Stoppard’s “Travesties” seamless, rich

"Travesties,” goes Tom Stoppard’s well-known characterization (repeated in the playbill for this production at the McCarter Theatre) of his own play, is a bit “like eating steak tartare with chocolate sauce.” It’s not an unfit description of this fascinating play, which brings together three intellectual luminaries of the twentieth century — Tristan Tzara (Christian Coulson), founder of the Dada movement, James Joyce (Fred Arsenault) and Vladimir Lenin (Demosthenes Chrysan) — in World War I-era Zurich as friends of an English bureaucrat named Henry Carr (James Urbaniak). Directed by Sam Buntrock, McCarter’s “Travesties” proves to be a delicious concoction, though — as with any rich meal — the potential for indigestion sometimes looms in the background.

As recalled by Henry in his old age, these four talk and argue — a lot — about the ideas that the three famous guys are now synonymous with, make countless references — some familiar, others obscure — to other works of cultural importance, play out scenes from Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” and court the two figures imported from Wilde’s play, Gwendolyn (Susannah Flood) and Cecily (Sara Topham).

Urbaniak, the actor with probably the greatest freedom to develop his role, turns in a commanding performance and is particularly strong in how he shifts between aged and youthful personas. Coulson, Arsenault and Chrysan are all compelling and entertaining but largely confined to portraying the stock elements of their characters.

Like Gwendolyn and Cecily, Flood and Topham are similarly encumbered by the influence of Wilde’s conception of the characters, and the structure of Stoppard’s play regrettably often casts them as a sideshow to the male intellectuals who dominate “Travesties.” Everett Quinton as Bennet (Henry’s butler) got perhaps the most laughs of the night by playing the role of the comic servant to perfection.

The set, designed by David Farley, is dazzling, by turns majestic and intimate depending on the scene. “Travesties” is a play about making connections — between past and present, between eclectic intellectual movements, between the theater and other arts — and the rapid, fluid set changes reinforce this idea. In a few effortless seconds we go from Henry’s living room in 1974 to his 1917 house, furnished much differently. At the same time, Henry himself sheds a plaid bathrobe to reveal a well-tailored suit underneath — costume design is also by Farley — switching with aplomb from frumpy octogenarian to his much younger self. It’s a great demonstration of how meticulous technical work can really accentuate the thematic focus of a production.

This McCarter production of “Travesties” coincides with a good deal of interest on campus in Stoppard. The Princeton Shakespeare Company mounted an excellent production of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” last month, and Michael Cadden, director of Princeton’s Program in Theater, is teaching a seminar this semester on “Stoppard and Intertextuality,” an issue central to understanding “Travesties.” Stoppard, with his often hyper-intellectual style, certainly plays well in a university town, and the relevance and appeal of the production in Princeton is clear.

“Travesties” is a hard play all around: undoubtedly hard to put on and, yes, at times hard to sit through. Running nearly three hours and richly — often dizzyingly — full of allusions, it’s not for the faint of heart. That shouldn’t discourage you, however — it’s a splendid production of a splendid play, worth carving out the time to see. Tickets are free for Princeton undergrads this Friday, when the show will be followed by a “Mustaches and Monocles”-themed party.

4 out of 5 paws