Sydney Reviews

Left - Robert Alexander & Jonathan Biggins. Cover - Blazey Best & Toby Schmitz. Photos - Heidrun Löhr © Sydney Theatre Company

Travesties is a play that swims around playfully in a thick pool of language. This is a pool, overflowing with comments on the nature of art, running gags, and even limericks. While this is not a new play (it was first performed in 1974) Stoppard’s rich script still demands the reviewer’s attention, in order to do justice to the production.

The play tells the story of Zurich in 1917 when the novelist, James Joyce, the Dada Poet Tristan Tsara, and Lenin, the Russian revolutionary all lived there. The play is narrated by Henry Carr, whose less than perfect memory allows Stoppard to speculate on the fun and games that might have occurred if these great thinkers and writers had ever crossed paths. Carr acts in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, both in the play and in real life, so Stoppard also sends up this famous play.

Travesties has some similarities to Stoppard‘s earlier play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Both plays are an excuse for their characters to take time out to engage in word games galore and have many philosophical debates. As Henry Carr says, it’s nonsense but at least it’s clever nonsense.

Word games and intellectual banter dominate the first Act. Much of which is about the value of art for art’s sake when world war is taking place and revolution in Russia is imminent. The production is so immersed in Stoppard’s language that dialogue from the script appears on the set itself, complete with capital letters and full stops. A particular highlight is the attempt to explain the dada movement, at least as much as it can be explained. Dada, is after all, poetry constructed from random words. The most planning you do, is deciding whether to pull the words out of a hat or a coat pocket.

When the script is so heavily layered with word play, rhythm and timing are crucial. The banter between Henry Carr and Timothy Tzara throughout the play is superb. Carr is played by Jonathan Biggins who is familiar to Sydney audience as a regular writer/performer in the Wharf Revue.

Toby Schmitz gives a fun, over-the-top performance as Tzara, and his repeated musical chanting of Dada Dada results in many genuine belly laughs. You wouldn’t be surprised if he broke into the Pink Panther theme song.

The second act is a slight disappointment. It’s as if Stoppard thought his audience needed something lighter. There is attempts to tie together the thread of a of flimsy story. A conversation in song between, Gwendolen and Cecily that parodies the Vaudeville song “Mr Gallagher and Mister Shean” tends to go on too long, especially if you are unfamiliar with the original. There’s only so many O Gwendolen’s and O Cecily’s you can take.

However, the first act more than makes up for this. This is a must see play for lovers of verbal comedy and word games. If you don’t agree with this review, cut it up and draw the words out of a hat.


Sydney Theatre Company presents
TRAVESTIES
by Tom Stoppard
 
Director: Richard Cottrell

Venue: Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Dates: 9 March - 25 April 2009
Times: Evenings @ 8pm. Except for Mondays 16, 23 & 30 March, 6, 13 & 20 April @ 6.30pm.
Matinees: Wednesdays at 1pm from 18 March, Saturdays at 2pm from 21 March. No shows on Sundays
Tickets: $30 - $85
Bookings: 9250 1777 | www.sydneytheatre.com.au