Arcadia at Portland Stage

Stoppard’s masterpiece, Arcadia, tells a burning story of love and science as the play flows back and forth through time at the Coverly Estate. In 1809 a young Thomasina learns math and science from her tutor, Septimus, who in addition to his teaching duties, must face a duel for his affair with a married woman. Meanwhile, in the present-day, descendents of the Coverleys host two scholars who compete to uncover the secrets of the estate in the early 1800s. Does the past tell of an epic scandal and deadly duel, or of a mad genius who lived on the grounds? As the play moves between nearly two hundred years, we see what the scholars get right (and wrong!) as Thomasina tries to find an equation for the universe and Hannah begins to understand love, the attractive force that Newton left out.”