Sidley Park in 1809. Lady Thomasina Coverly attempts to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, discovering her own theory of chaos in the process, while her tutor Septimus Hodge dices with death by dueling over a perpendicular poke in a gazebo with the village noticeboard.
200 years later, Hannah Jarvis the bestselling author is investigating the hermit of Sidley Park – present in the time of Thomasina and Septimus – while English professor Bernard Nightingale searches for his own proof that Lord Byron fought and won a duel – the very same duel Septimus is trying to avoid.
Bound by the same geography, but separated by two centuries, past and present interact and collide in Stoppard’s comically tragic, tragically comic play on life, death, sex and the universe.
Arcadia was performed from the 17th to the 19th of June 2014 on the Queen’s Lawn, Imperial College London.