In the immediate wake of the passing of playwright Tom Stoppard last November, a story was recirculated about how his play “Arcadia,” considered by many his masterpiece, accomplished something even greater than it did in the theater.
It seems a young doctor attending its world premiere at the Royal National Theatre in London in 1993 found in Stoppard’s explanation of chaos theory — articulated in the play by the young student Thomasina when discussing the geometry of flowers — a correlation to the breast cancer he was treating. Dr. Michael Baum found that treating early diagnosed cancer is not a localized problem but a systemic one requiring what he called “adjuvant systemic chemotherapy.”
“Stoppard never learned how many lives he saved in writing ‘Arcadia,’” said San Diego actor Richard Baird, echoing the assertion Baum made in a letter to the Times of London published last December, a week after Stoppard’s death.
“Arcadia” is important in Baird’s life, as well: At age 18 he appeared as young mathematician Valentine Coverly in North Coast Repertory Theatre’s 1999 production of the play directed by then-artistic director Sean Murray. It was Baird’s first professional role.
A quarter-century later, Baird is returning to “Arcadia,” this time in the role of pompous academic Bernard Nightingale in Cygnet Theatre’s production in its black-box Dottie Studio theater.
Murray, who left North Coast Rep in 2002 to co-found Cygnet Theatre and become its artistic director, directed “Arcadia” a second time at Cygnet in 2007. He is at the helm of this summer’s “Arcadia” staging, too.
Baird describes his Nightingale character as “a right bastard. He’s a wannabe Byron 2.0. He thinks of himself as the Lord Byron of 1993: aggressively arrogant, impulsively sexual.”
Two other cast members from the 1999 production at North Coast Rep, Manny Fernandes and Fred Harlow, are also returning to “Arcadia” this summer.
“I haven’t worked with any of them (including Murray) since ’99,” said Baird. “It’s going to feel like ‘Back to the Future.’”
The cast of Cygnet Theatre’s upcoming Sean Murray-directed “Arcadia,” includes front row seated from left, Fred Harlow, Manny Fernandes and Richard Baird. All three performed in Murray’s 1999 staging of the play at North Coast Repertory Theatre. Also in the 2026 cast are, second row from left, Luca Hansen, Melanie Lora, Mari Gobel, Emily Nightengale and Harper Haden. Back row from left, Tanner Vydos, Byron Ladue, Paul Morgavo, Corydon Melgoza. (Karli Cadel)
“Arcadia” unfolds both in 1809 and in 1993 at a country estate in Derbyshire, England, called Sidley Park. The past finds Thomasina of the Coverly family (played by Harper Haden) being tutored by one Septimus Hodge (Corydon Melgoza). In 1993, Nightingale and writer Hannah Jarvis (Marti Gobel) are in the same estate home conducting separate investigations — she’s looking for evidence of a hermit who had lived on the premises, and he aims to prove his theory that Lord Byron had committed a murder there, a theory that he hopes will inflate his reputation. But this is surface plot.
“If someone were to ask me ‘What is Arcadia about?’”, said Baird, “I’d say it’s about the flow of time, chaos theory, sex, determinism vs. free will, the second law of thermodynamics, Lord Byron, 1809 vs. 1993, order and disorder, gardening, and the population of grouses and, of course, tortoises.” (A long-lived tortoise named Plautus is a symbolic presence in the play.)
It’s also about classicism vs. romanticism, entropy, Newton’s laws of motion and … hold on a minute, Baird says: “You don’t have to have a master’s in thermodynamics to understand ‘Arcadia.’ It’s delightfully funny and it’s sexy and it has lovely design. It’s a language play as well, and if the actors who are working on the language understand what’s happening, that’s what will be exciting for the audience.”
Fernandes, who’s playing gardener Richard Noakes at the Coverly estate of the past, was just 20 years old when he portrayed Septimus in the 1999 production of “Arcadia.”
“It’s a very smart play,” he said, “but it’s very human. You can get lost trying to figure out all the ideas, but if you just pay attention to the characters and their desires, you’ll understand. It’s confusing. But life is confusing and complex. Relationships are confusing and complex.”
Baird emphasizes the humanity of “Arcadia,” as well. “There’s such a balance,” he said, “between the head and the heart. I think It’s an incredibly exciting play.
“At the end of the day, the title itself is this idea of Arcadia vs. Utopia. Essentially Arcadia is something that we can’t necessarily attain. It’s kind of a personal heaven, so all of these characters look at the world through a different lens, but they’re passionate about the lens they’re looking through.”
‘Arcadia’
When: Previews, 7 p.m. July 15 through 2 p.m. July 18. Opens at 7 p.m. July 18 and runs through Aug. 9. 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays; 2 and 7 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays
Where: Cygnet Theatre at The Joan, 2880 Roosevelt Road, Arts District Liberty Station, San Diego
Tickets: $32.50 and up
Phone: 619-337-1525
Online: cygnettheatre.com