In the immediate wake of the passing of playwright Tom Stoppard last November, a story was recirculated about how his play \u201cArcadia,\u201d considered by many his masterpiece, accomplished something even greater than it did in the theater.<\/p>\n
It seems a young doctor attending its world premiere at the Royal National Theatre in London in 1993 found in Stoppard\u2019s explanation of chaos theory \u2014 articulated in the play by the young student Thomasina when discussing the geometry of flowers \u2014 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 \u201cadjuvant systemic chemotherapy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStoppard never learned how many lives he saved in writing \u2018Arcadia,\u2019\u201d 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\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
\u201cArcadia\u201d is important in Baird\u2019s life, as well: At age 18 he appeared as young mathematician Valentine Coverly in North Coast Repertory Theatre\u2019s 1999 production of the play directed by then-artistic director Sean Murray. It was Baird\u2019s first professional role.<\/p>\n
A quarter-century later, Baird is returning to \u201cArcadia,\u201d this time in the role of pompous academic Bernard Nightingale in Cygnet Theatre\u2019s production in its black-box Dottie Studio theater.<\/p>\n
Murray, who left North Coast Rep in 2002 to co-found Cygnet Theatre and become its artistic director, directed \u201cArcadia\u201d a second time at Cygnet in 2007. He is at the helm of this summer\u2019s \u201cArcadia\u201d staging, too.<\/p>\n
Baird describes his Nightingale character as \u201ca right bastard. He\u2019s a wannabe Byron 2.0. He thinks of himself as the Lord Byron of 1993: aggressively arrogant, impulsively sexual.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two other cast members from the 1999 production at North Coast Rep, Manny Fernandes and Fred Harlow, are also returning to \u201cArcadia\u201d this summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t worked with any of them (including Murray) since \u201999,\u201d said Baird. \u201cIt\u2019s going to feel like \u2018Back to the Future.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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The cast of Cygnet Theatre\u2019s upcoming Sean Murray-directed \u201cArcadia,\u201d includes front row seated from left, Fred Harlow, Manny Fernandes and Richard Baird. All three performed in Murray\u2019s 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)<\/p>\n
\u201cArcadia\u201d 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 \u2014 she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone were to ask me \u2018What is Arcadia about?\u2019\u201d, said Baird, \u201cI\u2019d say it\u2019s 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.\u201d (A long-lived tortoise named Plautus is a symbolic presence in the play.)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also about classicism vs. romanticism, entropy, Newton\u2019s laws of motion and \u2026 hold on a minute, Baird says: \u201cYou don\u2019t have to have a master\u2019s in thermodynamics to understand \u2018Arcadia.\u2019 It\u2019s delightfully funny and it\u2019s sexy and it has lovely design. It\u2019s a language play as well, and if the actors who are working on the language understand what\u2019s happening, that\u2019s what will be exciting for the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fernandes, who\u2019s 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 \u201cArcadia.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very smart play,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it\u2019s 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\u2019ll understand. It\u2019s confusing. But life is confusing and complex. Relationships are confusing and complex.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baird emphasizes the humanity of \u201cArcadia,\u201d as well. \u201cThere\u2019s such a balance,\u201d he said, \u201cbetween the head and the heart. I think It\u2019s an incredibly exciting play.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, the title itself is this idea of Arcadia vs. Utopia. Essentially Arcadia is something that we can\u2019t necessarily attain. It\u2019s kind of a personal heaven, so all of these characters look at the world through a different lens, but they\u2019re passionate about the lens they\u2019re looking through.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Arcadia\u2019<\/p>\n
When: Previews, 7 p.m. July 15 through\u00a02 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<\/p>\n
Where: Cygnet Theatre at The Joan, 2880 Roosevelt Road, Arts District Liberty Station, San Diego<\/p>\n
Tickets: $32.50 and up<\/p>\n
Phone: 619-337-1525<\/p>\n