Arcadia

Magic-realistic drama

Tom Stoppard, the British author of Moravian origin, belongs to the most distinguished representatives of modern drama. The drama Arcadia written in 1993 has a remarkable plot oscillating between two centuries and keen dialogues of the best intellectual English tradition. Considerable artistic and intellectual value is hidden in the refinement and ambiguity of the brilliant text. Two saloon societies alternate in one scene – interior of a manor: one dates back to 1809 – 1812 and the other is contemporary. Both amours dissolve into exciting trips to the preserve of science and research. Authoress Hana is studying in Lady Croom’s archives documents about development of the local English park into an Arcadian garden when she is disturbed by Bernard, professor of literature, who wants to find proofs in the same archive of his fantastic belief that a duel happened at the Crooms’ estate in 1809 in which young Byron shot dead a husband of his lover. Deductions of both researchers influenced with snobbery, desire for glory, but also modern experience are confronted with the real story from the beginning of the nineteenth century presented in retrospectives which protagonists are Thomasina, a fifteen-year-old genial girl, and her young tutor. Encounters of “reality” and trials to reconstruct it form the substance of the nostalgic drama written in almost Czechov’s tone.