Review: Life Entwines Politics and Art

While Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which recently finished its run on the mainstage, may be Tom Stoppard’s most famous play, Travesties is certainly his most virtuoso, flawlessly combining the plots of two plays and pulling off stunts like a scene in the style of a chapter from Ulysses or a debate about dadaism, traditional art and love composed entirely of lines from Shakespeare. Travesties features the lives of three famous foreigners who lived in Zurich during World War I: James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin, and the dadaist Tristan Tzara. Each of these men is radical in his own way, and all three disagree about politics and art. The stories are linked together by the accounts of the less famous foreigner Henry Carr (also a real historical figure), a dandyish Brit, conservative in everything but his tailoring, removed from the trenches on account of a minor wound. Carr, who looks back on events from a distance of over 50 years, has a memory that is deeply riddled, resulting in many contradictory versions of unlikely events and the curious melding of the play’s plot and dialogue with that of The Importance of Being Earnest, in which Carr played Algernon in a production mounted by James Joyce.

The play’s main plot revolves around Tzara and Carr, who are forced to fake their names and hide their real artistic and political views in order to win the respective loves of the Joyce-admiring Cecily and the Leninist librarian Gwendolen. The themes are the role of art and politics: should one accept a Wildean view of art for art’s sake, a Socialist one of art as political tool, or a Dadaist conception of art as needing to destroy itself? Is war a matter of defending the innocent or of seizing oil wells?

The production of this difficult play is mostly smooth. The shifts in time are effected unobtrusively via a cuckoo clock and a brief change of lighting, designed by Ted T. Ashley ’06. Set changes are somewhat more obtrusive, due to the clunky three-piece stage, but fortunately rare. Not every joke has time to seep through, and some of the more dazzling effects (such as the large sections of limerick dialogues) are de-emphasized in favor of naturalistic delivery. However, much of the humor—particularly the political humor—proves successful, as when Carr innocently asks his butler Bennett whether the recent social revolution in Russia consists of “unaccompanied women smoking at the opera”.

The acting is solid, although opening night had its share of false starts. Henry Carr (Tim M. Marrinan ’06) is a perfect dandy in his 1917 incarnation (although one might have hoped for a more daring pair of trousers than pinstriped brown), but he is hard to accept as the doddering old man of 1974. Ed T. Dean ’04 is noteworthy for his role as Carr’s politically savvy butler, sneaking drinks from the sideboard and constantly rolling his eyes in frustration at his master’s ineptitude. As James Joyce, James C. Oliver ’06 is a charming yet stern Irish caricature, complete with a thick accent, a giant shamrock pasted on the front of his hat and a habit of clicking his heels in a jig whenever he leaves the room. Tristan Tzara (Ryan Z. Cortazar ’06) is appropriately grandiose, dancing about the room and declaring his right to urinate in multiple colors. His affected monocle’s tendency to fall out of his eye is an amusing running gag, and I hope intentional. Lenin (Daemon Pratt) and his wife Nadya (Lauren B. Brodsky ’06) make a well-balanced couple, with Lenin as a charismatic, harsh idealist and Nadya as an even harsher pragmatist. Cecily (Joanna N. Leeds ’04) and Gwendolen (Andrea V. Halpern ’07) are, despite their cheerfulness, among the most serious characters in the play, which they well display in a polite dialogue that turns into veiled viciousness, complete with slightly-too-hard friendly pats.

The inter-act musical choices, selected by Jim S. Patton ’04, are inspired: popular wartime radio pieces such as Irving Berlin war songs and Marx Brothers routines complement the action and make the intermission an interesting part of the play in its own right.

—Crimson reviewer Alexandra D. Hoffer can be reached at hoffer@fas.harvard.edu.