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Gyah. I'm just not a fan of Stoppard (though I did enjoy Arcardia, it may have been because I developed an instant crush on the very talented sophomore playing Thomasina). It's always seemed to me that he writes cleverness tests more than he writes plays (R&G being the worst offender that I've yet encountered). It is of course possible that this dislike is just my refracted resentment for being too slow to enjoy his material.

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This is a criticism that comes up a lot. In a way Arcadia is simply a detective story and all the other intellectual nonsense is, as my professor put it, a red herring.

A lot of students said they decided to not choose that play because they said it was "too hard." One of the reasons I like Stoppard is because of the layers. He also asks a lot of the same questions that I ask, and so I already have an interest in the material.

I do think Arcadia is a detective story, but I think the intellectual layers also have a point. If you look closely a lot of the themes presented in the speeches are actually also represented in the characters, in the repetition of lines and scenes and action within the play. It's incredibly nuanced. Also - since true life is complex I always hate when people call his plays "too" complicated since that's what real life is!

To save Stoppard though, I think it comes down to the acting. Obviously a lot of the audience is not going to understand all the discussions concerning disorder, fractals, algorithms, etc. However, I think that's not the point, and Hannah herself describes it all as "trivial." The important part is the WANTING to know so the actors have to show that they are excited about what they're talking about, and that will translate to the audience. And as a detective story, the whole point is wanting to know what happened.

But it is easy to see how other productions could get bogged down in emphasizing the intellectual crap rather than the heart of the show. Welcome to most of theater. *flashbacks followed by twitching*