TRAVESTIES (2018) Previews

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 11:01pm

Previews for the first Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard's Travesties begin tomorrow (Thursday, March 29, 2018) at the American Airlines Theatre. Starring Tom Hollander as Henry Carr, Travesties is set to officially open on Tuesday, April 24 for a limited run currently through Sunday, June 17.

Who's going?! 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 11:04pm

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=1108246#5028692

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 11:09pm

There's still a lot available over the next few days, btw. More than 200 seats left for tomorrow's performance, if anybody's curious (and 350+ for Friday night's). 

[Bwayfan292]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 11:14pm

Do we know the run time yet?

[@z5]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 11:16pm

so weird, whenever I go onto Roundabout's website to look at getting tickets for this I get a server runtime error

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 11:17pm

@z5 said: "so weird, whenever I go onto Roundabout's website to look at getting tickets for this I get a server runtime error"

Me too! But only on Chrome. Have you tried Safari?

[@z5]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 11:27pm

Yeah, I primarily use Safari....good call, though, for me it's now working on Chrome.

 

Super weird!!

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 11:44pm

Bwayfan292 said: "Do we know the run time yet?"

The production is a transfer from London, where it ran for 2 hours and 25 minutes with an intermission, according to this page. I'm not sure if there'll be changes, but that's the expectation!

[JBroadway]

Posted: 3/28/18 at 11:48pm

Saw this in London at the Menier Chocolate Factory. I like Stoppard in general, and I think this play works well on the page. But seeing it live I thought the play was just way longer than it needed to be, and some of the production choices, while not awful, just made the 2.5 hours feel longer and duller. Tom Hollander is really excellent though, so if you get a good price on tix, it's worth seeing just for him. 

[TheSassySam]

Posted: 3/29/18 at 12:48am

I have a $10 preview ticket, but I am weighing my options of going to this or catching a matinee of Three Tall Women instead. 

[MusicAndPassion]

Posted: 3/29/18 at 1:20am

Just brushed off my copy of Travesties from a British drama course I took years ago in college. The notes I have inside remind me how smart this play is. While I've never seen it on stage, I am curious to check out this production! Going to re-read The Importance of Being Earnest and Travesties before booking a ticket soon.

Hope it's great! I fear this is a great case of Stoppard being better on paper. 

[Polka Dot2]

Posted: 3/29/18 at 2:21pm

Having done a production of Travesties in the past, I personally think this play is even better on stage than it is on the page. However, it really all depends on the direction. My director was brilliant. 

 

That being said, does anyone have an extra $10 ticket this Saturday or Sunday?

[Cesare2]

Posted: 3/29/18 at 6:22pm

Saw the original Broadway production starring John Wood.  Very entertaining, especially if you were an English major.  But if you don't know anything about James Joyce or THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, you'll miss a lot of the fun. 

[JBC3]

Posted: 3/29/18 at 6:48pm

I decided to go see Angels again so I have a nice single aisle seat for sale.

DATE
Sun Apr 29 2018
3:00 PM

SEAT
N 101

I paid $99. Asking $50. PDF ticket. Paypal.

pm me if interested Updated On: 3/29/18 at 06:48 PM

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 3/29/18 at 11:38pm

Any thoughts from board members yet? My friend at the performance tonight didn’t enjoy the show at all and I’m curious if the feeling is shared by others.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/29/18 at 11:40pm

I can’t think of a single playwright whose works act more as proof of evidence for all the massive amounts of research that went into them than Tom Stoppard. Travesties is essentially layer upon layer of brilliant (and brilliantly esoteric) ornamentation. In fact, there’s so much rococo trim that it actually becomes the walls that must support the play. 

I thought act two was stronger than act one; those long monologues for Henry and Bennett at the begin take a bit of energy to get through, but Tristan comes on the scene things start to perk up. Seth Numrich is wonderful as Tristan and he relishes each Dada that comes along. (The later puns involving Dada are Stoppard at the height of whimsy and wit.)

Sara Topham (Cecily) and Tom Hollander’s (Henry) big scene at the top of act two was just perfection. So funny and engaging. The Mister Gallagher/Mister Shean homage number between Cecily and Gwendolen (Scarlett Strallen and rhymed with mandolin!) brought me to near throes of ecstasy. It’s really just Stoppard showing off, but if you got, flaunt it.

Like Arcadia, my favorite Stoppard play, Travesties really benefits from multiple viewings. Everything is so well-woven together that you really can’t appreciate the beauty of the needlework until you can stand back and see the whole tapestry. 

[Alfie6]

Posted: 3/30/18 at 9:32am

The set is beautiful (reminded me a little of Describe the Night at Atlantic) and the production was in top shape for a first preview (these days I am amazed when a first preview doesn't get cancelled). Tom Hollander was absolutely fantastic and gives a great performance- Sadly, this was not a play I enjoyed watching. I'm probably the target audience since I am a literature/theater/anglophile nerd but was more baffled than entertained. I was not familiar with the play and expected a laugh riot but aside from a few lines didn't find it funny at all. Some parts are madcap, some become serious, some stretches are just boring repetitive monologues, some are ridiculous Kate Hamill-stlye dance numbers. Many people around me fled during the intermission. I enjoyed the second half better when the show gets more into the "Earnest" territory but this was such a disappointment. I could be the minority here since the play is loved by many people, it was just too chaotic and incoherent.  Show runs 2:30 but feels longer.

[NJGUY]

Posted: 3/30/18 at 10:17am

Was there last night. Have not seen the play since 1976 when I saw it pre-Broadway at the Kennedy Center. That time I LOVED it!   The acting is top-notch and there are moments of brilliance.  That said, it is a slog; the first act is 85 minutes and feels like two hours.  Thankfully the second act is closer to 45 minutes and is a lot better.  Can only give a recommendation to true Tom Stoppardians.  

Updated On: 3/30/18 at 10:17 AM

[pacificnorthwest]

Posted: 3/30/18 at 10:41am

WhizzerMarvin said: "I can’t think of a single playwright whose works act more as proof ofevidence for all the massive amounts of research that went into them than Tom Stoppard. Travesties is essentially layer upon layer of brilliant (and brilliantly esoteric) ornamentation.....

Whizzer: Excited to see this tonight. Your reviews have inspired my travel lately. Led me to come up two weeks ago to see "Three Tall Women," which I decided this morning to see again this weekend. Was surprised to find as many tickets as I did still available, given the rave (as anticipated) reviews. Also seeing "My Fair Lady," which was certainly on my list. But your post and others the night previews began expedited my plans. Checked several weekends, all performances, and was lucky to find one ticket, literally one ticket, that wasn't on the far reaches of the loge. I fully expect to love it. Thanks!

 

[Dancingthrulife2]

Posted: 3/30/18 at 10:46am

Well, at least 4 around me walked out last night during the intermission. I was tempted as well. It's one of those plays that shine because of what is happening, not what has happened. There are a number of hilariously funny and witty moments that are great on their own but unfortunately do not add up as a 2-hour-and-half play. It needs to be read to fully appreciate. Being acted out on stage without a pause for you to take in the brilliance just takes away the interactive part that I consider to be the oomph of the play.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/30/18 at 10:51am

Pacificnorthwest, I’m so glad you loved Three Tall Women! Travesties the play is certainly a brilliantly written work...this production is chaotic and definitely doesn’t do any hand holding with the audience. They really do need to do something about the first half of act one, but act two does play much better. 

There were a bunch of walkouts around me too, but for what its worth the people in the audience who seemed to be enjoying it, really seemed to like it and the applause from the small group who stay til the end felt strong. What’s odd is that this would have played so much better in the Pels and Idina could have sold out her play in the American Airlines. 

Btw- are those your cats? If so, they are adorable!!! What are their names?

[nasty_khakis]

Posted: 3/30/18 at 11:10am

I was there last night as well and enjoyed it tremendously.

I agree there is no hand-holding minus a breif note in the playbill about the history bits, but I overhead some big-wigs from the Menier Chocolate Factory joking and talking about how you just have to trust the audience and never doubt their intelligence. They also joked they understood it more tonight than they ever did in London. 

Like Whizzer said they play is a real mille-feuille and you have to just go into knowing you're not going to understand everything and things are purposefully confused sometimes (Dada!) but just enjoy what is happening while it's happening. 

It combines all of the Stoppard classics- literature, revolution, love, absurdity, and clever people chatting and monologing about how clever they are. I kept thinking after I left how this work followed so closely after Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Stoppard's own "dada/abstract expressionistic" play. 

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 3/30/18 at 11:13am

I saw the show in London a year ago -- a 2-Stoppard double header with one weekend at TRAVESTIES and one weekend at ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD starring Daniel Radcliffe. I kind of wish it had been the Radcliffe show that had come over instead of TRAVESTIES. His Rosencrantz was truly brilliant.

Travesties can be brilliant too. I still fondly remember the original John Wood production. That show was lush and funny and deeply moving in depicting the memory loss of advancing age. Somehow most of that is missing in the new production. The words are all there in their mensa-testing complexity, but the unit set does not transform, the costumes are basic, and the deeper emotions never take hold. Stoppard if done right can move you to tears. This one nailed the Vaudeville and the Kafka, but missed the heartbreak, which made for a lesser night of theater all around.

Updated On: 3/30/18 at 11:13 AM

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/30/18 at 11:28am

Travesties: The Vaudeville and Kafka edition. I like it! And that’s exactly what this is, which is still pretty cool since they’re executing those aspects so well. 

Arcadia does reduce me to tears, so I know what you mean. When Septimus and Thomasina are dancing and then Hannah sees Plautus, well, if you aren’t misty-eyed then it’s the production and not you! 

Isn’t the Menier Chocolate Factory tiny? The set is really huge in the American Airlines and VERY kafkaesque. 

Nasty_khakis, I think the Menier people have the right idea and the only way you can approach Stoppard: Trust the audience. We are so often not given the benefit of the doubt that its nice to be trusted, even if we miss a reference or joke here and there. 

I was in both Bucharest and Sofia this past summer, so all the jokes about Romania and Bulgaria being the same country (HA!) were killing me last night, and the goofy exchanging about his sister Sofia? Gwendolen? Bucharest? made me guffaw like it never had before. And that’s really a joy of Stoppard- upon different viewings at different stages of life new things will pop out and take hold. 

[pacificnorthwest]

Posted: 3/30/18 at 11:36am

WhizzerMarvin said: Btw- are those your cats? If so, they are adorable!!! What are their names?"

Thank you!  Yes, those are my little beasts. They're brothers, 4 years old. As kittens, they took a wild ride in the wheel well of a car before escaping at a stop and being rescued by a friend's daughter, which how they came to my babies. They're incredibly sweet and hugely destructive. But I adore them, of course. They are "Kissa," which is kitty in Finnish (my heritage) and "Kokko," short for the small Baltic Sea city where my (distant but wonderful) relatives live.

The dialogue of "Travesties" sounds so intriguing, even if the production is imperfect. I actually downloaded a study guide to my Kindle, which I'm sure will make some on these boards LOL.