[1] In the 1970s, Tom Stoppard, struck by the fact that Joyce, Vladimir Lenin and the Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara were all in Zurich in 1917, wrote a play that brought all three together seen through the unreliable memory of the octogenarian Carr looking back five decades later.

In 1917, three historicallly important figures were living in Zürich: the modernist author James Joyce, the communist revolutionary Lenin, and the Dada founder Tristan Tzara.

The young Carr spies on Lenin, argues with Tzara about the nature of true art, is persuaded by Joyce to play Algernon and later quarrels over the cost of buying new trousers for the role.

A revival of the play, directed by Adrian Noble and featuring a revised text that abbreviated Cecily's lecture on Lenin in Act II by moving much of it to the interval, was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company at its theatre in the Barbican Arts Centre in September 1993.

[11][12] The Roundabout Theatre Company's education team have produced an 'Upstage' guide to Travesties[13] which puts the play's themes in historical context and contains interviews with the director, cast, and crew.

The revival has been praised by critics with Ben Brantley of The New York Times commenting that he "...would venture that this latest incarnation is the clearest and surely one of the liveliest on record.

It should prove ridiculously entertaining for anyone with even a passing knowledge of its central characters, and a stroll through the groves of Wikipedia should offer adequate preparation for anyone else.

"[14] The Australian premiere of the 2016 script adaptation opened in Melbourne in winter 2019, with Dion Mills taking the role of Henry Carr.