ARCADIA - First Preview- Page 3

[bjh2114]

Posted: 2/28/11 at 1:10am

Billy Crudup is still hot. The end.

[After Eight]

Posted: 2/28/11 at 11:42am

"Every time a Stoppard play comes around the P-word seems to appear."

Maybe it's because the P-word suits them to a ....

P.

[Lavieboheme3090]

Posted: 3/1/11 at 3:09pm

I have tickets for this weekend any news as far as the sound issues go?

[wonkit]

Posted: 3/1/11 at 5:21pm

Theater Mania has a nice interview with a number of cast members. Billy Crudup looks gorgeous. Also TimesTalks is interviewing Sir Tom Stoppard on March 15. Lots of cool things to look forward to.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 3/1/11 at 5:41pm

A link would be good:

http://www.theatermania.com/video/stoppard-and-go_170.html

[wonkit]

Posted: 3/1/11 at 7:51pm

Thanks, emcee. Some day I, too, will join the current century.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 3/2/11 at 6:47pm

At the risk of being that person, has anyone seen it over the past few days? I have to wait a while, I'm curious!

[wonkit]

Posted: 3/2/11 at 7:53pm

I'm going tomorrow. Hope the sound issues have been resolved.

[Chele]

Posted: 3/2/11 at 11:41pm

I'm making the pilgrimage from Charleston in April to see Arcadia. This will not only be my first ever Broadway show, it will be the first time I've been in a theatre for nearly 16 years (bad experience at summerstock left me with panic attacks at the idea of doing/ seeing plays - /boohoowah). I was supposed to have see Arcadia in '95 (same year I did summerstock) but my dark days and Arcadia's dark says were always the @#$%$^& same.

Anyway, I'm doing it this time. No sound issues for me. I invested in orchestra seats. What I'm wondering is... do I go ahead and READ the play beforehand? I have been dragging this copy around for 16 years and not read it. Would it be helpful in understanding things better, or would it diminish the first-timer impact?

Glad to know about the Twizzlers. Those would not have fit in my handbag.

-Chele
TeamBillyHasNeverBeenNotHot

[Katurian2]

Posted: 3/2/11 at 11:51pm

I disagree with your signature, but I'll answer anyway!

i don't think it's necessary to read the play beforehand. However, I do think it's useful to brush up on Fermat's last Theorem and the Chaos Theory. Not like, full research, but just a quick summary reading of them to get thinking about them. I always think it's most fun to go into a show blind though, especially if you don't see theatre frequently, it's a big treat. Read it after you see it and dig deeper then.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 3/2/11 at 11:58pm

I don't think it's "necessary" either, but you might want to. Personally, I wouldn't -- you can't get that element of surprise back once you've experienced it, and if I had the option, I'd rather experience it live than on the page. I do think you'll probably want to read it after you've seen it, though, since it'll leave you with a lot to chew on and you might want to go back to certain passages.

This video is pretty difficult to get through, but for any ambitious fellow geeks who want to brush up on their math, 48 minutes on the math behind Arcadia (yes, really):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM0cR7qvmgY

Updated On: 3/3/11 at 11:58 PM

[mallardo]

Posted: 3/3/11 at 2:42am

When I saw this production in London I left the theatre and immediately bought the play from a nearby bookstore. It's the only time I have ever done that - not because I needed it explained but because it was so rich and powerful I just wanted to go deeper into it.

[Weez]

Posted: 3/3/11 at 1:36pm

I knew absolutely nothing about this play when I saw it in London, and I had absolutely no problem keeping up. The intellectual ideas were expanded as much as they needed to be, and in simple enough language for even my goldfish attention span to keep up, and the emotional journeys just blew me away.

While Katurian has a point that you might it find it slightly easier to keep up if you have at least a vague idea of what Chaos Theory and Fermat's Last Theorem are, I rather more subscribe to the Emcee view that you should just banish all intellectual hang-ups you may have for the duration of the play and just watch the story.

Gosh, who knew watching a play was so *complicated*?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 3/3/11 at 6:23pm

To be clear, I wasn't saying you should banish intellect from your experience. I was saying that if you feel confused, or frustrated that you don't know the material, you shouldn't let that overwhelm you and encourage you to check out, thus missing the emotional arc and the true point of the play. Stoppard uses a lot of often challenging intellectual and historical background material in his plays, but they still absolutely have a humanity that grounds them, and that, whatever hovers over them, is what they are truly about. I don't think Arcadia is really "about" Chaos Theory or complicated math, I think it's about academics and sex and, ultimately, our search for the truth.

[Swirly]

Posted: 3/3/11 at 8:15pm

Saw this last night. Enjoyed it. Yes sound was not good.

[Chele]

Posted: 3/3/11 at 8:41pm

Well, Tom Riley says that they have worked hard to make things clear for the lay person and to read the play after. Pretty well what everyone else is saying. So I will just bring my copy to read on the plane trip back. I'll focus in planning the other 30 hours of my time in NYC.

-Chele

[thismyshow]

Posted: 3/4/11 at 12:42am

saw it tonight was in the 7th row in the orchestra but i could hear everything clear, also here is the little blurb i wrote for my facebook friends about it. At 3 hours this show could be a wreck in the wrong hands, thankfully great performances from the cast keep it running smoothly, however Tom Stoppard has alot to say with this piece as it uses alot of intelligent dialogue which could go over audiences heads the bigger issue being by the end its not an exact point thats clearly communicated to the audience & thats a huge issue after investing 3 hours.

[mallardo]

Posted: 3/4/11 at 4:38am

Glad to hear the sound was okay. These reports of inaudibility are very strange considering the quality of the cast.

[kyle4]

Posted: 3/4/11 at 2:23pm

earlier in this thread, there was a discussion about raul esparza... whether he was padded or not... i had written a blog post abut it....

anyway, the stars aligned (literally!)... and i was able to unearth the truth...

the answer is here!

http://thetheaterbuff.typepad.com/the-theater-buff/

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 3/4/11 at 2:54pm

Glad to hear the sound was okay. These reports of inaudibility are very strange considering the quality of the cast.

Well, it could be a problem that's out of their hands. I've seen the Barrymore have some sound issues early in previews before, so maybe they're just working out technical kinks.

Tom Stoppard has alot to say with this piece as it uses alot of intelligent dialogue which could go over audiences heads the bigger issue being by the end its not an exact point thats clearly communicated to the audience & thats a huge issue after investing 3 hours.

Yeah, it's an issue if you want your answers spoon-fed to you, in which case you probably shouldn't be investing your time in a Tom Stoppard play to begin with. The point of it is to make you think rather than to hand you something that's all neatly wrapped up. If you were confused as to what happened plotwise, that's one thing, but if you felt that it left things open-ended thematically, that's rather the point.

And kyle -- OH.... THANK... GOD.

...

...

.

[kyle4]

Posted: 3/4/11 at 2:56pm

luv

i know...

always great when things are cleared up!!!

have a great weekend!!!

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 3/4/11 at 3:15pm

I know, I was having trouble functioning normally without the answer to this question!

[wonkit]

Posted: 3/4/11 at 5:00pm

I was also at the Thursday night performance. First things first - Esparza looked fine in the Regency clothes in the final scene so my conclusion was that in the modern scenes he is being costumed badly intentionally, in clothes that are just a little too snug or not quite long enough (see red sweater). I assume the intent is to make him look frumpy (see also hair) as though he is one of those absent-minded maths types who never update their college clothes once they are out of school. It does make him look younger to some extent, as he would be more likely to appear his own age if he were dressed in a more dapper fashion. It also makes the contrast with Billy Crudup, the dapper fame-seeker, more obvious.
Second, the sound. I was in the center of row A of the front mezzanine, and I had trouble hearing dialogue for a significant portion of the show. I thought at first that it was the accents and the dense dialogue but some of the most complex language came across beautifully so it wasn't the delivery or the content that was causing me a problem. It was frustrating as the performance seemed to be well thought out and occasionally very moving. Here is my take on the sound issues, at least from A 101. Certain actors were consistently audible, namely Billy Crudup, Noah Robbins and Tom Riley. Some were occasionally fine and occasionally unintelligible, namely Raul and Lia Williams - both of whom impressed me so much with their performances, AT LEAST WHAT I COULD HEAR OF THEM. And the young ladies, Ms. Gummer and Ms. Powley, were very, very difficult to follow for most of their roles, even though Ms. Powley in particular is clearly perfectly suited to playing a precocious aristocrat. So I shall have to make sure to sit in the orchestra in future, if the acoustic issues don't seem to be occurring there. Or perhaps the problem can be technically identified and addressed.

I must say that I love this play, and I have read it several times and actually did some background reading on it as well. I would agree that none of that preparation is "necessary," but I personally prefer to have a real grasp of the structure and a familiarity with certain parts of the text, not necessarily the scientific stuff but more the character content. I am not going to comment on the performances last night, as it is still quite early but the performance as a whole was intriguing, funny and ultimately satisfying, even with the big sound caveat above. I must say, though, that I am not a fan of the use of blank windows in the large scale room, as it makes the mostly empty single set quite drab. The costumes are fine but kind of uninspired. But I love the tortoise! Raul/Valentine holds it on his lap for much of the fifth scene, and "feeds" it bits of lettuce from his sandwich.

So - I will be back to the Barrymore again, early and often, I think. The audience was very responsive, by the way - some really delighted laughter at crucial moments. The final tableau was lovely.
Updated On: 3/4/11 at 05:00 PM