Arcadia presented by the Library Theatre Company
by Tom Stoppard
Directed by Chris Honer
Thursday 23 September - Saturday 9 October 2010
Tom Stoppard’s ingenious Olivier award-winning time-twisting drama Arcadia is the first production at The Lowry from Manchester’s Library Theatre Company as it begins its life away from its home of 58 years, Manchester’s Central Library. Directed by the company’s Artistic Director, Chris Honer, the production runs from Thursday 23 September - Saturday 9 October 2010 and is sponsored by Manchester Airport.
In 1812 a scandal rocked an elegant house in the Derbyshire countryside when a sexual liaison, possibly involving Lord Byron, apparently ended in a fatal duel. In the present day, ambitious academic Bernard Nightingale and popular historian Hannah Jarvis are trying to uncover exactly what went on two centuries previously.
Described by Tom Stoppard as “a detective story and romantic tragedy - with jokes,” Arcadia is a poignant study of change and decay, the mysteries of the universe, and the mysteries of love. Its wit and exuberance, its passion and its poetry, continue to make it a modern classic.
Six of Chris Honer’s 13-strong cast have appeared in Library Theatre productions previously. Cate Hamer, most recently seen at the Library in Chris Honer’s production of Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll in February 2009, plays author Hannah Jarvis; James Wallace is all-knowing academic Bernard Nightingale; Richard Heap appears as urbane landscape architect Richard Noakes;
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Royal Shakespeare Company actor Christopher Wright is Jellaby, a butler; another Royal Shakespeare Company actor, Prestwich-based Emma Gregory, who appeared in the original BBC Radio 4 production of Tom Stoppard’s In The Native State with Peggy Ashcroft and Felicity Kendal, plays Lady Croom; while Leigh Symonds makes his third consecutive Library Theatre Company appearance following roles this year in Glengarry Glen Ross and The Importance of Being Earnest as poet Ezra Chater.
The rest of the cast are all newcomers to the Library Theatre Company. Alasdair Craig, with credits with Edward Hall’s leading Shakespeare theatre company Propeller to his name, plays Valentine Coverly; Altrincham-based Peter Barich is Captain Brice; and Beth Park plays precocious student Thomasina Coverly.
Charlie Anson, who appeared as Agis alongside Brigit Forsyth in the Royal Exchange’s production of Marivaux’s cross-dressing comedy The Triumph of Love in 2007, plays her tutor Septimus Hodge; and Caroline Bartleet, who graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2009, and was seen in Manchester earlier this year at the Royal Exchange in 1984, is Chloë Coverly.
Finally, two local youngsters - Joe Shalom, who lives in Altrincham, and Felix Donaldson, who lives in Chorlton, share the roles of 15-year-olds Gus Coverly and Augustus Coverly.
The production represents a major landmark in the history of the Library Theatre Company, as it begins its Moving Experience which is planned to end when the company moves to the Theatre Royal building on Peter Street in 2014. “We’re looking forward eagerly to coming up out of the basement and playing at The Lowry,” says Library Theatre Company Artistic Director Chris Honer. “It’s an exciting prospect for us.”
Robert Robson, the Lowry’s Artistic director, is equally pleased to welcome the Library to The Lowry. “We’re delighted to be playing host to a company with the outstanding reputation of the Library Theatre,” he says. “We look forward to a close and successful new partnership of a kind that may not have been seen in quite this way before now.”
ARCADIA CONTAINS ADULT THEMES AND SOME STRONG LANGUAGE
Notes to editors: The Library Theatre Company was established in 1952 in the basement of the Manchester Central Library. The company will be producing three shows a year at The Lowry in Salford and presenting work in site-specific venues in Manchester starting in summer 2011 until it moves into its new city centre home, the Theatre Royal on Peter Street, in 2014 or 2015.
Posted on Wednesday, 01 September 2010 under Theatre Press