Travesties
Written by Tom Stoppard
Directed by Patrick Marber
Roundabout: American Airlines Theatre
June 13, 2018
Production website
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.

You are going to get an awful lot when you attend an Wednesday evening seeing Travesties (especially when you see it as your second show of the day).  You are going to see a history lesson, farce, educational seminar, musical mixed with some highbrow intellectualism and some lowbrow silly fun and games.  It really does become a bit overwhelming.  l wished there was a remote on this show, and that I could pause and rewind many moments to figure out exactly what is happening and how exactly I am to feel about it – but forget that!  It is more like a roller coaster that, once out of the gate, stops for no one.

In its simples terms – if that is even possible, Travesties is the scattered, unreliable narrative of an English civil servant who, while working in Zurich in 1917 crosses paths with author James Joyce, Dadist Tristan Tzara and Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin.  That leaves us with a literary argument over The Importance of Being Earnest – while the Dadist is cutting up sonnets with scissors and scattering the stage with scraps of papers – – while at another table Lenin is trying to twist all the discussion of arts to further his agenda on social progress.

It is a lot.  It is quite funny.  It certainly demands your attention and will reward you mightily if you can stay with the show.  But please get an extra cup of coffee before this one.  You will need it.