Word: zuricher
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...most important question of life concerns fame-who gets it, who doesn't, and why. Some-Lenin, Joyce, for instance, go on from the murky obscurity of 1918 Zurich while others stay behind. Is it talent, luck, a combination of the two? Or is it the blind dice shaking in the hands of an angry god, rolling thunder, Jordan and sixes with equal equanimity and an uncaring laugh...
...that, as Stoppard says, is a thought. James Joyce as I knew James Joyce, in Zurich in 1918: a myopic drunken Irishman; bloody pacifist. Or Lenin, a ripple in the seemingly endless stream of refugees and cafe plotters, writing Imperialism in the public library. Lenin as I knew Lenin. The Lenin I knew, or if memory serves, Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov: short, balding, desperate to lead the revolution finally taking place in Russia. A snowball in hell-wants to turn the civilized world into a standing committee of workers' deputies. Tom Stoppard's brilliant play Travesties opens with a dark Flander...
...that's a thought. Lenin and Joyce, together in Zurich in 1918--one a revolutionary artist, one merely a...revolutionary who would remake the civilized world-or Russia, at least-into, well, a standing committee of workers' deputies. What if they encountered each other? Better yet, what if they encountered a third party, a silly fop who, like everyone else at this early stage, doesn't recognize their greatness. This is the protagonist of the play, Henry Carr, an old man retelling the story of his days in Zurich during the war, when he may or may not have been...
...Joyce's theater troupe in a performance of Ernest, for which Joyce promises him the lead role. After the opening library scene, the lights dim and the spotlights come out on Carr, an old man in a housecoat who sets the scene and reminisces about the old days in Zurich. The play, but especially this scene, showcases the talents of John Wood, who is superb in the role of Henry Carr. Wood's opening monologue is a stream of one-liners, epigrams, digressions-the saving grace of senile reminisces, he assures us-and judgements-a verbal torrent...
...strength of the play is in the first act. Carr's friend, the Dadaist Tristan Tzara drops by for tea. Carr gets an explanation of anti-art, says Dada in Zurich is the high point of European culture-topographically speaking-and proclaims, "My art belongs to Dada!" But the best scene is a confrontation between Joyce and Tzara, who is hard at work cutting up volumes of poetry, putting the scraps in his hat, and drawing them out randomly to create anti-poetry. Joyce has come to borrow money for his English Players, but stays to argue with Tzara...