Arcadia reviews round-up at The Old Vic Theatre in London

"Arcadia at the Old Vic review: a fitting tribute to Tom Stoppard's genius"

"This wonderful meditation on love, death and mathematics dances through the mind and the heart"

"This prodigious, teemingly intelligent, breezily witty 1993 play by Tom Stoppard packs in more challenging matter than most writers would attempt in a lifetime but has the seeming effortlessness of pure entertainment."

" Carrie Cracknell’s superbly cast and elegantly realised in-the-round revival is a fitting tribute to the genius of Stoppard"

"... Arcadia is also a sex comedy where clever, smutty jokes express the influence that human attraction (the force Newton ignored) has on the universe."

"Alex Eales’s revolving, circular set deftly illustrates the idea that time cannot be unwound, or jam unstirred from rice pudding"

"Cracknell’s production is almost seamless and she has assembled probably the finest cast you’ll see on stage this year. Dillane is a saturnine and amused Septimus, while Hainsworth utterly convinces as a prodigy aged 13 and then 17."

"Stoppard’s masterpiece makes a dazzling return to the stage"

"Carrie Cracknell’s revival of the intellectually thrilling and romantically stirring Arcadia is a must-see"

"Tom Stoppard’s intellectually thrilling and romantically stirring masterpiece"

"Carrie Cracknell’s revival at the Old Vic isn’t as A-list as the first National Theatre production in 1993... It dazzles even so, with outstanding work from its young leads, Isis Hainsworth and Seamus Dillane."

"Shuttling between the early 1800s and the 1990s, the evening weaves ideas about shifting scientific knowledge, landscape gardening, the hazards of biography, and more besides, into a spellbinding portrait of transient, mysterious existence itself."

"It all grips like a thriller. The intimacy of Cracknell’s production... creates a sense of magnified scrutiny"

"At points, a little less understatement and more overt theatricality wouldn’t go amiss: a wonderfully furtive Prasanna Puwanarajah and coolly studious Leila Farzad are almost too serious-minded"

"... it’s a must-see."

"Carrie Cracknell’s intimate revival of Stoppard’s masterpiece has its flaws – but it’s just so good to have this astonishing play back on the stage"

"Tom Stoppard’s 1993 masterpiece is a work of burning, ravenous intelligence, and while almost universally acknowledged as his best work, I get why it’s not staged very often. I think part of the reason is that the late, great Stoppard probably gatekeepered it from half-baked revivals."

"Carrie Cracknell’s revival is not an attempt to radically reconfigure Arcadia and I doubt anyone would be so foolish as to try – it’s an incredibly specific play. She and her team - notably designer Alex Eales - have however leaned nicely into the Old Vic’s current in-the-round configuration."

"Arcadia is a perfect play, which means there’s a lot less wiggle room for a director to impose themselves. It’s also unforgiving to actors. Cracknell gives it a nice air of intimacy and avoids having her cast speechify Stoppard’s ornate prose. And generally this works"

"... there is a feeling that inside its gloriously dense prose lies as close as we’ll ever get to the formula that makes humanity tick."

"Insouciant wit and relatable human drama"

"Animated by a strong cast, this sprawling, elegiac revival lets Tom Stoppard’s warm, erudite wit shine through"

"... this sprawling revival feels, above all, like a poignant tribute."

"Directed by Carrie Cracknell, this is a reflective, reverent production with a profoundly unhurried pace. Although the action sometimes feels ponderous, Cracknell’s measured approach fits the cerebral subject matter."

"Cracknell’s in-the-round staging adds some dynamism to the largely static piece, with actors sweeping in from all angles during the tighter, faster second act as events begin to repeat themselves and timelines start to overlap."

"Among the large ensemble, Isis Hainsworth stands out as teenage maths prodigy Thomasina... Seamus Dillane is a fine foil as her tutor Septimus"

"... although the production may lose momentum at times, the script’s interplay of erudition, insouciant wit and relatable human drama is never less than intriguing and engaging."

"Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece Arcadia glows with historical, intellectual and sexual intrigue"

"The late playwright’s tumbling, centuries-spanning exploration of the human condition is lovingly revived at the Old Vic"

"The lines fall more poignantly than usual in this latest iteration of Stoppard’s masterpiece. The playwright died in November and so is not with us to see the joy with which director Carrie Cracknell and her cast take up that baton, breathing new life into this exhilarating drama"

"Swinging back and forth between centuries, Stoppard ingeniously takes supposed opposites — art and science, classicism and romanticism, passion and intellect — and melts the distinctions."

"Cracknell’s in-the-round production subtly complicates that audience role: we all see everything but with slightly different perspectives."

"Prasanna Puwanarajah is excellent as the bombastic don Bernard... And at the centre is Isis Hainsworth’s gorgeous Thomasina, buzzing with life, passion and intellectual brilliance."

"It’s chewy in places and overlong, but this is still a mighty play, lovingly revived — its final image, of two couples waltzing through time, an immensely moving expression of the themes tumbling through it."

"Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia is a truly marvellous play, full of wit, wisdom and a rare warmth."

"Perhaps it is the consciousness of posthumous responsibility that makes Carrie Cracknell’s production feel slightly reverential, at least on press night. I suspect, as it runs, it will relax and grow. At the moment, it sings but doesn’t quite soar. Yet it is still utterly irresistible."

"The play packs in so many ideas, its intellectual tug running back and forth... It is also incredibly funny"

"This spark, that electricity flying between the characters, powers the play just as much as its ideas."

"Hainsworth is wonderful in the way she registers all Thomasina’s longing, her mischievous cleverness and innocent love flashing across her face"

"The play continues to shine, though – a multi-faceted gem that glimmers in every light, thought-provoking and profoundly moving. It’s a glory."

"Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece gets a stellar, lust-filled revival"

"Set across two time periods, Carrie Cracknell’s new production excels at weaving together past and present, building to an ending that hits all the right emotional beats"

"Carrie Cracknell’s stellar Old Vic revival ditches the rolling lawns and airy Classical architecture of Stoppard’s setting in favour of a fluid, dimly-lit, in-the-round staging that emphasises that these characters are reaching out of the known world, and into the stars."

"Perhaps inevitably, the more modern scenes are less juicy."

"... in Cracknell’s hands, these cynically painted scenes sometimes drag, a little; the archetype of a sexually repressed feminist author arguably sits less well with 21st century audiences than it did in Stoppard’s heyday. Still, what Cracknell’s staging excels at is weaving together past and present."

"Spending an evening at Arcadia is sometimes like being educated by a brilliant, modestly conservative lecturer... Then, gradually, this play starts to feel as well as think, building to a heartbreaking ending that shows how easily passion and knowledge can burn away to nothing."

"The past sparkles but the present flags"

"The Old Vic has revived the playwright’s 1993 drama but its disquisitions on the nature of the universe sometimes left our critic’s head spinning"

"There were more than a few moments during this evening when the lengthy disquisitions on the nature of the universe left me feeling as slow and ponderous as the tortoise that serves as one of the mischievous props."

"As in so many of Stoppard’s plays — think of the recent revivals of Rock ‘n’ Roll, The Real Thing and The Invention of Love — the characters seem less like rounded individuals than repositories for his ideas."

"Arcadia does sparkle, especially in the opening scenes, set in a country house, Sidley Park, in the early years of the nineteenth century."

"Isis Hainsworth’s portrayal of the young girl is a delight, conveying both innocence and knowingness as she tries to win Septimus’s approval."

"It’s when the piece shifts to the present day, and the self-important academic Bernard Nightingale (Prasanna Puwanarajah) takes centre-stage that the pace begins to flag."

"Tom Stoppard's Arcadia left me cold - I couldn't wait for it to end"

"It's the playwright's masterpiece, but it felt like being trapped inside a lecture hall"

"The Old Vic’s current in-the-round configuration offers delightful viewing intimacy but exceedingly limited design possibilities, a factor that does not work in Arcadia’s favour."

"Stripped of all décor, the play appears ever more daunting and ever less dramatic and in the underpowered first half of Carrie Cracknell’s production the atmosphere falls dangerously flat."

"There’s a slight improvement in the second half, as characters and themes from 1809 and the present day start to interweave sinuously, yet the overall mood remains one of wearying affectation"

"Hainsworth, a reliably excellent performer, brings light and loveliness to Thomasina’s formidable intellect"

"Stoppard’s theme is the difficulty of us ever accurately knowing the past, of understanding the human dynamics behind whatever words or drawings might be left to us. As for me, I enjoyed Arcadia considerably more in the past than I did in the present."