David Leveaux? NO GO. An Arcadia Review.

Unless the show has been radically revised since it played London I disagree with everything you've said. I thought it was a beautiful revelatory production. And I too LOVE the play. Of course I'm pretty sure the London cast was superior to the Broadway cast so that may be a factor.

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Two points. I was one of the people who didn't love the Lincoln Center production and found it bloodless and boring. And the play is specifically set in an empty room, so that the table can be the focus of the set dressing. I don't love this particular set but its emptiness is intentional, not penny-pinching.

I spoke with a very dear friend who LOVES the play with a passion and was let down by this current production.

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"During the most important moments of the show, people were standing 40 feet away from each other trying to connect"

I'll give you this one. To me, that was the most annoying thing about the staging. It was as though Leveaux (hey, that rhymes!) wasn't comfortable with the minimal sets and wanted to use every inch of the stage available, making for very uncomfortable staging at times.

I love this production. I love that Hannah is much more physical (the original production's Hannahs both here and in London were much more "girly") and having Hannah be a perhaps lesbian (both Samnatha Bond and Lia Williams are very similar, obviously the way Leveaux sees the character). However, I am surprised Leveauux goes with older Valentines, that seems to throw the dynamic off between the characters somewhat. I loved the original Arcadia, and if this production didn't hit me the same way, its only because the discovery of my now favorite Stoppard play was obviously not available to this production. But everything Leveaux did was spot on--including the brilliant blocking.

And please, do we have to have the mandatory "Stoppard is pretentious" discussion?

No... we in fact don't. If you read my post, I said the play ISN'T pretentious, as many people seem to think that it is. It's TRYING to be pretentious, but instead I think it comes across as incredibly fake. I would welcome the pretension if it were genuine, but it's not. I agree with you that Stoppard is demanding of his audience. That's what I like about him. I have no problem with what many people seem to think is pretentious about him. MY point is that Arcadia is NOT demanding of its audience in the same way some of his other plays are. I think it babies the audience while trying to carry around this veil of "false pretension".

What growl said.

ETA: Most people would consider failed pretension to be a good thing.

Updated On: 3/16/11 at 12:48 PM

^ Haha, I re-read my post and see where the confusion lies. I will try to be more articulate. I don't think he necessarily aimed to make it pretentious. I suppose I meant to say he tried to make it "uber intelligent." A lot of people SEE this as pretentious. But I find it neither pretentious nor intelligent (a.k.a. I disagree with most of the audience members and the playwright simultaneously). The only point I will disagree with you on, growl, is that I do feel that he spoon-feeds the audience. In his other plays, he makes the audience jump to the conclusion from something that was said. In Arcadia it's all "so here is a fact we never knew before... explain what that means... what then are its implications???!!!" And by saying "HERE are the implications", it's allowing the audience members to know what the next "discovery" is going to be before it even happens. I consider that spoon-feeding.

Not gonna lie... that made me lol.

Trust me - this production will not disappoint, especially since you already have such a nice appreciation for the structure of the play.

But I, too, think it is beautifully constructed so I was prepared to enjoy what I saw.

*spoilers*

I saw yesterday's matinee. For those wondering, I was able to get student rush at 11:45 for the 2PM show. Row H, side orchestra. Full view.

I'm a huge Stoppard fan, and I find Arcadia to be his most accessible play. Really, everything is all laid out, and it doesn't take a genius to follow the trajectory of the story. This production, however, felt like Arcadia for Dummies; you could see everything coming from a mile away. Leveaux staged the play with no drama, no excitement, no immediacy...it was all about getting from Point A to Point B.

From my seat in Row H of the orchestra, I had no trouble HEARING anybody. However, some of the actors--especially Tom Riley, who plays Septimus Hodge--were unintelligible. By and large, the period scenes fall flat, with miscast actors who have no feeling for Stoppard's language. I cannot tell if this is due to Leveaux's misdirection or just ineptitude on the actors' parts, but the period scenes are f*cking endless.

Bel Powley, as Thomasina, gives the single worst performance I've ever seen on a Broadway stage. I literally wanted to wring her neck from the moment she opened her mouth. Why couldn't her character die after the first scene, instead of at the end? Seriously, with the magnitude of talented young actresses we have over here, was it necessary to import such a strident, charmless girl for this part? Dreadful.

The modern scenes come off much better. Crudup, Williams, Gummer and Esparza all have a great rapport with each other, and play wonderfully together. Crudup really sells the bumbling academic; as someone who works in academia, I could see more than a few of my colleagues in his performance. Esparza is far too old for Valentine--it's just unavoidable--but he's quite good in the role. Grace Gummer is so much more talented than her older sister, who's been foisted on us for the past decade; where has she been hiding? Williams is simply brilliant. I definitely didn't pick up the lesbian subtext that some of you have been suggesting.

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Except that there is set and scenery.