Travesties (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

Act 1

Most of the action in Travesties takes place in Zurich in 1917, during World War I, and focuses on three revolutionaries: the communist leader Lenin, the dadaist poet Tristan Tzara, and the modernist writer James Joyce. Henry Carr, a minor British official, relates the trio’s actions and dialogue through his memories of that time period. Carr claims that he met Lenin at the Zurich library and Tzara and Joyce during a production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.The play is set in two locations: the Zurich Public Library, where the principle characters interact, and Carr’s apartment in Zurich, where the now-elderly man recalls the past.

The dialogue focuses on the revolutionaries’ politics and philosophies at a turning point in each man’s life: Joyce’s writing of his novel Ulysses, published in 1922; Tzara’s creation of the principles of dada, a nihilistic movement in art and literature; and Lenin’s decision to journey back to Russia to take part in the Russian Revolution.

The play opens at the library as Gwen, Carr’s younger sister, sits with Joyce, transcribing an early draft of what will become Ulysses.Lenin and Tzara are also present and writing. When Tzara finishes, he cuts up his paper “word by word,” places the pieces into his hat, dumps them on the table, and begins randomly arranging them into nonsensical sentences, which he then reads. Joyce reads, from his manuscript, sentences that also appear to be nonsensical.

Cecily, a young, attractive librarian, who has been helping Lenin work on his book on imperialism, enters. She inadvertently picks up a folder containing Joyce’s manuscript while Gwen does the same with Lenin’s draft. Neither notices the mistake and both leave. Nadya, Lenin’s wife, then arrives and talks to her husband “in an agitated state,” telling him that a revolution in Russia has begun.

The play jumps ahead several years to an elderly Carr, reminiscing about the different characters. He refers to Joyce as an “Irish lout” due to litigation with the writer over financial matters concerning the production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, the play both had been involved in. Carr then turns his attention to Lenin and his desire to participate in the revolution. Carr explains that in 1917, he received orders from the British Foreign Minister to spy on Lenin to discover his plans.

The scene shifts back to the past as Tzara arrives at Carr’s apartment, followed soon after by Joyce and Gwen. Joyce asks for Carr’s official support and money for a production of The Importance of Being Earnest.The scene degenerates into a seemingly nonsensical conversation among the characters that is set in limerick form, which nonetheless provides a sense of the tenets of dadaism. Tzara and Carr then appear to become characters, from The Importance of Being Earnest, who discuss two literary schools: aestheticism (devotion to and pursuit of the beautiful), practiced by Wilde, and dadaism, as their dialogue devolves into “clever nonsense.” Tzara insists that artists should “jeer and howl... at the delusion that infinite generations of real effects can be inferred from the gross expression of apparent cause.” Carr counters, “it is the duty of the artist to beautify existence.”

Later, Tzara explains that to avoid a conflict with Lenin, who holds dadaists in contempt, he identified himself as Jack Tzara, Tristan’s older brother. When Gwen and Joyce arrive, Joyce asks Carr for financial support for the production of Earnest and asks him to play the leading role, “not Ernest, the other one.” Tzara then cuts up one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, puts the words randomly into poetic lines, and gives the results to Gwen, saying, ’ I offer you a Shakespeare sonnet, but it is no longer his. It comes from the wellspring where my atoms are uniquely organized, and my signature is written in the hand of chance.” When he tells her he loves her, she says she was destined to love a poet, and so she will love him.

As Joyce begins to do magic tricks with his hat, he and Tzara discuss dada. Soon the two argue about art and artists. Jumping into the future, Carr remembers the suits he and Joyce brought against each other for alleged nonpayment of monies involved in the play. He notes that Joyce left Zurich after the war, went to Paris for twenty years, and then returned to Zurich in 1940. He died the following January.

Act 2

Back in the library, Nadya writes in her journal. Carr explains that at the outbreak of the war, Lenin and his wife were briefly interned in Austro-Hun-gary. After arriving in Switzerland, they came to Zurich so Lenin could use the library as he worked on his book on imperialism. Carr explains,“Zurich during the war was a magnet for refugees, exiles, spies, anarchists, artists and radicals of all kinds.” Nadya’s journal, which is an early draft of her Memories of Lenin, records, “from the moment the news of the February revolution came, Ilyich burned with eagerness to go to Russia ... but this was easier said than done.” She notes that Russia was currently at war with Germany,“and Lenin was no friend of the Allied countries. His war policy made him a positive danger to them.”

When Carr arrives in his role as spy, Cecily misidentifies him as Tristan Tzara, and he plays along with the ruse. He insists to her that he is not “a decadent nihilist” but asks her to reform him nonetheless because he is ready to renounce his beliefs in dada. The two then argue about the role of art. Tzara appears and joins in the argument, insisting that “artists and intellectuals will be the conscience of the revolution.” Lenin and his wife leave.

The elderly Carr explains that he got a good idea of Lenin’s intentions through his association with Cecily. However, he claims that he did not act on the information, noting, ’ I might have stopped the whole Bolshevik thing in its tracks, but... I was torn. On the one hand, the future of the civilized world. On the other hand, my feelings for Cecily.” After noting Lenin’s dismissal of modern art, Carr argues “there was nothing wrong with Lenin except his politics” and decides that they are of the same mind.

After Gwen arrives, she and Cecily sing a conversation with each other to the tune of a popular song. Eventually they clear up the mistaken identities of Jack and Tristan Tzara. When Joyce arrives, asking Carr for money, the two men argue. Later, the switched folders are exchanged, and the scene dissolves into a dance.

In the final scene, Old Carr and his wife, Cecily, discuss the court case with Joyce. Cecily tries to correct her husband’s faulty memory, insisting that Carr “never got close to” Lenin and that she does not remember Tzara. She admits Carr had contact with Joyce, but that she never helped Lenin write his book on imperialism. The scene ends with Carr refusing to acknowledge his unreliable memory as he insists, “great days . . . Zurich during the war. Refugees, spies, exiles, painters, poets, writers, radicals of all kinds. I knew them all.” He notes that he learned three things during the war: first, “you’re either a revolutionary or you’re not, and if you’re not you might as well be an artist as anything else”; secondly, “if you can’t be an artist, you might as well be a revolutionary.” He forgets, though, the final thing he learned.