Travesties

by Tom Stoppard

Directed by Ellen Mease
Set Design by Jenny Sawyers
Lighting Design by Mark Ketteran


travesties | backstage | other | productions | 2003-2004 | grinnell college

Flanagan Studio Theatre
April 30-May 1, 8 p.m.
May 2, 2 p.m.

The 30th anniversary of Stoppard’s exuberant, witty, yet profoundly intellectual fantasy is woven from two obscure facts. First, that James Joyce, Lenin and Tristan Tzara, the Dadaist artist, all lived in Zurich during the Great War. Second, that Joyce, while writing Ulysses, also produced Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest in Zurich, casting a minor British consular official, Henry Carr, to play Algernon. The two fell out over money. History is travestied in this manic memory play, as the protagonist Carr locks horns with these three revolutionary figureheads, debating politics and art. Joining them in debate and romance are Lenin’s wife and Cecily and Gwendolyn from The Importance of Being Earnest.

“Stoppard has spun out a fantastically elaborate web to snare his three giants in the same play.... One of the great pleasures of the evening is Stoppard’s skill in moving in and out of Wilde’s dialogue and rewriting it for his own purposes.” -London Times