Arcadia | Literary Criticism & Book Review

Arcadia Critical Overview

Arcadia premiered at the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain in 1993, won the prestigious Olivier Award for best play then transferred to London's West End for a lengthy and successful run. In London, everything about the play was praised - its plot, characters, fascinating ideas intricately woven into witty dialogue, the scenery, the acting, and the directing. The play received its American debut at New York City's Lincoln Center Theater in 1995, where - in spite of actors who were generally considered less fit for their roles than their English counterparts and a theatre with poor acoustics - the play earned acclamation from excited Stoppard aficionados. The work also earned the playwright new-found respect from some of his severest critics. "Arcadia is wonderfully inventive and funny, full of the epigrams, puns, and verbal pyrotechnics characteristic of this dramatist," wrote Anne Barton in the New York Review. Clive Barnes crowed...
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