Arcadia

Comparing what we¿re looking for misses the point. It¿s wanting to know that makes us matter. Otherwise we¿re going out the way we came in.

Arcadia premiered at the National Theatre, London, 1993, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Play and the Evening Standard Award for Best Play.

¿It is an English country-house farce about the death of the universe. It is a laugh-filled tragedy about what happens if you take the intoxicants of poetry and science seriously. It is a play where Stoppard turns himself into a clown whose juggling balls are Romanticism, Classicism, and the meaning of life . . . The stale cliche¿ about Stoppard is that he is a brilliant manipulator of ideas, but with no heart. Yet here ¿ at the core of his best play ¿ is the greatest love story on the British stage for decades. Yes, the characters bond over ideas ¿ but some of the most interesting people in life do just that. That would be enough to make Arcadia a masterpiece ¿ but