal that I moved as though I live in jeans.

Well, I do.

For the past four days or so, I’ve been living in long, airy Regency-period dresses with big pouffy sleeves in lovely, feminine fabrics.

While corsets weren’t typical of the period (the Regency empire waist freed ladies up for era from full-torso corsets for a little over a decade), a little foundational structure helps remind me of the extent to which my movement is constrained, but not so much that I can’t aim for the physicality of a 13-year-old girl.

After a few hours of wearing dresses that fit rather closely to the upper body, I get to change into my nightgown, which is equally lovely, though far more billowy.  It’s dreamy and ethereal, and ridiculously comfortable.  (Also, it is what my four-year-old self would have termed “a good twirler.”  This is particularly important, and if you see the show, you’ll know why.)

Everyone’s costumes are incredible.  Rebecca Cairns and Annie Hoskins have outdone themselves again!  Their work is beautiful, functional, and informs so much of the work we do as actors.

The funny thing is that this applies to the 1993 cast as well!  As a child of the early 90s, I didn’t pay much attention to fashion in the first place.  Little Mermaid shoes went with everything, even a white and black polka-dotted ruffle dress with matching bolero jacket trimmed with yellow ric-rac. (Oh yes, it was quite a sight, especially when topped off with that 90s classic, the bowl cut.)

I suppose it never really occurred to me that there was a style in the 90s.  

Oh, but there was.

Turtlenecks.  Big sweaters.  Pants that come up to your ribcage.  Pleats--everywhere.  “The Rachel” was becoming a singular trend in ladies’ hairstyling. It’s all here! 

It’s so wonderful to be working in, on, and around the gorgeous set (designed by Brian Barker) in these delightful costumes, juggling so many fabulous props against a backdrop of music and light.  If you pause and look around in the quiet of backstage, you think, “hey, this looks like a show.”

I am so pleased and honored to be a part of a production that is coming together so brilliantly.  

With that, I believe it’s time to review some dialect notes and go to bed.  We preview tomorrow and open on Friday!  Please join us--and stick around afterward to say hello!  For now, enjoy a teaser of the phenomenal hair design--here’s the first trial of Thomasina’s Hair, Look #2 of 3.