San Francisco Chronicle

Grateful for losing this battle of wits

- By Lily Janiak

The badinage zigs and zags, skipping far, far ahead of your own laggard brain, capering from Newton’s laws to Byron’s poetry, from fractals and algorithms to archival literary ephemera, from Fermat’s Last Theorem to rivaling aesthetics for landscape gardening, from free will and determinis­m to waltzing and sex.

But each time you think you’ll lose the chase forever, swamped in a parade of aloof, casually dropped references, Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia” glances back with a smile and beckons you on. “But you can’t miss this next idea,” the Tony-nominated script seems to insist.

Still, late in the second act of the Friday, Dec. 7, opening night of Shotgun Players’ three-hour-plus production, the audience seemed to adjust en masse. Heretofore, we’d been trotting along with the play as it ferried us from 1809 to the 1990s and back again, all at the same Derby-

shire manor. In the latter era, professors are trying to disentangl­e literary mysteries — Who wrote two scathing poetry reviews? Did Lord Byron kill someone in a duel on the estate? Who’s the hermit who lived in the estate’s hermitage? Who doodled the schoolbook marginalia that seem to presage latter-day scientific theories? — that nobility in the earlier era are living.

But at a certain point in Patrick Dooley’s production, a great shifting in seats passed through the Ashby Stage like a tidal wave — felt all the more pointedly as Shotgun is staging the show in the round for the first time in its 27-year history. The script was still racing ahead, still motioning us to hurry along. Indeed, it still held plenty of whimsical connection­s to forge, moments of stage magic to kindle. But the effervesce­nce was feeling empty. It was tough to find a human, emotional reason to try to keep up. Why do the characters need to say these brilliant things?

The journey still charmed though, thanks in particular to the leads. Max Forman-Mullin as 19th century tutor Septimus Hodge is the sort of actor who instantly instills trust, whether he’s guiding you through a deluge of farcical entrances and exits or a fervent discussion of thermodyna­mics. “I’ve got this,” his whole being seems to say. “I’m carrying this show for you,” which lets you as audience member settle into your seat with the comfort of a perfectly hosted guest.

Aaron Murphy as latter-day Byron scholar Bernard Nightingal­e makes his character’s undiscipli­ned ideas, his parade of aphorisms and allusions, his casual hauteur, his even more casual lust for every woman in his field of vision into a one-man fireworks display of gesticulat­ions. Everything reels him, strikes him, hobbles him, springs him back to life with prepostero­usly redoubled vigor. He gives his scene partners gifts, making an exchange meaningful and important not through what Bernard initiates, but by how he witnesses, absorbs and reflects what others put forth.

Gabriel Christian as grad student Valentine Coverly gives a marvelousl­y restrained performanc­e to contrast with Murphy’s paroxysms as Bernard. Christian is both watchful and inward, eyes both wide and downcast, furtively proffering a peep of a riposte that it doesn’t matter much if anyone else hears.

Jessma Evans as Byron scholar Hannah and Amanda Ramos as Septimus’ student Thomasina fare a little less well, not through their fault but because Stoppard doesn’t write his female characters with as much depth as his men. They’re a cold pragmatist and a precocious pet, respective­ly; other women are promiscuou­s. It’s the femininity of the Woody Allen oeuvre.

Stoppard gives fuller considerat­ion to the pursuit of knowledge in the abstract than to these particular seekers of it. He makes searching, studying and sharing intellectu­al discoverie­s as breathless and as dizzying as a love affair, as magical as time travel. People in “Arcadia” are always bursting into rooms, books in hand, with new passages and theories about those passages that must be divulged, right this instant, like lust that must be sated. It’s a romantic notion of learning, and though it could use a bit more grounding in human reality, it’s invigorati­ng to try to keep pace with theater’s intellectu­al sprinter.

At a certain point in Patrick Dooley’s production, a great shifting in seats passed through the Ashby Stage like a tidal wave.

 ?? Ben Krantz Studio / Shotgun Players ?? Amanda Ramos appears in Shotgun Players’ “Arcadia,” performed in the round at the Ashby Stage.
Ben Krantz Studio / Shotgun Players Amanda Ramos appears in Shotgun Players’ “Arcadia,” performed in the round at the Ashby Stage.
 ?? Ben Krantz Studio / Shotgun Players ?? Aaron Murphy and Jessma Evans play Byron scholars in Shotgun Players’ production of Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” an invigorati­ng and occasional­ly exhausting piece of theater running more than three hours.
Ben Krantz Studio / Shotgun Players Aaron Murphy and Jessma Evans play Byron scholars in Shotgun Players’ production of Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” an invigorati­ng and occasional­ly exhausting piece of theater running more than three hours.

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