Arcadia

[pameladean]

We got up rather earlier than we really wanted to on Sunday, and went off to meet carbonel at Taste of India for brunch. There was shrimp masala, with which I happily stuffed myself; also samosas and a vegetable curry and nan.

We got to Theatre in the Round in plenty of time to claim the tickets. Eric and Lydy went off in search of coffee, and brought some back for me, so I was both properly nourished and mostly awake for the production.

We had front-row seats to the right of and almost behind the arbor-with-seat that designated the way into the garden. The rest of the set was a gigantic wooden table and some chairs, pretty much as per the stage directions. The various century-spanning props lay on the table. Eric was much interested in a device that looked to him somewhat like a spectrograph, and it was suggested that he could get a closer look at it during the intermission, since we would have to cross the stage to get back to lobby and restrooms anyway. But just as the lights dimmed, someone bore the device away, and it never reappeared. A chance line in the play caused us to decide that it was probably a theodolite.

I thought the production was very good indeed. Most of the casting was inspired. I was particularly taken with Valentine, who was the cutest geeky type imaginable, and had a trick of posture that made him resemble the tortoise. I also admired Hannah tremendously: she had a lovely deep voice and really fine strictly-contained tense body language that occasionally exploded and more occasionally relaxed as the movement of the narrative dictated. Septimus was staggeringly pleasing to look upon, curly locks and riding boots and very good posture, and with a voice flexible enough for the part, to evoke laughter or tears. Thomasina was a little waspish creature in a white dress with cherry-colored ribbons. The British accents were -- well, I don't truly know enough to say if they were authentic, but they were mostly consistent. Valentine fell out of his once or twice, but not devastatingly. Thomasina's was sufficiently authentic and nasalized that sometimes it was not easy to understand her. I was glad that we were in the front row and that I knew the lines. As with a Shakespeare play, however, one got used to her way of speaking after a bit. Her mannerisms were splendidly done. I also quite adored Lady Croom, who was played by a well-aged and still tremendously sexy woman with a very grand manner and a devastating wit -- I mean, the lines provide this, but she really suited them wonderfully. Bernard was fascinating, both more and less sympathetic than a mere reading makes him. Afterwards lydy, who had neither seen nor read the play previously, asked, "So, if there are correspondences between the 19th- and the 20-century characters, is Bernard Byron?" I had never thought of it ,but I think she is right.

I've read the play four or five times, as well as participated in play-readings where it was done, as pegkerr mentioned when she discussed her viewing of this same production. I've only seen it once, however, so I don't have a lot of observations about the uniquenesses of this production. My main thought that I had not had before was that, in the play, sex is a much more entertaining and less fraught object in the 19th century than in the 20th, which is not precisely the usual view.

I don't feel I'm doing the production justice; people should feel free to ask questions, and if eileenlufkin (who met us there, along with Martin) or arkuat or carbonel or lydy or ddb would like to comment, I'd be delighted.

Pamela

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Afterwards lydy, who had neither seen nor read the play previously, asked, "So, if there are correspondences between the 19th- and the 20-century characters, is Bernard Byron?" I had never thought of it ,but I think she is right.

Oh, what a pleasing insight!

I think she's right, too, even though we didn't quite discover that in 12 weeks of rehearsing and performing the play.

I think Stoppard would agree with you about the changing place of sex through the ages, though. Freud has a helluva lot to answer for.

Out of curiosity: Did they use a live tortoise, or a proppish one? (Ours was a lovely prop, borrowed from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, but I swear sometimes I thought I saw him move ...)

Oh, and here are a few theodolites for you.

[pameladean]

They used a metal tortoise, rather like a large paperweight but fairly realistic overall.

Lydy said, with regard to the Byron/Bernard equivalency, that the numbers didn't come out right, there was one more character in the 20th-century part. So she thought about it, and that's what she came up with. It especially works given Bernard's treatment of Chloe. "Do you want me to come with you?" "No, why on earth should I want that?"

The object on the table didn't look quite like any of those theodolites, maybe most like the "mini". Those are great images, though; thanks.

Oh, and about the sex

[pameladean]

I don't agree with Stoppard if he's making a general case that sex was more fun in the time the play was set. It makes sense in terms of the characters, those particular characters. I do agree that Freud has a lot to answer for, but Lord! I'll take contraception, women's suffrage, the entire feminist movement, even extreme sex-negative whackos, modern medicine generally, and the Minnesota Human Rights act as a far better atmosphere to have sex in.

Pamela

[oursin.livejournal.com]

sex is a much more entertaining and less fraught object in the 19th century than in the 20th

The C19th was a long century of many changes - one could even suggest a 'long nineteenth century' dating from the C18th Evangelical Revival to 1914, or conversely argue that the 'long eighteenth century' didn't in fact end until at least Victoria's accession to the throne.

As a historian who has suggested that even the 'Victorian era' was not monolithic in sexual behaviour and attitudes, I'd want to argue that for some people at some times in some social circles in both centuries, it might have been possible for sex to be more entertaining and less fraught than it was for other people at other times or in other milieux.

The historian's battle-cry: 'Actually, it's more complicated'.

[pameladean]

I was referring to the play specifically -- the characters in the 19th-century bit had much healthier attitudes towards sex, and more fun with sex, than the ones in the 20th-century bit.

Pamela

[oursin.livejournal.com]

That sounds completely plausible and makes good sense.

I have an annoying pedantic hot-spot about this, derived from reading too much 'The Victorians' this, 'The Victorians' that: one of the worst examples was 'all Victorian middle-class males kept mistresses and went to prostitutes' (in a Ph.D thesis, where it was less forgiveable than in an undergraduate essay).

[pameladean]

Oh, I'm very sympathetic to your hot spot. I used to be just as bad as the "the Victorians all did X" crowd.

Oddly enough, what shook me out of it was a combination of reading Byatt's POSSESSION (what do you think of that; is it accurate, or shallow, or completely goofy in this regard) and of reading the gigantic manuscript of Brust and Bull's FREEDOM AND NECESSITY, which I did lying on the floor with the two-volume compact version of the OED spread open around me, and a cunning little replica of an allegedly Victorian ocular device intended for the better examination of botanical specimens, since I lost the magnifying glass that came with the set long ago. Words that I kept pegging as "modern" were almost always in use during the time period the books were set in, or came into recognized use very shortly thereafter. I did make them take out "Hedonist," since it was apparently coined by an Oxford don on a well-attested occasion too late for the story. This upset Steve Brust a lot, but he acquiesced.

Pamela

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I found Possession very impressive, and profoundly plausible (some of the archival practices in the modern section made me shudder a bit, but didn't, unfortunately, violate probability).

Freedom and Necessity was also impressive, and I didn't spot any gross (or even, I think, minor) violations of period likelihood.

However, not all people who think it would be fun to write something with a Victorian (or neo- or steampunk-Victorian) setting are anything like as meticulous as these authors, or as Michel Faber in The Crimson Petal and the White. Alas.

tangential note

[redbird]

There is an LJ user ddb, but the journal is entirely in Russian, so I'd guess that it's not DDB.

Re: tangential note

[sdn.livejournal.com]

i went to that guy's site, too!

no, it's actually LJ user dd-b.

Re: tangential note

[pameladean]

Whoops, sorry about that. I was mostly just trying to get into the habit of using the username where people are on lj. David has the account purely for reading purposes at this time, so going to his account doesn't get you much -- well, okay, there's a cute picture of him as a child.

Pamela

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

This was the second time I saw it, and although I was overall very pleased, I was sad that Thomasina was significantly less sexualized than she had been in the first production I saw.

So my question is, do you think Thomasina is better as just coming into her awareness at the very end of the play, and would you find it convincing to have her awakening to that earlier?

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

The one production of it I saw (and it's been years) had her coming into her awareness later in the play. I'm not sure about how convicing it would be one way or the other, but there were certainly many lines that were funnier coming from an innocent than someone who knew what she was saying. If she knew she would meerly been making suggestive come-ons and they really wouldn't have been that funny.

[pameladean]

I'm fine with it either way. A sexual precocity would go well with the mathematical genius, but I know it's also sometimes the case that people are not at the same level in everything. I think either choice will highlight a lot of aspects of the play, but I don't think either is better.

Pamela

correspondences?

[eileenlufkin.livejournal.com]

What are the other correspondences between the 19th & 20th century characters? There's all sorts of interesting compare and contrast aspects, but I didn't see anything that I would call "X is Y"

Spoilers in this comment.

[eileenlufkin.livejournal.com]

"My main thought that I had not had before was that, in the play, sex is a much more entertaining and less fraught object in the 19th century than in the 20th, which is not precisely the usual view."

Oh, I didn't see less fraught at all. The 19th century sex was entertaining because Stoppard wrote it; but Stoppard can make the homicidal classics of antiquity inevitable death of sympathetic characters entertaining. I just imagine how I would have felt hearing that gunshot, not knowing how it turned out. I can't begin to picture the social atmosphere in the carriage with Mr and Mrs Chater and Captain Bryce that morning.