Travesties

For the humorous theatrical entertainment, see Travesties (theatre).
Travesties
Written by Tom Stoppard
Characters James Joyce
Bennett
Nadezhda Krupskaya
Tristan Tzara
Cecily Carruthers
Gwendolen Carr
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
Henry Carr
Date premiered 10 June 1974
Place premiered Aldwych Theatre
London, England
Original language English
Subject An extravaganza of political history, literary pastiche, and Wildean parody, introducing Dadaist Tristan Tzara and Lenin his wife
Genre Comedy
Setting Zürich, Switzerland, 1917

Travesties is a play by Tom Stoppard.

The play centres on the figure of Henry Carr, an elderly man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he was writing Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada, and Lenin leading up to the Russian Revolution, all of whom were living in Zürich at that time.

Plot

The play's setting is primarily Zürich, Switzerland during the First World War. Three important personalities were living in Zürich at that time: the modernist author James Joyce, the communist revolutionary Lenin, and the founder of Dada, Tristan Tzara. In the play the less notable English consular official Henry Carr, who is likewise a real person and was similarly in Zürich, recalls his perceptions and his experiences with these influential figures. As he reminisces Carr's memory becomes prone to distraction, and instead of predictable historical biography these characters are interpreted through the maze of his mind.

Carr's memories are couched in a Zürich production of Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest in which he had a starring role. Stoppard uses this production and Carr's mixed feelings surrounding it as a framework to explore art, the war and revolution. Situations from Earnest feature prominently within the action. The characters in Travesties also include versions of two characters from Earnest, Gwendolen and Cecily, and the comedic situations of many of the other roles are shared by other characters. Stoppard uses many theatrical devices within the play, including puns, limericks, and an extended parody of the vaudeville song "Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean".

The real Carr did play Algernon with a group of actors called The English Players, for whom the real James Joyce was the business manager. Carr and Joyce had an angry disagreement after the play, which led to legal action and accusations of slander by Joyce. The dispute was settled with the judge deciding in favour of both disputants on different counts. Joyce later parodied Carr, and the English Consul General in Zürich at that time, A. Percy Bennett, as two minor characters in Ulysses, with Carr being portrayed as a drunken, obscene soldier in the "Circe" episode.[1]

After the first performance of Travesties Stoppard received a letter from Henry Carr's widow, expressing her surprise that her late husband had been included as a character in Stoppard's play.[2]

Production history

Original production

Travesties was first produced at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on 10 June 1974, by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The production was directed by Peter Wood and designed by Carl Toms, with lighting by Robert Ornbo. It closed on 13 March 1976 after 156 performances at the Aldwych, the Albery Theatres in London and the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York City.

Cast changes

1993 production

A revival of the play, with a revised text greatly shortening Cecily's lecture on Lenin in Act II, was given by the Royal Shakespeare Company at its theatre in the Barbican Arts Centre in September 1993, directed by Adrian Noble. The production was transferred to the Savoy Theatre in March 1994 and ran there until June 1994. A reading was given at the British Library in February 2008, featuring John Hurt.

Awards and nominations

Awards

References

  1. ↑ Schreiber, Pawel (2008). "Tom Stoppard's Travesties: the old man and history", in Friendly Metaphors: Essays on Linguistics, Literature and Culture in Honour of Aleksander Szwedek, edited by Ewa Wełnic and Jacek Fisiak. Peter Lang. p. 129. ISBN 3631579691. Retrieved 25 January 2015.
  2. ↑ Stoppard's correspondence with Mrs. Carr is now in the Stoppard Archive at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin. See summary of the Stoppard papers at: http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00179.xml

Further reading

External links

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