The problem of expertise: The Brighton/English Touring Theatre production of Stoppard’s Arcadia

Cover of first edition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The play Arcadia byÂ Tom Stoppard‘sÂ links entropy and chaos theory, the history of englishÂ landscape gardens, romantic literature and idiocies ofÂ academia. I’ve always thought of it as Stoppard’s most successful “clever” play, the one that best combines the disparate material he is bringing together into a coherent whole.Â Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are DeadÂ feels more straightforward, more accessible, although I don’t doubt that many will feel that’s because I’m missing itsÂ depths.

In the Theatre Royal Brighton/English Touring Theatre production that just closed at the Theatre Royal in Bath the part of Thomasina was played by Dakota Blue Richards, Septimus by Wilf Scolding, Bernard by Robert Cavanah, Hannah by Flora MontgomeryÂ and Valentine by Ed McArthur. To be up front I found the production disappointing, probably not helped by our seats up in the gods. Richards and Scolding were excellent as tutor and tutee, each learning from the other but I found Cavanah and Montgomery’sÂ competitive academics to both be thin, even shrill. The caricature in the parts of Bernard and Hannah are easy, making their motivations human – while also ensuring that their verbal sparring is intelligible – a greater challenge where I felt that they fell short.

And it was in that execution of dialogue that the production seemed to fall flat. Arcadia depends on dialogue and ideasÂ that run through two time periods, on believing that we understand theÂ jokes shared between characters, but above all on theÂ audienceÂ connecting the threads so that all the pieces fall into place. Despite a constant stream of references that will only make sense to those familar with thermodynamics, or landscape history or romantic poetryÂ the play itself is self contained. All the cluesÂ that are needed toÂ knit the many threads together can be found in the script. But the delivery is critical. The timing crucial. Every word needs to be pointed and natural and timed perfectly or the connections are lost. The responsibility lies with the audience to hold those threads and weave them together, but they depend on a faultless ensemble to make this work.

ButÂ is it fair to expect an audience to hold in their heads a comment from Act 1 that is only answered in passing an hour or more later in Act 2? How much can the playwright expect the audience to hold? Certainly the audience in Bath seemed to struggle.Â An audience member who knowsÂ enough about thermodynamics and romantic poets and English landscape gardening has an advantage over one who does not. Simply that there is less that needs to be held onto to follow the threads. Experts have a distinct advantage in parsing the play.

It was Michael Nielsen who most clearly articulated the idea that the most valuable resource we have in the research enterprise (or in many places) is the attention of experts. Â And those who have internalized an understanding of an area to the extent that problem solving is intuitive are the most valuable. But we at the same time value the serendipitous, the sense of being open to the surprising insight. Valentine, the PhD scholar working on understanding population dynamics of grouse in the modern half of the story is unable to see that Thomasina had recognized the path to modern thermodynamics years earlier than thought. His character is painted as limited in that respect until he can see it. The modern academics are similar painted as only open to the surprises they are seeking. Thomasina’sÂ tutor, Septimus is perhaps of a similar age to Valentine but by contrast is painted as open to idea that his 16 year old charge is capable of such insight.

If fortune favours a prepared mind, then that mind is expensive and time consuming to prepare. So we protect them, and lock them up inside institutions so as to ensure only the relevant demands are made on their time. But if the provocations, the serendipities, come from outside established grounds then, to invert the question I posed of the playwright, what can we reasonably expect of the expert in dedicating time to being open? Or is there a level beyond mastery in Dreyfus’ hierarchy ofÂ skill acquisition, where the expert cannot just examine their own practice, but simultaneously be open to outside influence. Does it need to be “or” or can it be “and”? Can we not just ride a bike without thinking about it, but ride a bikeÂ while thinking about how we do it.

What we may reasonably expect of the playwright in guiding us, what they may reasonably expect of their audience; what we may reasonably expect of the expert and what they may expect of us as we approach them, areÂ connected by a sense of the contract we implicitly form, the audience with the playwright, publics with the expert. Different pieces of theatreÂ require differing levels of commitment from the audience, with expectations set by forms, venues, even ticket prices. It is plausible to argue that commodification of theatre into mass market entertainment necessarily lowers that level of commitment as it must work for a larger audience. It might converselyÂ be argued that the commitment required to understanding American Football or rugby (or cricket!) is as great as that required to engage with Stoppard or Mozart.

In the realm of the academic expert these questions cut to the heart of what the research establishment is for. And are we delivering on that. Stoppard answers this question with three self-obsessed roles;Â one hardened by the toxic combination of imposter syndrome and arrogance that many in academia will recognise; one partway through that process, perhaps redeemable, perhaps not likely where she sees herself heading, but nonetheless ready to both rise to the bait and to patronise the third; the academic in formation. Yet it is Valentine, the PhD student who when asked “And then what” gives the answerÂ that speaks most directly to academic sensibilities, “I publish”. There is no explicitÂ stage direction but, given this is said to Hannah, the middle of our three academics the line clearly needs to be delivered with the sense of “well d’uh…”.

Yet Stoppard makes his academics figures of fun with their obsessions with prestige rather than engagement, how is this to be reconciled with his own demands on the audience? In truth the there is a deeper message. The puzzle for the modern protagonists can only be solved by bringing their differing expertises together. Bernard uncovers the trail and knows the problem is of interest, but it is Hannah’s expertiseÂ on the garden and its plant that reveals that Bernard is only partly right. It is Valentine who has the evidence that Byron visitedÂ Sidley House, but Hannah who pushes him to understand the depth of Thomasina’s work. Hannah in turn needs Valentine to uncover the identity of the hermit and what he was doing.

On the earlier timeline it is Thomasina who has the insight, but even her genius is limited. She laments her inability to fully work outÂ the implications saying “I cannot. I do not knowÂ the mathematics”. It is made clear to us that her tutor does “Let [the Germans] have the waltzÂ they cannotÂ have the calculus.” makingÂ his working through of Thomasina’s ideas plausible. Stoppard throughout presents with exactly the serendipitous connections (and misconnections) that require an open mind to see, identify and integrate into an expert model. It is the arrogance and lack of confidence of the modern characters that prevents them working together to solve the puzzle much quicker (albeit with less drama). By contrast greater openness of the Cambridge educated Septimus to the possibility thatÂ Thomasina’sÂ insight is greater than his provides many of the most sympathetic moments in the play.

Of course Stoppard is cheating. He has a static construct in which to lay his threads, ready to catch the prepared mind of the audience. The answer is known and the final curtain set. At the same time he plotsÂ jokes and asides throughout. His real genius is in setting these up so that as long as you know something of gardens, or thermodynamics, or academic life, or Byron, or chaos theory, or shooting, or the English aristocracy. You don’t need to know all of these, but knowing one will enrich the experience. Of course the challenge for the players is to be aware of all ofÂ theseÂ threads as well as those that make up the surface narrative. In Bath, my implicit stage direction above was missing.

In the end Stoppard does make serious demands, and repays repeated engagement with the text. But those demands are not of expertise. If the answer he poses to my question is that experts will gain more by working together and being open to each other’s expertise, what he demands of the audience is simply to be open andÂ attentive.Â In the end perhaps that is the answer to the question of the reasonable expectations of expertise in the academy. Not to be prescriptive about when and how an expert focuses, or opens up, or whether they need to achieve a level of mastery that allows them to do both, but simply to be attentive. To continuously absorb, remember, compare and contrast. To value mastery as a tool, but not as the answer in its own right.

That is the mistake that the modern characters make in the play. In the best productions you understand both how Bernard, Hannah and Valentine have arrived where they are, but also that they don’t very much like what they see in the mirror. That they, like many academics, are constantly seeking an escape from the pursuit of prestige and publication that they have locked themselves into. That they have been trapped into a cycle where they are required toÂ demonstrate mastery but not necessarily applyÂ it, and certainly not build on it. The aim for all three is publication, not understanding.

Breaking out of these cycles is hard. But in the end if Stoppard is calling us to pay attention, to be engaged enough to not just see the threads, but to hold them and weave them together, that might be enough to make a start.