Travesties by Tom Stoppard Read Free Book Online Page A

difference has become smaller and smaller and smaller. Art created patrons and was corrupted. It began to celebrate the ambitions and acquisitions of the pay-master. The artist has negated himself: paint –
eat
– sculpt –
grind
– write –
shit. (A light change
.)
Without art man was a coffee-mill: but
with
art, man – is a coffee-mill! That is the message of Dada. – dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada…
( TZARA
is shouting, raving
. CARR
immobile.)
(Normal light as
BENNETT
opens the door. Everything back to ‘normal’
.)
    BENNETT : Miss Gwendolen and Mr Joyce.
    ( GWENDOLEN
and
JOYCE
appear as before
. BENNETT
retires
.)
    JOYCE : Good morning, my name is James Joyce –
    CARR : James Augusta?
    JOYCE (
Taken aback
): Was that a shot in the dark?
    CARR : Not at all – I am a student of footnotes to expatriate Irish literature.
    JOYCE : You know my work?
    CARR : No – only your name.
    TZARA : Miss Carr…
    GWEN : Mr Tzara…
    CARR : … but something about you suggests Limerick.
    JOYCE : Dublin, don’t tell me you know it?
    CARR : Only from the guidebook, and I gather you are in the process of revising that.
    JOYCE : Yes.
    GWEN : Oh! I’m sorry – how terribly rude! Henry – Mr Joyce –
    CARR : How’dyou do?
    JOYCE : Delighted.
    TZARA : Good day.
    JOYCE : I just wanted to say –
    GWEN : Do you know Mr Tzara, the poet?
    JOYCE : By sight, and reputation; but I am a martyr to glaucoma and inflation. Recently as I was walking down the
Bahnhofstrasse my eye was caught by a gallery showcase and I was made almost insensible with pain.
    GWEN : Mr Joyce has written a poem about it. It is something you two have in common.
    JOYCE : Hardly. Mr Tzara’s disability is monocular, and, by rumour, affected, whereas I have certificates for conjunctivitis, iritis and synechia, and am something of an international eyesore.
    GWEN : I mean poetry. I was thinking of your poem
‘Bahnhofstrasse’, beginning
   ‘The eyes that mock me sign the way
Whereto I pass at eve of day,   Grey way whose violet signals are
   The trysting and the twining star.’
    TZARA (
To
JOYCE ): For your masterpiece
I have great expectorations
( GWEN ’s
squeak, ‘Oh!’
)
For you I would evacuate a monument.
(
Oh!
)
Art for art’s sake – I am likewise defecated
    GWEN : Dedicated –
    TZARA : I’m a foreigner.
    JOYCE : So am I.
    GWEN : But it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I have a good ear, would you not agree, Mr Tzara?
    TZARA : It is the most perfect thing about you, Miss Carr.
    GWEN : Oh, I hope not. That would leave no room for development.
    JOYCE : But have you not read any of Mr Tzara’s poems?
    GWEN : To my shame I have not – but perhaps the shame is yours, Mr Tzara.
    TZARA : I accept it – but the matter can be easily put right, and at once.
    GWEN (
Fluttering
): Oh, Mr Tzara!…
    ( TZARA
retires to the sideboard, or writing table if there is one, and begins to write fluently on a large piece of white paper
.)
    CARR (
To
JOYCE ): And what about you, Doris?
    JOYCE : Joyce.
    CARR : Joyce.
    JOYCE : It is not as a poet that I come to see you, sir, but as the business manager of the English Players, a theatrical troupe.
    CARR : The business manager?
    JOYCE : Yes.
    CARR : Well, if it’s money you want, I’m afraid …
    GWEN : Oh, Henry! – he’s mounting a play, and Mr Joyce thought your official support –
    JOYCE : Perhaps I’d better explain. It seems, sir, that my name is in bad odour among the British community in Zurich.
Whether it is my occasional contribution to the neutralist press, or whether it is my version of Mr
Dooley
, beginning:
   ‘Who is the man, when all the gallant nations run to war,
   Goes home to have his dinner by the very first cable car,
   And as he eats