Obtaining my Masters in Arts in Theatre and Film, I was the dramaturge and director of the play "Arcadia" by Sir Tom Stoppard.
Click below on each video clip to see a small portion of the play
Young Texans fight Stoppard to a draw
June 22, 2007
Jim McKone (Special to The Monitor)
A youthful cast manages to make some sense, and creates much good acting, out of Tom Stoppard’s weird modern play, "Arcadia."
Give director Chelse Benham much credit for staging successfully this first of three plays in Pan American Summer Stock.
If you are a free thinker who wallows in all flavors of 21st Century drama, you will love this show. If you are an old traditionalist who keeps waiting for the Inspector to solve every problem at the end, you won’t like this one.
Liking all types of theatre, I loved this one, even if it mystifies at first and leaves all sorts of loose ends hanging like sausages at the end. The plot is unique, even for the terrific English playwright born a Czech 60 years ago. He has created many plays including "Young Shakespeare," so sharp that it won actress Judi Dench the Academy Award for a supporting role, although she was on the screen less than 10 minutes. Beat that!
All you need to know about the plot is that there are two families, who knew Lord Byron 200 years ago, then encounter Byron’s past as a family of relatives 200 years later. Rick Rosales probably steals the show, difficult when surrounded by so many far-out English mad dogs of culture. He tries to prove that Lord Byron had killed a man in a duel and covered it up.
Stoppard’s plays are full of originality dredged from long-dead evidence. The lines will stun you and certainly keep you awake, even though the dress rehearsal I covered lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes. The cast reveled in some hair-curling dialog.
Despite the constrictions of summer stock, these young dynamos kept turning out Stoppard’s fast, witty lines without missing a beat...
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Jim McKone, public relations officer for the Museum of South Texas History, reviews plays and books for The Monitor. You can reach him at mckonetx@hiline.net.
June 22, 2007
Jim McKone (Special to The Monitor)
A youthful cast manages to make some sense, and creates much good acting, out of Tom Stoppard’s weird modern play, "Arcadia."
Give director Chelse Benham much credit for staging successfully this first of three plays in Pan American Summer Stock.
If you are a free thinker who wallows in all flavors of 21st Century drama, you will love this show. If you are an old traditionalist who keeps waiting for the Inspector to solve every problem at the end, you won’t like this one.
Liking all types of theatre, I loved this one, even if it mystifies at first and leaves all sorts of loose ends hanging like sausages at the end. The plot is unique, even for the terrific English playwright born a Czech 60 years ago. He has created many plays including "Young Shakespeare," so sharp that it won actress Judi Dench the Academy Award for a supporting role, although she was on the screen less than 10 minutes. Beat that!
All you need to know about the plot is that there are two families, who knew Lord Byron 200 years ago, then encounter Byron’s past as a family of relatives 200 years later. Rick Rosales probably steals the show, difficult when surrounded by so many far-out English mad dogs of culture. He tries to prove that Lord Byron had killed a man in a duel and covered it up.
Stoppard’s plays are full of originality dredged from long-dead evidence. The lines will stun you and certainly keep you awake, even though the dress rehearsal I covered lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes. The cast reveled in some hair-curling dialog.
Despite the constrictions of summer stock, these young dynamos kept turning out Stoppard’s fast, witty lines without missing a beat...
——--
Jim McKone, public relations officer for the Museum of South Texas History, reviews plays and books for The Monitor. You can reach him at mckonetx@hiline.net.