The Publick Theatre Moves Indoors With Travesties at BCA

Travesties by Tom Stoppard

Director, Diego Arciniegas; Set Design, J. Michael Griggs; Costume Design, Rafael Jaen; Production Management & Sound Design, John Doerschuk; Lighting Design, Kenneth Helvig; Stage Management, Nerys Powell; Master Electrician, Ben Bryant

CAST: Henry Carr, Nigel Gore; Tristan Tzara, Alejandro Simoes; James Joyce, Derry Woodhouse; Lenin, Gabriel Kuttner; Bennett, Dafydd Rees; Gwendolen, Lynn Guerra; Cecily, Molly Schreiber; Nadya, Lorna Noguiera

The Publick Theatre Boston

Performances through May 3 at Plaza Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts

Box Office 617-933-8600 or www.BostonTheatreScene.com

The Publick Theatre opens its 38^th season and inaugurates the Main Stage Series at the Boston Center for the Arts with Tom Stoppard's 1976 Tony Award-winning play Travesties. The Summer Repertory Series will feature The Seagull by Anton Chekhov and Hay Fever by Noel Coward under the stars in Christian Herter Park on the banks of the Charles River. The company returns to the BCA for Brian Friel's Faith Healer to conclude their schedule in October.

With the Publick's focus this year on celebrating and questioning the role of artists and art in our world, Travesties fires the opening salvo as it examines the relationship between art and politics. Stoppard imagines a meeting between writer James Joyce, revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, and Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara in 1917 Zurich. Most of the action in the play takes place in the not-so-reliable memory of Henry Carr, a minor British government official assigned to Switzerland at the time. It is all set within the context of a production of The Importance of Being Earnest directed by Joyce, and Stoppard interweaves many elements of the plot and dialogue of Oscar Wilde's work throughout this farce.

It is helpful to view the play in the framework of the world in 1917. Power was shifting among nations as the First World War continued. The Russian Revolution led to the Bolsheviks seizing command, opening the door for Lenin to return to his homeland from his exile in Switzerland. Many intellectuals lived in that neutral country during the war years for the stability and freedom it offered. Joyce was in the midst of writing his most famous work Ulysses, and Romanian Tzara was one of the founders of Dadaism, an international nihilistic movement that rejected all religious and moral principles and maintained that nothing had a true existence.

First and foremost, Travesties features Stoppard's signature witty wordplay. The world is embroiled in the Great War, each of these men is fomenting a revolution of some kind, and he manages to convey the seriousness of their philosophies and degree of their erudition while making us laugh. Nonsense dialogue, limericks, puns, and even musical numbers add to the comic effect. However, with mistaken identities, Carr's memory lapses, and sound and light cues used to indicate time changes, it is sometimes hard to follow the chronology of events. And, as stellar as Stoppard's writing may be, there's a mountain of narration and a plethora of pontificating from Carr et al that can make your head spin.

Artistic Director Diego Arciniegas and his cast and technical crew stay true to the playwright's vision. We meet old Carr seated under a spotlight in a big, cushy chair and attired in a dressing gown.  The rest of the stage is in darkness until the scene shifts to young Carr in his drawing room with his manservant Bennett or to the Zurich Public Library. Simple furnishings and props adequately suggest the two locations, and the period costumes are evocative. As befits his character's preoccupation with tailoring, the youthful Carr is dressed with particular flair.

Nigel Gore is most impressive in the dual role of shabby, old Carr and elegant young Carr. He is flummoxed as the one and supercilious as the other, but gains the sympathy of the audience, perhaps because he perambulates the floor and does such a good job of speaking directly to us. He and Alejandro Simoes as Tzara display great timing and chemistry in their scenes together, especially when they argue over the definition of art early in the first act. 

With the exception of the wonderful intentionally droll and dispassionate Bennett (Dafydd Rees), all of the characters are assigned passionate speeches about their causes. Gabriel Kuttner gives Lenin a believable intensity addressing a crowd about freedom of the press. Molly Schreiber makes Cecily a fiery, intelligent presence as the young librarian and a force to be reckoned with in her old age. She and Lynn Guerra (Gwendolen) square off robotically in a rhyming dispute over suitors Tzara and his "brother." Lorna Noguiera adds gravitas as Lenin's revolutionary wife Nadya, while Derry Woodhouse adds to the silliness limning Joyce's limericks.

Overall, I think that Arciniegas and the Publick have mounted a well-paced and well-acted production of Travesties, but Stoppard's cleverness quotient is over the top in this one. Before seeing the play it might help to read it, as well as The Importance of Being Earnest and a primer on Bolshevism, Marxism, Dadaism, and Modernism, but you'll still need to bring your thinking cap. Thankfully, there won't be a quiz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

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