rich potential of a densely textured multiplicity of meaning (exemplified in the fiction of James Joyce) on the other. Although they differed in their views regarding the value of the fragments left behind, both Tzara and Joyce (like many writers, artists, and composers of the era) were discovering ways in which the shattering effects of war and rapid social change could be expressed in artistic gestures. Tzara’s “Dada” inspires the disruptive ingredient in the musicscape: drums and cymbals puncture the drama like bursting bombs and rapidfire bullets, together with sirens wailing “EMERGENCY!” and “WAR!” Tom Stoppard has brilliantly sculpted the whole, translating the “Dada” technique of photomontage into a dramatic structural principle, so that we move without transition from one time frame, one literary style, one theatrical convention to another in a cut-and-paste succession of dazzling incongruities. This enables us to baldly introduce birdsong when the text suddenly topples into Wildean lyricism, as well as soulful Russian chorales and opera and cabaret songs when the scenes take other abrupt turns. All this is set against the historical backdrop of both the First World War and the Russian Revolution, and the play embraces the extraordinary historical coincidence of Tzara, Joyce, and Lenin all living in Zurich in 1917 in the Swiss afterglow, what’s more, of Einstein’s transformation of physical science with his relativity theory. Space and Time were no longer seen as fixed quantities—they could be distorted by other forces. This inspired my accompaniment for the moments in the play when Carr has little memory slips and reality seems to reset, delivering different versions of the same events. All the sounds, all the words, all the tunes in the world of Travesties


The set model for Travesties


are strangely untethered from the familiar: “Even the cheese has got holes in it!”


POLLY BENNETT—MOVEMENT DIRECTOR Where choreography is about making from scratch, movement directing is about working with a text that already exists and transferring what is in a script from “page to stage.” Travesties is unlike any other play I have worked on, as my work has been less about finding a physical language that runs through the piece but instead working to enliven specific moments of Stoppard’s text. The movement is subsequently led by Carr’s wayward mind—the benefit of which is the freedom it gave me to elaborate his confused memories in an expressive way. As a movement director, you can’t do your job without the presence of actors, without bodies in a space, so knowing that a finale dance was written, I used the Charleston and swing dance as a way to start rehearsals—a company that dances together, stays together, after all! Then, as rehearsals continued, the joy, unity, and silliness of dance slid into the work, making comedic moments of physicality part of the fabric of the production. Soon, it made total sense to have Tristan Tzara twirling and spinning as he entered the stage, to have characters popping out from cubbyholes to sing unexpectedly, and Carr’s fantasy of Cecily very easily morphed into a literary themed table dance (of course!). There is also subtler movement


work at play in Travesties. I worked with Tom Hollander, who plays Carr, on the specificity of the character’s elderly body: we explored where age manifests in his body and developed techniques to ensure that his deterioration was rooted in truth. I also worked with the actors to engage with each other, their characters, and the theatre space, all so they can keep up with Stoppard’s marathon text for eight shows a week.•


TRAVESTIES UPSTAGE GUIDE 19


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