Importance of Being Earnest

From: "will stackman" profwlll@yahoo.com

Subject: Quicktake - "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde

Date: Wed, Dec 27, 11:04 PM

Quicktake on THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

     The easiest description of Ridiculusmus' "The Importance of Being Earnest," a slight reduction of Oscar Wilde's most popular play, is too clever by half. The comic duo of David Woods and Jon Haynes play all nine characters in the farce, using costume and voice changes which become fragmented as the play picks up pace and the farce heads for its coincidence-filled conclusion. The most obvious laughs result from costume incongruities though Wilde's famous epigrams win their share. Audience members familiar with the play will get the most out of this bravura performance, but probably won't see it as the social satire director Jude Kelly, OBE, and Ridiculusmus hoped to create for their British audience. Americans have always found the antics of Ernest Worthing and Algernon Moncrief risible but distant.

    The production is however a solid entertainment even though the joke wears thin from time to time given the necessary hiatuses created by costume and scenery changes. The set has a jumble shop air with props kept on shelves at the back and anachronistic touches like a fridge hidden in the credenza and a music system which the actors ostensibly control using a remote to provide dramatic background. The acting is generally broad, on par with Monty Python, which keeps the focus on the trivial, certainly the author's original intent. The play has survived for more than a century not because of its deep analysis of Victorian mores, but its universal silliness. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is first and foremost farce, focusing on human fallibility, which comic writers have been puncturing for at least 2500 years.

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"The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde, Dec.21 - Jan.14

Ridiculusmus at ART, Loeb Stage

64 Brattle St, Harvard Sq. (617) 547 - 8300

American Repertory Theatre