I've seen quite a few plays by Stoppard, some wonderful, some riotously funny. The humor of this depends in part on your knowledge of Oscar Wilde's [The Importance of Being Ernest] and of Joyce's [Ulysses] which Stoppard bends to his own purposes.

But it's really a thought experiment wherein James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and the man who would become Lenin are supposedly in Zurich at the same time, just before Lenin travels in a sealed train through Germany to Russia. While the first act weaves in and out of the referenced plays, the second is an extended debate about politics. Naturally, I didn't remember the second act, and will have to read it again before discussing it with my uptown book circle.

It was really nice to revisit this text. ( )

In an alternate world V.I. Lenin, James Joyce, Tristan Tzara, a British consular official named Henry Carr and others get together, argue and discuss politics, kind of.

Joyce calls Tzara “an over-excited little man with a need for self-expression far beyond the scope of your natural gifts.” Carr believes “there was nothing wrong with Lenin except his politics.”

The role of art is a hot topic. Lenin: “Literature must become party literature. Down with non-partisan literature!” The Dadaist Tzara: “The difference between being a man and being a coffee mill is art. But art created patrons and was corrupted.” A librarian named Cicely: “The sole duty and justification for art is social criticism.” And so on.

The language is key here. The flow, the word play, the rhyming, the humor, the politics. It’s profound ridiculousness.
Carr: Do you know Gilbert and Sullivan?!
Cicely: I know Gilbert but not Sullivan. ( )

"oh what fools these mortals be" "art is revolution, revolution is art" A lovely, madcap romp. ( )

Em 1917, viviam em Zurique simultaneamente V.I. Lenin, James Joyce (então no meio da composição do Ulisses) e Tristan Tzara, um dos líderes do movimento dadaísta, . Juntamente com Gwendolen e Cecily, duas personagens de "A Importância de Ser Ernesto", de Oscar Wilde, e Henry Carr, ex-membro do Serviço Consular Britânico, Tom Stoppard montou este relato teórico de suas interações. O resultado é "Travesties" , uma peça incrivelmente inteligente e bem-humorada, transcorrida na memória defeituosa de Henry Carr, que relembra suas experiências em Zurique (sim, ele também estava lá) durante "A Grande Guerra". Henry Carr, figura histórica não-ficcional, desempenhou de fato o papel de Algernon em "A importância de ser Ernesto" em uma troupe teatral de James Joyce. Quando Joyce se recusou a reembolsar Carr pelas centenas de libras que gastara nas calças que comprou na excessivamente zelosa tentativa de "tornar-se" Algernon, seguiu-se uma ação judicial, que Joyce acabou ganhando. Joyce coroou sua vitória total citando Carr, em Ulysses, como um soldado bêbado. Como se pode imaginar, a peça de Stoppard está cheia de pequenas sacanagens com James Joyce. A integração entre Lênin e sua esposa e Cecily, Gwendolen e Tzara é extremamente imaginativa, e a experiência do espectador/leitor sairá, sem dúvida, incrementada se ele também ler todaas as obras e autores aludidos. Em tempo: Travesties é um musical. ( )

This is a baffling but still quite interesting play about Henry Carr, the British consular officer in Zurich during the First World War, and his encounters with James Joyce, artist Tristan Tzara, and Lenin. It discusses themes of memory (and the unreliability thereof), the meaning of art, class and the viability of revolution, and does this while making use of some interesting narrative devices.

I read this mainly because of a production starring Tom Hollander as Carr and Peter McDonald as Joyce, and it is a good thing they introduced me to it. The play taught me a good deal about the Dadaist movement in particular and had more than a few laugh-out-loud moments. It was also fun to read the play after having seen the trailer on YouTube and then figure out the significance of the scenes I'd watched.

Recommended if you like Stoppard, slightly didactic plays, discussion of art, or encounters between several historical figures. ( )