Honours Stoppard's Dazzling Intellect

H&H Series Thursday, February 23, 2017 29 ETCETERA REVIEW Honours Stoppard’s dazzling intellect TRAVESTIES APOLLO THEATRE fter a hit run at the Menier Chocolate Factory, Patrick AMarber’s storming revival of Tom Stoppard’s 1974 play gets a welcome West End encore. The triumph of this production is the way it honours Stoppard’s dazzling intellect while also going full throttle with the piece’s playful, sometimes bonkers, wit. ■ Tom Hollander in Travesties. Picture: JOHAN PERSSON Tom Hollander is Henry Carr, a senile British consular official Joyce to court, plus impassioned and magic tricks (with an assist (mis)remembering his time in socialist debate, espionage from Tim Hatley’s versatile Zurich during the First World hijinks, Joycean limericks, and paper-strewn set), is slickly War. This unreliable narrator scenes slashed and spliced delivered by a game cast. allows Stoppard to tweak history, together like Dadaist cut-up Hollander treads a delicate line bringing together several poetry. with his younger Carr, a pioneering figures who did Amongst this linguistic self-important dandy haunted by indeed pop up in Switzerland whirlwind, there are resonant his experience in the trenches, around 1917: Lenin, plotting his ideas about the meaning while Amy Morgan and Clare return to revolutionary Russia; ascribed to words like Foster provide the evening’s Dada founder Tristan Tzara; and “patriotism” as justification for highlight with their fizzing James Joyce, in the midst of war, and the duty of artists passive-aggressive duet. Great creating Ulysses. when faced with social turmoil. support, too, from Freddie Fox’s The form of the play is If words become unmoored, a flamboyant Tzara, Forbes stunningly refracted through its mysterious, transporting force, Masson’s wild-eyed Lenin and subjects. There’s a bravura or is that a dangerous Peter McDonald’s heartfelt pastiche of The Importance of indulgence? Joyce. Sublime silliness with an Being Earnest, a production of Marber’s energetic production, all-too-serious core. which results in Carr taking featuring superb musical skits Marianka Swain Have a wild time at this fizzing party THE WILD PARTY THE OTHER PALACE ✩ What’s not to like about a night of ‘gin, skin and fun’? There’s one on offer at Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new breeding ground for musicals, Burrs (John Owen-Jones), a 8-piece band that sits above an currently hosting the UK clown with a history of arch of show-time lights. premiere of Michael John violent entanglements with McOnie embraces the chal- LaChiusa and George C. beautiful blondes. To inject lenge of the dense writing Wolfe’s risqué ‘The Wild some spice, they throw one of with inventive choreography Party.’ Directed and choreo- their legendary parties in conveying the continuous graphed by musical theatre’s their Manhattan apartment. A whirl of selfish desires, new star Drew McOnie, the mish-mash of thrill-seekers performed with impressive show’s prohibition era setting turn up including Jewish attack by the exceptional cast and restless, jazzy score impresarios Goldberg and who occupy every corner of pulsate with feral energy. Gold lesbian stripper the set’s multiple levels. With While low on plot, the 1927 Madelaine, and Queenie’s obvious similarities to source, a scandalous poem by long-time friend and vaude- Chicago, the pastiche doesn’t Joseph Mclure March, ville rival Kate (a thrilling preclude some heartfelt provides the basis of a ticking time-bomb of a numbers. Owen-Jones’ cuck- nuanced look at racial performance by Victoria olded Burrs singing ‘How tensions and social Hamilton-Barritt). Many Women in the World’ is aspirations. Structured around a party outstanding and Ruffelle’s Queenie (Primrose Hill’s with a peremptory dose of smoky vocals flip from brash Frances Ruffelle), a fading early morning comedown, the to yearning as Queenie’s mask vaudeville actress, is trapped score is performed superbly slips. in a toxic relationship with by Theo Jamieson’s sassy Caroline David.

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