Travesties

"Zurich, 1917. As Europe is torn asunder by war, three of the twentieth century's great revolutionaries--James Joyce, the Dadaist Tristan Tzara, and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin--have made the city their home. Travesties follows these three great men, and another lesser-known resident of Zurich at this time, a British consular official called Henry Carr. Taking Carr as the core of his play, Stoppard spools this constellation of characters into a masterful and riotously funny play, a speculative portrait of what could have happened at a meeting of these influential men. With characteristic brio, Stoppard tells the story through the lurid, self-aggrandizing, and riveting memory of an aging Henry Carr, whose turn in the theater with James Joyce goes awry, leading to a lawsuit concerning a pair of trousers. Appearing in a new definitive edition with a preface by the author, Travesties is a historical tour de force by one of the world's most brilliant contemporary writers."--Page 4 of cover.