EN107 TERM 2, WEEK 2
TOM STOPPARD, TRAVESTIES
MR. GALLAGHER AND MR. SHEAN
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jclFlLQ4sXc
PLOT (REVISED)
• Does the play possess a consistent plot?
• Is this plot fulfilled?
• Sequence
• Sequential
• Non-sequential
• Sequence unclear
• What part of the play’s plot occurs onstage? What
part takes place offstage?
• Why does the play choose this particular part of the plot—
why significant?
HUMOR
• Why is the play funny?
• Who is in on the joke, and who outside?
• Characters
• Audience
INTERTEXTUALITY
• What, if any, other works does the play reference?
• How are these works presented
• Adapted or unchanged?
• Reverent or irreverent?
• What function does the cited text play within this
new text?
• Do you need to know these references for the play
to “work”?
(OLD) HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• When was the play written, and where?
• Was the play written for particular actors?
• Was the play written for a political theater company, or for
a particular theatrical establishment?
• How do elements of this historical period appear
within the play?
• What is the play’s attitude, or attitudes, towards its time?
• Popularity
• Was the play written for a wide or a specific audience?
(OLD) POLITICS
• What do we mean by politics?
• Then: how does this “politics” appear within the
play?
• Politics
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Conservative?
Emergent or progressive?
Incoherent?
Some combination of all of these?
PHILOSOPHY
• What philosophies does the play present?
• Aesthetic (related to appearances, beauty, style)
• Ethical (related to questions of right and wrong)
• How does the play frame these philosophies?
• NB.: ALMOST ALWAYS MORE SUBTLE THAN YOU MIGHT
THINK—just because a character says something, doesn’t
mean play is behind this character
• Does the play have a winning side? Is it more ambivalent?
• Is the play sympathetic to multiple philosophies?