Wading in intellectual waters

The lights come up, and a young girl and her tutor sit at a long, stately table, both costumed in pieces reminiscent of the early 19th century. The young girl, Thomasina Coverly, asks her tutor, "Septimus, what is carnal embrace?" He replies, "Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of beef."\nAnd so begins "Arcadia," Tom Stoppard's heralded play about the negotiation of time and its subsequent formulation of the past in the present mind, crisscrossed with more intricacies than this review could hope to enumerate. \nDirector Courtney Giddings said it succinctly in the play's program: "While 'Arcadia' does challenge us to wade into some fairly deep intellectual waters, it never ceases to be about the everyday experiences of being human -- people we love and people we should not, things we endeavor to understand and things we never will. The very big, the very small and everything in between are all part of the dance."\nDancing in the cosmos include sex, gardening, Romanticism, the Enlightenment, chaos theory, thermodynamics, waltzing, the Industrial Revolution, architecture, historicity and who knows what else. \nAmidst these dancers are characters whose ambitions lead to them stepping on each others' toes. Septimus Hodge, played by Todd Aiello, and tutor Thomasina, played by Lauren Clemmons, tries to keep Thomasina in the dark about his affair with her mother, Lady Croom, splendidly played by Amanda Renee Baker. The show's ensemble work provides a strong backbone. Daniel J. Petrie displays an enviable grasp of period pretension as Ezra Chater, and Alex Shotts brings an equally impressive reserve to the gloomy but loveable Valentine Coverly. Even the smallest role -- the architect Richard Noakes, a daft intellectual enamored with "the picturesque style" -- is fully developed by T. Dennis Schwering.\nThe ensemble work is further supported by solid design work. Lighting designer Ryan Davies blends cools and warms to support the transitions between past and present, and his dominant use of soft lighting adds dimension to Amanda Renee Baker's costumes. Set designers Jim Hettmer, who also co-directed, and Danielle Bruce coordinate the set with the auditorium's hardwood floor and sweeping horizontal dimensions. Sound designer Greg Jacobs deepens the impact of the onstage action through a mixture of music and sound like gunfire and a steam pump.\nThe chief shortcoming in Giddings' production is probably the same problem that has and will continue to daunt anyone who mounts a Stoppard play -- in the end, the language overpowers the performance. \nIt's understandable: it would be a select audience who can catch and comprehend all of Stoppard's subtle acrobatics, like comparing a "Newtonian" with an "Etonian." Furthermore, Stoppard juxtaposes his exemplary wit with more premises than most human brains can handle at once. \nAnd maybe it's Stoppard having the last laugh. Like his characters in "Arcadia," scrambling to uncover answers to the past while the present remains equally shrouded in mystery, his work ultimately comes off comically in spite of its seriousness. Maybe an audience's attempt to figure it all out is the funniest thing of all: the absurdity of trying to understand everything at once.