Temple Theaters Presents
ARCADIA
By Tom Stoppard
February 11-21, 2015
Then: 1809-1812
The past parts of Arcadia, set in 1809 and 1812, occur in the middle of what is known as the Regency period in British history, so-called because George, the Prince of Wales, governed England as Prince Regent after his father, King George III, was deemed unfit to rule due to his increasing mental instability. Although the rule of Prince Regent was established in 1811 and lasted until 1820, when King George III died, the Regency period is generally considered to encompass the years 1795 to 1837, when Queen Victoria ascended the throne, and the Victorian era began.
The Regency era was a period of transition for Great Britain, from an agrarian economy in which most of the population lived in the countryside, and the power was concentrated in the hands of the wealthy, landed aristocracy, to an industrialized, capitalist nation in which urban populations exploded, and people no longer had to be born into wealth, but could achieve prosperity through their own ingenuity and hard work.
Revolution dominated the period - at home, the Industrial Revolution, and abroad, the French Revolution and subsequent Napoleonic Wars, which Britain fought almost continuously from 1792 to 1815. A rigid social structure was in place, with aristocratic families like the Coverlys at the top, secure in their country estates and favor with the monarchy. However, thanks to the innovations of the Industrial Revolution, the middle class was rapidly expanding, upsetting the delicate social balance.
Significant contributions to arts and culture were made during the Regency period, notably the emergence of Romanticism. This movement, which influenced visual arts, literature, music, theater and, more tangentially, politics, education and the natural sciences, was a counter-reaction to the Age of Enlightenment, which had dominated collective thought since the mid-1650s. Whereas the Age of Enlightenment celebrated reason, analysis and scientific inquiry, Romanticism placed the emphasis on emotion, particularly intense emotions like awe, horror and apprehension. It prized commune with nature, but did not seek to analyze and explain nature the way scientists like Sir Isaac Newton had done during the Enlightenment. In England, the Romantic aesthetic was championed by writers like the Lake Poets - William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, so-called for the area of England in which they lived - as well as Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Shelley.
In politics, two political parties vied for control - the Tories, a conservative party that believed in absolute monarchism and hereditary succession, traditionalism, and the Anglican church; and the Whigs, a more liberal political party that supported a constitutional monarchy, and the supremacy of Parliament over the monarch, as well as tolerance for Protestant dissenters, like the Puritans. Taxes were high, to fund Great Britain's wars with France, as well as the Prince Regent's lavish lifestyle (while he wasn't mad like his father, the Prince Regent also wasn't the most capable ruler either, preferring mistresses and outlandish pet projects to actual governmental business). Prior to the shift in power, in 1801, Great Britain and Ireland were united under the Act of Union, which established the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The agreement was introduced by British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger after brokered following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, which sought to end British rule in Ireland. The Act of Union was in place until 1922, when the Anglo-Irish Treaty was ratified, establishing the Irish Free State.
Sources/Further Reading
Britain Express - George III and the Regency
Regency England - A Brief Introduction
English Social Structure in the Early 18th Century
Now: 2015
For the present day scenes in Arcadia, Stoppard doesn't specify a time period. The play was written in the early 1990s, but with nothing tying it strictly to that time, the way the past scenes are, this production is taking the present day to mean the actual present, i.e. 2015.
Part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, England is a constitutional monarchy governed by a parlimentary system. Since 1952, Queen Elizabeth II has been the head of state of the United Kingdom, while the Prime Minister acts as head of government. The current Prime Minister, David Cameron, has been in office since 2010. British Parliament has two houses - the elected House of Commons and the appointed House of Lords. There are currently three major political parties in the UK - the Conservative Party (an evolution of the Tory party), the Labour Party (a moderate-to-liberal party that grew out of trade union and socialist movements in the 19th century), and the Liberal Democrats (a modern-day iteration of the Whig party which formed when the Liberal Party merged with the Social Democratic party in the late 20th century).
Great Britain remains one of the world's top powers, with one of the world's largest economies. Its major industries include service sector jobs, manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, tourism, pharmaceuticals and agriculture. London is one of the world's major financial hubs, and is considered one of the three "command centers" of the global economy, along with New York and Tokyo.
The 2008 global recession has had a significant impact on Great Britain's economy, from which it is still trying to recover. As of October 2014, the unemployment rate in the UK stood at about six percent. As recently as November 2014, following the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, Prime Minister Cameron warned that more economic difficulties could be on the horizon.
In 2014, the question of Scottish independence was a major news story in the United Kingdom. On September 18, a referendum took place asking the question "Should Scotland be an indepedent country?" (Scotland has been united with Great Britain since 1707.) The "No's" won, with around 55% of voters choosing to remain as part of the United Kingdom. Despite allegations of voting irregularities and some celebrations in Glasgow, Scotland that devolved into violence between loyalist unionists and independence supporters, the decision was greeted with respect and enthusiasm in Great Britain and around the world.
Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge and wife Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, continued to make headlines, as the couple celebrated their son George's first birthday in July, and announced in September that they are expecting a second child in 2015. Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 62nd year as queen in 2014; she is the second longest-reigning British monarch after her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria.
The UK also commemorated the 100 year anniversary of the start of World War I. An artistic installation at the Tower of London was unveiled on August 5, 2014, one hundred years to the day that Great Britain become involved in the conflict. Over 800,000 ceramic poppies, a symbol of remembrance, filled the dry moat at the Tower, one for each British and Colonial fatality during the war, creating a powerful visual reminder of the sacrifices made during WWI. The UK, along with several other nations, will continue to hold events commemorating the 100-year anniversary of WWI throughout the next few years, until the anniversary of the war's conclusion in 2018.
Education in modern-day England consists of five stages: early years, primary, secondary, Further Education and Higher Education. By law, students must receive a full-time education from ages 5 to 16. The final two stages, further education and higher education, are optional. Further education, which occurs when students are 16-18 years old, consists of working towards a General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (more commonly known as A Levels) in a particular subject at a secondary education institute or Sixth Form College. Students are not required to pursue further education, but A Levels are an integral part of the college admissions process in the UK, as a high school diploma is generally considered insufficient in meeting college admissions requirements. A wide variety of A Level subjects are offered, encompassing physical and social sciences, languages, arts and humanities, business, law and technology. While completing A Levels is enough to get certain entry-level jobs, as in the US, many students go on to pursue hugher degrees at universities and colleges. England's tradition of higher education extends all the way back to the 11th century, when the University of Oxford was established.
Sources/Further Reading
Wikipedia- Scottish Independence Referendum
Wikipedia - GCE Advanced Level United Kingdom
Wikipedia - Education in the United Kingdom
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Industrial Revolution
Beginning around 1760, the Industrial Revolution saw the transition from hand production and manual labor to mechanised manufacturing, particularly with textiles; the development of new iron-making techniques, and the increased use of steam power and machine tools. The Industrial Revolution affected nearly every aspect of daily life for Britons, and subsequently other Europeans, Americans, Canadians and others as its effects spread around the globe.
The video on the right gives a detailed overview of the causes, innovations and effects of the Industrial Revolution.
This photo by Press Association photographer shows Kate Middleton, Prince William and Prince Harry in the "Field of Poppies" installation at the Tower of London. For more of the 2014's best photos from the UK, click here.
Major Industrial Revolution Developments
FLY SHUTTLE - Invented in 1732 by John Kay; allowed weavers to weave cloth of double width, doubling their output
SPINNING JENNY - Invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves; worked eight spindles with a single action; in 1769, Richard Arkwright patented a spinning jenny powered by water
VERTICAL POWER LOOM - Patented in 1785 by Edmund Cartwright; used water power in place of human power to speed up the weaving process
*All of these advancements in textile production led to increased demand for cotton, which was a major influence on the American economy, particularly the southern, cotton-producing states.*
ROLLING AND PUDDLING - Developed respectively in 1783 and 1784 by Henry Cort, these two practices were related to iron manufacturing, improving the speed and lowering the cost at which iron could be produced; also allowed Great Britain to produce more of their own iron, rather than importing it, which had been their main way of procuring iron previously
STEAM POWER - Around 1712, Thomas Newcomen invented the first steam-powered engine; their main use was, at first, draining deep mines, and was not terribly efficient. The steam engine was further refined in the 1770s by James Watt and Matthew Boulton, whose developments helped improve the steam engine's efficiency. By the 1780s, Watts and Boulton had a steam engine that could drive rotary machinery at a factory or mill. Their work was further developed in the early 19th century engineers like Richard Treithick and Oliver Evans, who found a way to combine an engine and a boiler, thus making a unit small and mobile enough to be used in locomotives and steamships.
MACHINE TOOLS - Increased use of metal parts in machinery required stronger, more accurate tools to shape, style and repair those parts in ways hand tools could not. Machine tools like the boring machine, planing machine and shaping machine were capable of working metal pieces more accurately and efficiently than human hands ever could.
Napoleonic Wars
For much of the 18th century, Great Britain had been at war, with its neighboring empires on Continental Europe, and later, with its own colonies in America. By the end of the century, Britain was forced to turn the bulk of its military attention to France, as the French Revolutionary Wars broke out in 1792 between France versus the Holy Roman Empire and Prussia.
In 1793, Great Britain demanded that the French pull back from their conquests in Germany and the Austrian Netherlands; France's response was to declare war on Great Britain in February 1793. Great Britain joined the First Coalition, comprised of the Holy Roman Empire, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Naples, Sicily, and the French Royalists, and spent the rest of the decade fighting the French at sea and on Continental Europe. During this time, a young military commander, Napolean Bonaparte, made a meteoric rise to power in the French military, before overthrowing the Directory, France's ruling body, and seizing control of France in November 1799.
In 1802, Great Britain and France signed the Treaty of Amiens, which was intended to end the war between the two nations. It did...but only temporarily. Both sides violated terms of the treaty, and less than a year later, in May 1803, Britain declared war on France, thus sparking the Napoleonic Wars that would last until Napoleon's final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
No battles were fought on British soil during the Napoleonic Wars, but the rest of Europe was, as Lady Croom observed, in "a Napoleonic fit," with battles taking place from Spain to Russia, as well as at sea. Besides sending in troops, the British government gave substantial financial support to its allies so that they could pay their armies. In an effort to weaken the British economy, the French enacted the Continental System, which forbid trade between Great Britain and any French-controlled or French-dependent territories in Europe. The plan did not help as well as Napoleon hoped. Great Britain, with its superior naval strength, was able to smuggle goods into Continental Europe. Meanwhile, the inability of the French and their allies to trade with Great Britain undermined their economy. This, coupled with Great Britain's increased industrialization, meant that Great Britain weathered the Napoleonic Wars relatively well, while Napoleon's tenuous grip on the French empire grew ever weaker as the war dragged on.
Throughout the Napoleonic Wars, French and British territories around the world traded hands as the countries' powers ebbed and flowed. Once such territory was Martinique, the island in the West Indies where Ezra Chater meets his unfortunate end at the hands (or rather, mouth) of a monkey. After being discovered by Christopher Columbus, Martinique came under French control in the mid-17th century. During the Napoleonic Wars, control of the colony ping-ponged between the French and the British; from 1809 to 1814, Martinique was in British hands, explaining Captain Brice's expedition to the island after he and the Chaters are banished from Sidley Park.
In 1812, French forces invaded Russia, a British ally, a disastrous campaign that ended with a fraction of the French army limping back to France, and nearly spelled Napoleon's defeat. Also, the United States declared war on Great Britain, leading to the War of 1812. Although not technically a part of the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812 was triggered in part by British restrictions on America's trade with France, as well as the British practice of impressment, in which British-born sailors on American ships would be conscripted into service of the Royal Navy, to help fill the naval ranks.
In April 1814, at a loss for men and resources, Napoleon abdicated from power, which was the beginning of the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon was exiled to the Tuscan island of Elba; he escaped, and made one last play for power in 1815, but his epic defeat at Waterloo spelled his final end. This time, he was exiled to a more remote island, St. Helena, in the South Atlantic. Once the Napoleonic Wars were over, trade was no longer restricted and the British no longer needed to impress sailors into service. With these two causes of the War of 1812 no longer valid concerns, the British and the Americans reached a stalemate, and signed the Treaty of Ghent in December 1814, ending the War of 1812.
In the end, the Napoleonic Wars, and the preceding period of political upheaval in France, meant that in the early 19th century, Great Britain emerged as Europe's most important economic and military power, shunting aside the weakened and defeated French.
Battle of Austerlitz by Francois Gerard
Battle of Waterloo by William Sadler
Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis DavidBapoleon