Comments on: Arcadia, Tom Stoppard (the play) https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/ before I read the middle Wed, 11 May 2011 18:15:31 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 By: Memory https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/#comment-5359 Wed, 11 May 2011 18:15:31 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=3148#comment-5359 You’ve given me such longing for the theatre. It’s been more than a year since I saw a play. I’ve got tickets for Wicked in August, but that’s much too far away. I must find something to see sooner.

]]> By: Jeanne https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/#comment-5358 Wed, 11 May 2011 14:11:46 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=3148#comment-5358 In reply to Jenny.

I have purchased groundling tickets for the Globe for July 24, to see All’s Well That Ends Well. What decided me is that the Kevin Spacey Richard III is scheduled to come to NYC next January, and I’m betting it might still be there when I might get to NYC in February.

]]> By: Books are my Boyfriends https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/#comment-5357 Tue, 10 May 2011 20:06:17 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=3148#comment-5357 I LOVE that you review plays on this blog. I’m a HUGE Arcadia nerd, I think Septimus and Thomasina have one of the sexiest and engaging relationships in the pantheon of modern plays.

]]> By: gaskella https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/#comment-5356 Sat, 07 May 2011 09:25:50 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=3148#comment-5356 I saw the original production at the National Theatre in London in 1993 (it was Rufus Sewell’s breakthrough role, before Middlemarch on TV) and he was lovely. Bill Nighy and Felicity Kendal were fab too. Sadly I remember loving it, but can’t remember much about the plot sadly. You’ve made me desperate to look it up.

]]> By: Review: Translations, Brian Friel « Jenny's Books https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/#comment-5355 Fri, 06 May 2011 10:12:32 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=3148#comment-5355 […] Tom Stoppard’s description of Arcadia which, by the way, may not have mentioned this yet, I saw. Twice!!). It is about a small town in Ireland in the 1970s, and the British officers who come to […]

]]> By: Ela https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/#comment-5354 Tue, 03 May 2011 13:04:05 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=3148#comment-5354 Arcadia was revived in London in 2009 and I meant to see it… but never got around to it. I love the play, and would love to see it filmed – I think it would work quite well as cinema. I can’t imagine how one would play Thomasina as shrill – she’s so bright, I’d think thoughtful would be a better way to play her.

(I notice from Wikipedia that Crudup played Septimus in the first Broadway production of the play)

]]> By: Jenny https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/#comment-5353 Tue, 03 May 2011 01:57:30 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=3148#comment-5353 In reply to Nymeth.

It was in Manchester? Was it the production with Tom Stoppard’s son in it? I’m sad for you that you didn’t see it too!

]]> By: Tracy https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/#comment-5352 Mon, 02 May 2011 19:09:13 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=3148#comment-5352 In reply to Jenny.

Macbeth is my favourite Shakespeare play, and I’ve always wanted to watch it performed.

I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone from Stratford, male or female, but I’ll bear that in mind!

]]> By: Nymeth https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/#comment-5351 Mon, 02 May 2011 10:00:57 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=3148#comment-5351 I so so regret not having gone to see this when it was on here last September! Especially as I did see A Christmas Carol and A Doll’s House by the same company and they were both excellent. I bet their Arcadia was amazing too. I know I can always read it, but it’s not the same 🙁

]]> By: Katy https://readingtheend.com/2011/04/27/arcadia-tom-stoppard-the-play/#comment-5350 Mon, 02 May 2011 00:01:43 +0000 http://readingtheend.com/?p=3148#comment-5350 In reply to Jenny.

If you are planning to become obsessed with Kipling, I would recommend starting with Puck of Pook’s Hill and Rewards and Fairies, not necessarily in that order. Puck of Pook’s Hill is basically children’s time-slip fantasy – it’s a collection of historical stories, mostly realistic, set in a magical modern-day frame. Rewards and Fairies is the sequel, but it’s not really for children, it only pretends to be. That’s the one I started with, when I was eleven, and it sucked me in right away.

Or you could start with Kim, which I think is Kipling’s best work, but I’m not sure if it’s the best place to start or not.

Or there’s the Jungle Book and the Second Jungle Book – as with Puck of Pook’s Hill / Rewards and Fairies, the second one is more sophisticated, and I think better. Basically, I seem to be saying: start with his books for and about children. That’s the way I met Kipling, and it seems to have worked.

His stories for adults are a mixed bag, and some of them are very, very good, but if you read only one I think it should be “The Gardener.”

Just make sure that you avoid a novel called The Light That Failed. I wouldn’t really recommend starting with the poems, either. Some of them are actually good, but I wouldn’t say that poetry was Kipling’s strength as a writer. The poems don’t show him at his most likable, either – I think there was something about the process of fiction writing, at least when he was genuinely invested in it, that softened and tempered the harsher aspects of his personality.

I’m sorry about writing such a long response, but it always makes me ridiculously happy when people are willing to give Kipling a chance.

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