"Arcadia" at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, February 28, 2011
I've got to say, after my last two exposures to the work of Tom Stoppard, I had some hesitations about seeing this revival of his 1993 Arcadia. Its Broadway debut in 1995 included Billy Crudup, who returns in a new role this time around. Mr. Stoppard's skill for construction is at its height here in a double tale of scholars in the same English estate separated by two centuries. The two-thirds of Coast of Utopia and Rock 'n' Roll were overwhelming in intellectual concepts and history. Stoppard's structure in Arcadia reveals plot points bit by bit, illuminating from one time period to the other and exposing how the foibles of human interaction distort reality.
