"Plotting the Apple of Knowledge": Tom Stoppard's Arcadia as Iterated Theatrical Algorithm

"Plotting the Apple of Knowledge": Tom Stoppard's Arcadia as Iterated Theatrical Algorithm LUCY MELBOURNE VALENTINE IfyoII knew the algorithm and/ed it back say ten thousand times, each lime there'd be a dot somewhere on the screen. You'd never know where to expect the next dot. But gradually you'd starl to see this shape /...} It wouldn't be a Jeaf. it would be a mathematical object [ .../ The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together 10 make everything the way i( is. It' s how nature creates itself, on every scale, the snowflake and the snowstorm.! Valentine Coverly's explanation of the new mathematics of chaos theory points to a central metaphor for the dramatic structure of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia: the non-linear story and plot unfold from the interaction of the unpredictable and the predetermined. Science provides metaphors that Stoppard applies to this play's structure as a way of knowing and in order to underline its theme of knowledge,2 While scientific models are necessarily inexact when applied to a dramatic work of art, they nevertheless provide clues to understanding this play of ideas. Just as Valentine is careful to explain that the apple leaf plotted (drawn) by the iterated algorithm (a feedback equation) is not a real leaf but "a mathematical object," so too is Arcadia no imitation of real-world space and time, but a self-consciously artistic creation - an aesthetic object. Valentine's explanation of post-Newtonian mathematics extends the metaphor directly into the realm of art: "Then maths left the real world behind, just like modern art, really. Nature was classical, maths was suddenly Picassos. But now nature is having the last laugh. The freaky stuff is turning out to be the mathematics of the natural world" (45). The fragmented story and plot lines in Arcadia rearrange sequence and causality just as a Cubist painting rearranges elements of reality into a new configuration in order to highlight underlying shapes often masked by habitual modes of perception. Stoppard here leaves behind the old "Newtonian theatre" of the well-made play not Modern Drama, 41 (1998) 557 558 LUCY MELBOURNE merely pour epater the theatregoing bourgeois, but in order to discover new truths about how dramatic literature and theatre can present a complex and chaotic reality. Stoppard deliberately breaks theatrical convention to make his audience see the world in a new way. The framework of the play consists of seven scenes divided into two acts. Although scene one begins the play in t 809 and scene two takes place in the 1990s, Stoppard appears to avoid classical symmetry by breaking acts between the long scenes four and five, both of which are set in the t990S, sandwiched between two short scenes set back in 1809. (He does, however, make a brief bow to the symmetry of alternating time levels by concluding scene four with a momentary shift to [809 in the final stage directions.) Scenes one, three, and six follow the sequential story of Septimus Hodge and the Coverly family on three mornings in 1809. Scenes two, four, and five also proceed sequentially and, over the course of a few days in the t990s, follow the investigations of Valentine Coverly, Bernard Nightingale, and Hannah Jarvis as they try to uncover the truth about events that took place at Sidley Park in 1809 and [8[2. Scene seven is a blending of two time levels, since, in addition to the 1990S storyline, it also presents two brief moments, a week apart, set in [8 t2. This obviously non-linear time structure is set, throughout, in a schoolroom at Sidley Park, the stately home of the landed aristocratic Coverly family. The family, the locale, and the stage set all serve as a stable frame of reference within these shifting time levels. Since the themes of Arcadia are inextricably welded to its structure, our discussion of the play will .focus on the function of the dual time level as it reveals unfolding elements of the plot. Recurring motifs in scene one immediately alert the audience to the play's central preoccupations. In a schoolroom in [809, the thirteen-year-old Thomasina Coverly and her mathematics tutor...