The Sierra Madre Playhouse has taken a loving look at this story which deals with the serene estate of Sidley Park, owned by the Coverly family taking the audience back and forth in time from the year 1809 to the year 2009 (updated from the first version of Arcadia which used the year 1993). Comic situations abound, although it‘s not a comedy and serious issues are explored without the weight of a drama. Director Barbara Schofield has been meticulous with her cast, which embraces the concept and for the most part delivers pristine work. The foundation of the play is built on mathematics and "Simple English Algebra" and the actors do great job using these to reveal greater truths about humanity and the family as a whole.

The 1809 residents are preoccupied with the serious business or renovating the landscape from a breezy, airy garden to a darker and more gothic plot. Lady Croom is concerned that her young teen-age, brilliant and borderline genius daughter, Thomasina be well schooled (but not so much that she becomes unmarriageable) and Thomasina’s tutor Septimus Hodge is interested in bedding available women, which brings him to the edge of a duel challenge with Mr. Chater, a cuckolded husband. Alexandra Goodman is wonderful as the teen-age Thomasina, vivacious, precocious and on the edge of bursting into womanhood. Goodman has the right look and the right gestures convincing us that she is every bit the genius soon to outdo her tutor. TJ Marchbank plays Septimus with subdued swagger – just enough to make him a roguish intellectual, but not so much that he becomes a boor. We like Septimus, in spite of his arrogance and sort of root for him to “get the girl” even though she is only 16 years and eleven months at the end. Alas, he does not.

In 2009 the residents and descendants of the Coverly’s are no less intellectually curious and are busy attempting to learn what events may have taken place in 1809 when Lord Byron was reputed to have been a guest at the estate. Hanna Jarvis is a researcher who is looking around the house for material for her next book. Here she meets Bernard Nightingale, also a researcher, who had written a bad review about Hanna’s previous work but now comes to see her about a possible collaboration. He wants to discover the reason that Lord Byron left the country so suddenly after the events of 1809, but primarily wants to become famous for his work. The writings they discover are Chater’s duel challenge to Septimus, but they misinterpret their origin and soon every clue they find is skewed to fit the theory that Nightingale has developed; that Lord Byron is responsible for Chater’s death. The actions of the characters in both centuries are often comical, sometimes absurd, often fascinating and always delicately laced with sexual situations.

The “modern” cast includes Gigi Bermingham as Hanna Jarvis, a tough borderline bitchy writer who has all but given up on love to pursue her profession. Bermingham shows us a sometimes soft side of Hanna, almost tender but quickly draws back when she feels she may not be in control. The ying to her yang is Benjamin Burdick as Bernard Nightingale, who is sometimes over the top (but totally in character) and never lets us forget that the favorite letter in his alphabet is “I”. It’s Nightingale’s wild speculations about Lord Byron that keep the tension going, but the subtle resolution is when Valentine Coverly, a chaos theory student played by Paul Romero, finally deciphers Thomasina’s notes using his computer. Eventually the characters realize that the laws of mathematics will dictate the fate of all the people in the manor – indeed even those of the past scenario of 1809 and they seem to resign themselves to the law of thermodynamics by coming together in a gentle waltz tune which closes the play with couples from both centuries dancing on stage.