About the Play

What does the word Arcadia mean anyway?
"Arcadia" is a poetic byword for an idyllic vision of unspoiled wilderness. Arcadia is associated with bountiful natural splendour, harmony, and is often inhabited by shepherds. Commonly thought of as being in line with Utopian ideals, Arcadia differs from that tradition in that it is more often specifically regarded as unattainable. Furthermore, it is seen as a lost, Edenic form of life, in contrast to the progressive nature of Utopian desires.

What is Arcadia, the Play, about?

Arcadia is set in Sidley Park, an English country house, in both the years 1809–1812 and the present day. The activities of two modern scholars and the house's current residents are juxtaposed with the lives of those who lived there 180 years earlier.

In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics well ahead of her time. She studies with her tutor Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron who is an unseen guest in the house. 

In the present, a writer and an academic converge on the house: Hannah Jarvis, the writer, is investigating a hermit who once lived on the grounds; Bernard Nightingale, a professor of literature, is investigating a mysterious chapter in the life of Byron. As their investigations unfold, helped by Valentine Coverly, a post-graduate student in mathematical biology, the truth about what happened in Thomasina's lifetime is gradually revealed.