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Travesties

• Written by Tom Stoppard
• Directed by Joseph Ziegler
• Starring Diego Matamoros
• At the Young Centre in Toronto
• 

Okay, so James Joyce, Lenin and Dadaist Tristan Tzara walk into a library in Zurich in 1917 … Stoppard if you think you've heard this one before.

Soulpepper Theatre Company continues its journey through British playwright Tom Stoppard's rich back catalogue with 1974's Travesties, a Tony winner in which the aforementioned writer, revolutionary and artist meet in neutral Switzerland during the First World War.

More accurately, the three cross paths in the seriously confused memoirs of a low-level British diplomat named Henry Carr (Diego Matamoros). Portrayed here as a senile, self-aggrandizing, long-winded fool, Carr was an actual historical figure too, albeit remembered thanks only to a literary footnote: Joyce hired him to act in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest during the war, and afterward the two were involved in frivolous litigation over the cost of a pair of trousers.

(The lesson here, Svend Robinson, is that one should always, always avoid getting into pants-related lawsuits if one does not want to end up being turned into a clown.)

In Carr's memoir, which comes to life in front of us, realistic-seeming reminiscences of Lenin, Joyce and Tzara blend together with obvious invention and half-remembered scenes from Oscar Wilde's classic comedy of manners to create a hilariously faulty narrative. Carr would have us believe, for instance, that Ulysses was originally titled Elasticated Bloomers, something only Seinfeld's Elaine would fall for.

Stoppard is filled with references to Earnest, Ulysses and Dadaism, has a silly running joke about Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience that had me alone in stitches, and even has an entire scene written in limerick form. (To give you a taste of the pastiche, Lenin, still stinging from crushed 1905 Russian revolution, proclaims: "To lose one revolution may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.") Mixed into Tom's foolery is a serious debate about art and revolution and the relationship between the two — a subject Stoppard has returned to time and time again, most recently in 2006's Rock 'n' Roll.

With its swirl of inside literary jokes and heady mix of fact, fiction and stylistic mayhem, this comedy is surely one of Stoppard's most emphatically clever creations. There are so many layers here, Woody Allen would surely describe Travesties as a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.

But Travesties is also one of Stoppard's most maddening plays, one where the wit and ideas drown out any semblance of a plot and character. There's a critical argument that his plays are all head and no heart, to which I've never subscribed, but this play — and certainly this production of it — seems an exhibit for the prosecution.

Given its Shavian nature — if you take Shavian to mean witty argument masquerading as a play — Joseph Ziegler would seem to be an excellent candidate to direct it. He somehow managed to turn the dated debate of Bernard Shaw's Getting Married into a thoroughly enjoyable viewing experience at the Shaw festival last summer.

But here, Ziegler hasn't cut a clear path through the verbiage — or through Christina Poddubiuk's awkwardly designed set. He often boxes the action into small areas of the stage and ties characters to chairs, making it seem even more static than it is. While the epigrams are delivered beautifully by Soulpepper's ensemble, the parodies don't quite crackle and the physical humour — the dropped notes, the character collisions — never quite convinces.

The overarching problem is that all of the characters save Carr are misremembered caricatures rather than fully rounded humans. As Tzara, Jordan Pettle is the only one who fleshes out his clown completely and makes you care for him. David Storch's Joyce comes out the winner in the debate on art, performing a nifty magic show along the way, but he occasionally looks mildly embarrassed to be playing the great Irish writer as a b'jasus-top-o'-the-morning caricature. Oliver Dennis's Lenin, meanwhile, is little more than a statue of a famous man — not that he is given much to work with.

As for the relationships between Carr and Cecily (Krystin Pellerin) and Tzara and Gwendolyn (Sarah Wilson), Ziegler has directed the romances with heightened theatricality — making them just one more joke, rather than something we can hold onto.

As Carr, Matamoros has the hardest job, working his way through long monologues that detour off detours and are as layered with allusion as anything Joyce wrote. In a few dense paragraphs about Dadaism, Carr will accurately outline the tenets of the artistic movement ("historical halfway between futurism and surrealism") while parodying Cole Porter ("My art belongs to Dada"), François Villon ("Oh the yes-no's of yesteryear") and Second World War recruiting slogans ("What did it do in the Great War, Dada, I am often asked") en passant.

Matamoros's delivery is clear and very entertaining, but neither he nor Ziegler has helped us understand why Carr must tell this fractured story now — there is nothing pulling us along through the evening more than a case of two switched folders (not very well staged) and the prospect of more puns. It is always a bad sign when the first act ends and there's no reason why it couldn't be the final curtain.

Travesties continues until March 21 (416-866-8666).