---
product_id: 2479967
title: "Arcadia (Faber Drama)"
price: "20265CFA"
currency: XOF
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.sn/products/2479967-arcadia-faber-drama
store_origin: SN
region: Senegal
---

# Arcadia (Faber Drama)

**Price:** 20265CFA
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Arcadia (Faber Drama)
- **How much does it cost?** 20265CFA with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sn](https://www.desertcart.sn/products/2479967-arcadia-faber-drama)

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## Why This Product

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## Description

In a large country house in Derbyshire in April 1809 sits Lady Thomasina Coverly, aged thirteen, and her tutor, Septimus Hodge. Through the window may be seen some of the '500 acres inclusive of lake' where Capability Brown's idealized landscape is about to give way to the 'picturesque' Gothic style: 'everything but vampires', as the garden historian Hannah Jarvis remarks to Bernard Nightingale when they stand in the same room 180 years later. Bernard has arrived to uncover the scandal which is said to have taken place when Lord Byron stayed at Sidley Park. Tom Stoppard's absorbing play takes us back and forth between the centuries and explores the nature of truth and time, the difference between the Classical and the Romantic temperament, and the disruptive influence of sex on our orbits in life - 'the attraction', as Hannah says, 'which Newton left out'.

Review: Many Pleasures from Such a Well-Done, Well-Interweaved Variety of Topics and Characters - Another reviewer began the review with this: "Arcadia is one of the most touching and enlightening works of literature I have ever read. The interweaving of ideas from physics, fractals, literature, architecture, history, psychology and many other fields of knowledge hidden in the play is just perfect." I agree with the sentiment. I adored the live play; saw it twice! I also read the play afterwards -- now twice, too. The reviewer I quoted, though, got bogged down later in the review of whether Stoppard is brilliant enough as Einstein or is just showing off. The play is not a Philosophical Inquiry of Great Rigor. The ideas, to me anyway, are like the proverbial unicorn story: see one (wow! is it real?; a couple folks see it: super-wow; but once everyone sees it: "so what? it's a horse with a horn in its head."). The delight for me was not in the "novel" ideas, but in the way in which they are used as another means of entertainment: much as characters in an Eric Rohmer (French) Film might discuss Kant's Synthetic A Priori. The characters are IMMENSELY entertaining and that they discuss philosophy or math just adds to what is entertaining about them -- specifically it adds variety. So you have the usual drama subjects, but more too. The main thing then is this: ALL is WONDERFULLY done and you derive your pleasure from all the very well-done VARIETY of fun and drama and topics ALL NICELY WOVEN TOGETHER, not hodge-podged at all.
Review: Genuine Theater; The Real Thing. - A play with so many dimensions, so many levels, rather like a complicated fugue or dance, part whodunit, part budding romance, part farce. There's something shamelessly professorial about it which may be offputting to some: its baroque array of references to a wide range of subjects ranging from Chaos Theory to literary criticism to academic shenanigans in fast-paced volleys of dialog tupical of Stoppard challenge the audience to keep up. But this is not hot air, every word means something, even the most casual, flippant aside. Nothing is wasted. Witty, romantic, elegiac, a play for the discerning theatregoer. It's worth reading and re-reading. If you like to be challenged and edified in your theatre-going, go see it. Twice if possible.

## Features

- Orders are despatched from our UK warehouse next working day.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #613,776 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #13 in Playwriting (Books) #14 in Play & Scriptwriting Writing Reference #565 in Comedic Dramas & Plays (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 664 Reviews |

## Images

![Arcadia (Faber Drama) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51rUgOdNpmL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Many Pleasures from Such a Well-Done, Well-Interweaved Variety of Topics and Characters
*by M***S on March 22, 2006*

Another reviewer began the review with this: "Arcadia is one of the most touching and enlightening works of literature I have ever read. The interweaving of ideas from physics, fractals, literature, architecture, history, psychology and many other fields of knowledge hidden in the play is just perfect." I agree with the sentiment. I adored the live play; saw it twice! I also read the play afterwards -- now twice, too. The reviewer I quoted, though, got bogged down later in the review of whether Stoppard is brilliant enough as Einstein or is just showing off. The play is not a Philosophical Inquiry of Great Rigor. The ideas, to me anyway, are like the proverbial unicorn story: see one (wow! is it real?; a couple folks see it: super-wow; but once everyone sees it: "so what? it's a horse with a horn in its head."). The delight for me was not in the "novel" ideas, but in the way in which they are used as another means of entertainment: much as characters in an Eric Rohmer (French) Film might discuss Kant's Synthetic A Priori. The characters are IMMENSELY entertaining and that they discuss philosophy or math just adds to what is entertaining about them -- specifically it adds variety. So you have the usual drama subjects, but more too. The main thing then is this: ALL is WONDERFULLY done and you derive your pleasure from all the very well-done VARIETY of fun and drama and topics ALL NICELY WOVEN TOGETHER, not hodge-podged at all.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Genuine Theater; The Real Thing.
*by C***E on January 8, 2018*

A play with so many dimensions, so many levels, rather like a complicated fugue or dance, part whodunit, part budding romance, part farce. There's something shamelessly professorial about it which may be offputting to some: its baroque array of references to a wide range of subjects ranging from Chaos Theory to literary criticism to academic shenanigans in fast-paced volleys of dialog tupical of Stoppard challenge the audience to keep up. But this is not hot air, every word means something, even the most casual, flippant aside. Nothing is wasted. Witty, romantic, elegiac, a play for the discerning theatregoer. It's worth reading and re-reading. If you like to be challenged and edified in your theatre-going, go see it. Twice if possible.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Tom Stoppard is a step behind Anton Chekhov.
*by A***V on October 27, 2010*

With the release of "Guildenstern and Rosencratz are Dead", Tom Stoppard emerged as an original voice in a literary theater world already overpopulated by past geniuses. Applying a deft combination of law of probability, nihilistic philosophizing, and comely tribute to the rich inheritance of Shakespeare, Stoppard articulated a definition of human death that was powerful and, most significantly, uniquely in his own words. In "Arcadia", an unmistakable shot at greatness, Stoppard expands both his thematic concerns and billing of characters to artistically express his own sensitivities to human drama. A quick description of the play, that it involves thermodynamics, time-travelling, and the parallelism of lives being lived in two different time periods, is enough to raise a curious eyebrow from most anyone. Does the play succeed? Yes and no. The characters are a mixed bag of lively personalities and terrible bores. Septimus Hodge and Thomasina Coverly dominate the play as the most engaging characters given the best lines to speak. Their swordsman-like rapport on the algebra of determinism is rapt, and Stoppard's blending of the wonders of science in a literary world largely allergic to numbers game is a breath of fresh air. Concurrently, how future characters Hannah Jarvis and Valentine Coverly react to the characters Septimus and Thomasina as they discover their personalities through old letters and mathematical proofs is the genius of the play, since their discovery of the past allows the audience to see how lives go on even after death and participates with our own in the present. Unfortunately, this thematic concern of life after death is fumbled a bit by ancillary characters which are necessary to clarify thematic concerns and move the plot forward but whose characterization got away from Tom somehow. Ezra Chater is a vacuous air that takes up space, Lady Croom's purported sexual attraction to Septimus goes nowhere, and Bernard Nightingale is drawn too simply as a paperthin 'villain' meant to act principally as a foil to Hannah and Valentine's pursuit of the past without true pathos of his own. To be considered a masterpiece, all the characters have to be legitimate realizations in their own way and the characterization has to be tight as a drum. Stoppard sightsees too often with ancillary characters and the result is a slightly out-of-focus play. To critically speak, Stoppard's philosophy on life as presented in "Arcadia" bears too close a resemblance to Anton Chekhov and his theatrical masterpieces "Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard". Chekhov's cleverness and wit is all over the pages of "Arcadia", and the result is a voice that is only half Stoppard's own. Stoppard handles Chekhovian dramaturgy beautifully, but the end result is not the dark energy of "Rosencratz And Guilderstern are Dead", which so painfully captures Tom Stoppard's own young voice in torment, but a sort of amalgamation between Chekhov [in the treatment of the past] and Ibsen [in the treatment of the future.] And if a playwright speaks principally through one or even two characters in his play, then Stoppard is most assuredly speaking through Thomasina Coverly. And yet her own philosophy and angst towards life, if we can attribute it to Tom Stoppard's own, is only a beautiful recitation of Anton Chekhov's genius sublimed with algebra, calculus, and physics. In conclusion, it's a welcome sound to hear the beauty of math and science being given their proper due diligence in a literary work instead of being lambasted as somehow apart and irrelevant to the human experience. Science has a lot of wonderful things to relate to mankind in the field of humanities. And it's also equally wonderful to see a playwright fully push the limits of audience patience, intelligence, and attention with sensationally dense dialogue reserved for the conversation halls of MIT. But the play as a play, as a tragedy, does not hit its mark of greatness due to the aforementioned shortcomings. It fails to decline from thinking to feeling, and in so doing, has no heartbreak to call its own.

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*Product available on Desertcart Senegal*
*Store origin: SN*
*Last updated: 2026-06-09*