Style

Stoppard constructs Travesties as a farce that focuses on a travesty of the main characters' style with the exception of Lenin's monologues. He parodies the modernist, fragmented, and obscure style of Joyce's Ulysses, the randomness of dadaist verse in Tzara's poetry, and the aesthetic wit and comedy of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Nonsense dialogue, limerick form, and musical numbers also add to the comic effect.

Structure

Stoppard borrows the structure and plot devices from The Importance of Being Earnest while he raises complex questions on the relationship between art and politics. Characters in the two plays share the same names, the same conflicts, including mistaken identities and misunderstandings, and pieces of the same dialogue. As a result of this comic interplay, no one point of view becomes dominant

Point of View

The play's action is related through the sometimes faulty memory of Henry Carr. Often...