Arcadia

Gate Theatre, Dublin Previews May 21-24 Opens May 25-Jul 10 8pm (Sat mat 3pm) €20-€35 01-8744045

Early in this supremely heady play from 1993, the young student Thomasina asks her tutor to explain the meaning of carnal knowledge. “Carnal embrace,” Septimus tells her, “is the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef.”

Trust Tom Stoppard to combine his driving themes (the hunger for knowledge and more fleshly matters) into a single wordplay gag. It’s a gentle introduction to a play both exhilaratingly and disorientatingly cerebral.

Set in a Derbyshire country estate, Arcadiapings back and forth between the early 19th century and the present, with two contemporary academics digging in the past while the historical figures are thinking ahead of their time. That they almost meet in the middle depends on a skilful command of metaphysics and mathematics, the second law of thermodynamics and, of course, chaos theory.

Stoppard fans know what to expect, particularly as the Gate last staged Arcadiain 1999, though his recent works ( The Coast of Utopiaand Rock'n'Roll) have yet to receive an Irish premiere. In the dependable hands of director Patrick Mason, with a cast including Ingrid Craigie, Barry McGovern, Marty Rea and Donna

Dent, here is another chance to disentangle that most Stoppardian of conundrums, the tangled dance between intellect and feeling, the mysterious connections between the head and the heart.

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