mental stamina; it requires Olympic scale concentration. That was my experience before, and I’m sure it will be in Patrick’s production as well. You cannot take your eye off the ball for a second because there is so much precision required, so much accuracy. In the case of the Cecily and Henry Carr scene—that scene has got these time slips because Carr is remembering events, and his memory is not very reliable—he keeps repeating the scene over and over, and he is trying to get to an ending that he likes. So, what happens is, you get to a certain point in the scene, then you go back almost to the beginning and start again, but it’s always slightly different. It would be very easy for us to get trapped in a loop, and the audience at Roundabout would end up watching Travesties for six hours!
TS: When I asked Stoppard what he looks for in actors, he said: “clarity of utterance.”
ST: There is no room for sloppiness. The rhythm is so important. I think in all of Stoppard’s plays, the words are of supreme importance. The words are God, and you have to get them right, you have to get them inside your being in such way a that they come out with the rhythm that he intended. That way, the words can sing because there is so much music in the play’s text. It’s almost like there is an internal music to the dialogue, and it requires figuring out what the rhythm is and then not repeating it like a robot. You cannot take anything for granted; you are reminting and rediscovering that rhythm every single day. That’s the part that’s exhausting mentally, I think.
TS: I’m curious if you think Roundabout’s audiences should prepare before seeing Travesties?
ST: I think audiences should never underestimate themselves. I always say this to students who are coming to see Shakespeare: “If you don’t understand the play, that’s not your fault, that’s our fault.” Our job as interpretive artists, which is what we actors are, is to lift it up off the two-dimensional page and make it live; hopefully, we will breathe life into it. So, what I think is always required of an audience is that they come to the theatre with their hearts and minds open and a willingness to engage with the play and the production. I would ask audiences to make a bit of an investment in thinking and listening in order to get a huge payoff. Tom Stoppard is just a wonderful writer. He gives the audience all of the information they need to enjoy the play.
TS: What about the historical characters and references?
ST: It’s not as if you need to come in knowing everything about Lenin and the Russian Revolution. Yes, there is an extra layer of meaning that you might get if you happen to know a thing or two about the Russian Revolution or you happen to know about Tristan Tzara and Dadaism. This play is really a vaudeville; what Tom Stoppard has written is a vaudeville that has some serious content in it and some ridiculous, absurd, and touching content, too. The writing in Travesties is full of love and conflict. I don’t think it’s exclusively an intellectual experience by any means.
TS: How does the fact that you played Gwendolen in Brian Bedford's production of The Importance of Being Earnest at Roundabout affect your understanding and work on Cecily in Travesties?
ST: Having spent almost two years of my life in The Importance of Being TRAVESTIES UPSTAGE GUIDE 9
Earnest is an invaluable asset when working on Travesties! Of course, I was playing Gwendolen, rather than Cecily—but just having the whole sense of Wilde's rhythms and energy internalized is a wonderful base to work from. I have said before that Stoppard's play is both a Valentine and a decapitation of Earnest. The Valentine aspect results in a lot of mirrored rhythms and at times whole lines of text appearing in surprising places; the decapitation aspect comes, of course, with how Stoppard turns those words inside out and yet manages to make the plot unfold in a way we recognize! Both plays are a joy. Very difficult to do, but a joy to play once you find your way through! And I think because most audiences are familiar with Earnest—it can be a lovely roadmap to take with you in your mind as you come on this crazy journey with us.
TS: What do you look for from the director when you collaborate on a revival?
ST: Of course, you want to be able to contribute and discover things and perhaps not be told everything up front because it’s always better if you get there yourself. I, of course, will have in my being some of the things that I did in the McCarter production, and some of them I will be very fond of and maybe I will have a hard time letting them go—but with most things, I am sure I’ll think, “What we’ve come up with this time around is better!” I always endeavor to be as open and flexible as possible. I got the sense from both Tom Hollander and Patrick Marber after meeting with them that they’re not interested in imposing things on people. I think a reasonable amount of freedom is helpful, given that we are recreating something that already exists. I have no doubt about Patrick giving the cast that. He’s a very open, interested, curious person insofar as I know him, and that can only be of benefit in the rehearsal room.
TS: Is there a question you wish I had asked that I didn’t?
ST: Here’s something I should have said: I think Travesties is like a giant piñata; you might not get every piece of candy that falls out of it, but you’ll get some that you really love and some that you’re going to save to eat later.•
Scarlett Strallen and Sara Topham in rehearsal for Travesties Photo: Jenny Anderson
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