Travesties - Tom Stoppard
Nottingham
TRAVESTIES
by Tom Stoppard
Nottingham Playhouse To 17 May 2003
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Mat 17 May 2.30pm
Audio-described: 13,14 May
BSL Signed: 16 May
Post-show chat: 14 May
Runs: 2hr 45min One interval
TICKETS: 0115 9419419
Review: Jen Mitchell 7th May
Stoppard combines perfectly intellectual word play with sharp wit and theatrical high-jinx in this cerebrally challenging play.
The piece is delivered through a series of scenes replayed from Henry Carr's memory. Carr was a minor player in the British Consulate who happened to reside in Zurich at the same time - 1916 - as James Joyce, Lenin and Tzara, one of the founders of the Dadaist movement. Their paths all cross, unknowingly, in the library. Themes of the power and absurdity of art, politics and revolution in life are mercilessly explored and concentration is required to keep up with the pacy delivery.
Carr's memories, seemingly real at first, are gradually revealed as increasingly fabricated or at least elaborated, until he has built up his part to be a major one in the history of art and politics. Scenes from his memory are repeated following the sound of a cuckoo clock, each time replaying an alternate version.
Stoppard then introduces a Wilde connection in the form of The Importance of Being Earnest. Carr's sister Gwendolen and the librarian Cecily unwittingly taking on the roles of their namesakes in the play. Carr himself actually played the role of Algernon in a production directed by Joyce in Zurich and the line between life and art becomes increasingly blurred.
In spite of Carr's bourgeois character, instinctively mistrusting revolution in art and politics, we warm to his quirkiness and his obsession with his attire. His seemingly shallow characteristics contrast with the complexities and intellectual might of Joyce and Lenin. Simon Green gives us a wonderful aging Carr, delivering lengthy and complex monologues and a crisp younger version who would not be out of place in any of Wilde's plays.
The rapidity with which Stoppard delivers line after line of razor sharp dialogue is breathtaking but entirely effortless: one scene's delivered entirely in Limericks.
With its realistic set, the opening library scene lulls the audience into a false sense of security. Any pretence of realism is quickly dispensed with as theatrical devices are employed, very obviously, to the full. The set is revealed to be exactly that - a set - and at the close of the play, as Carr sheds his memories, stage managers have already cleared the stage of most of the trappings, leaving just theatrical debris on a deserted stage – a clear and yet not over-stated metaphor.
Some fine performances carry off Stoppard's demanding script beautifully. Eilidh Macdonald as Cecily is as stern a librarian as any but manages to pull off a masterful striptease for the lascivious Henry.
Granville Saxton as the intellectual revolutionary butler has the audience laughing with just the raising of an eyebrow.
Henry Carr: Simon Green
Tristan Tzara: Matt Blair
James Joyce: Kern Falconer
Lenin: David Delve
Cecily: Eilidh Macdonald
Gwendolen: Suzy Bloom
Bennett: Granville Saxton
Nadya: Carol Ann Crawford
Director: Richard Baron
Designer: Ken Harrison
Lighting: Nick Richings
Sound/Composer: Jon Beales
2003-05-09 00:57:40