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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

★★★★

Reading Abbey Ruins

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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at  Reading Abbey Ruins

★★★★

“a wonderful adaptation of the Wilde Classic in a uniquely atmospheric setting”

The wit of the famed Irish playwright sparkled in the evening sun in this outdoor production by Progress Theatre. In the shadow of the gaol in which he was incarcerated for ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ well known Wildean epigrams bounce off the walls of the former Reading Abbey’s chapter house. We all know and relish Lady Bracknell’s (Caroline Warner) pronouncement on the ‘carelessness of the loss of two parents’, her astonishment at the receptacle in which the infant Jack Worthing (Chris Westgate) was found or the ‘immateriality of the line’ on which he was found and her daughter Gwendolen Fairfax’s (Stephanie Ness) declaration of the ‘sensational reading to be found in one’s own diary providing entertainment on a train journey’. However, the cast and director (Steph Dewar) highlighted many others including ‘The truth is rarely plain and never simple’, ‘All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his’ and ‘The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.’ 

The simplistic but effective setting covering the three acts in the town house of Algernon Moncrieff and Jack’s Hertfordshire estate works well within the historic setting; despite my initial misgivings that this ‘drawing-room comedy’ might be lost in the expanse of the outdoor venue. Costumes (Wendy Hobson and Chris Moran) and the required minimum of furniture and props provide the period elegance to anchor the production in its mid-1890s setting. The skilful interval split, mid Act II, works well to keep the pace racing along towards the conclusion.

Hindered in his attempts to keep his two worlds from colliding by the intervention of his friend Algernon, played with bubbling mischievousness by Matthew Urwin, Jack finally resorts to ‘killing off’ his fictional miscreant brother Earnest, who by continually misbehaving ‘in town’, provides Jack the perfect excuse whenever he needs to escape from the country. Algernon, who also has a fictional reason for leaving town to visit the country, in turn becomes enamoured with Jack’s young ward, Cecily Cardew (Nancy Gittus). Prepared to sacrifice their double lives for the love of Gwendolen and Cecily both men stride haphazardly forward to discover the importance of being ‘Earnest’.

Between the two young women a bond of ‘sisterhood’ is quickly reached and equally quickly ripped asunder on their first meeting. Only to be restored on finding themselves both to have been misled by their suitors. The speedy change is achieved with excellent precision and hilarity from Ness and Gittus. Ness is easily recognisable as the daughter of Warner’s Lady Bracknell both in mannerisms and speech. She deftly uses the dialogue to create a believable character of a young woman of society used to getting her own way. Whilst Warner’s approach to the notorious ‘handbag’ line of Lady Bracknell is to expertly underplay it with effective emphasis of shock and outrage at the presumption of Jack expecting her daughter to ‘marry into a cloakroom and forge an alliance with a parcel’.

In juxtaposition to the slightly smug and sarcastic Moncrieff and increasingly vexed and frustrated Worthing, the Rector of the Hertfordshire estate, Dr. Chasuble (Paul Gittus) and Cecily’s tutor, Miss Prism (Liz Paulo), provide a simmering, sublimated sexual tension to great comic effect. They, along with Algernon’s manservant, Lane (Dean Stephenson) and Jack’s butler, Merriman (John Goodman) who both portray with few words and a good many telling facial expressions the knowing yet rather put upon non-leisured-class, provide excellent comedic cameos in counterpoint to their erring employers.

Progress Theatre have produced a wonderful adaptation of the Wilde Classic in a uniquely atmospheric setting.


THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at Reading Abbey Ruins

Reviewed on 19th July 2024

by Thomson Hall

Photography by Aidan Moran

 

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

HENRY I | ★★★★★ | June 2023

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

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The Importance of Being Earnest

★★★½

Turbine Theatre

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The Importance

The Importance of Being Earnest

Turbine Theatre

Reviewed – 20th February 2020

★★★½

 

“packs in lots of entertaining elements but teeters dangerously on the brink of panto”

 

An entire cast stranded on a broken-down bus, the producer and stage-manager of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ must make a hasty decision, if the show is to go on. In an evening of quick changes, larger-than-life characters and bustling choreography, they helter-skelter through Oscar Wilde’s iconic parody of constrained Victorian morality. Jack and his friend Algernon have both invented imaginary counterparts, Ernest and Bunbury, to enable them to escape any unwelcome or tedious obligation. As their intentions for marriage intensify, their stories unravel and being Ernest appears to be of the utmost importance.

Written at a significant time in his life, just as his homosexuality was revealed and condemned, it is a deceptively flippant comment on the dual identity many people felt the need to live. London’s vibrant social scene with its clubs, hotels and theatres – not to mention the West End’s red-light district – would have been an irresistible, and therefore common, distraction for the English male aristocracy. Although marriage figures centrally as plot, debate and comment, the homosexual asides, ‘Ernest’, a euphemism for homosexual and ‘Cecily’, a reference to rent boys, are far from subtle. And this is reflected in the flamboyancy of the production which packs in lots of entertaining elements but teeters dangerously on the brink of panto.

Director, Bryan Hodgson, produces a lively build-up of pandemonium as the plot thickens and the denouement accelerates. There are interjections to remind us that the cast are still on their way, but they are inconsistent and aren’t always attuned to the script. The multi-tasking actors, Aidan Harkins and Ryan Bennett succeed in impressively dexterous costume changes which become gradually more frenetic and resourceful with the entanglement of the play. There is a strong repartee established in the opening scene between Jack and Algernon but subsequently the characterisation is less balanced. Harkins’ portrayals of Lady Bracknell and Miss Prism are perhaps unconventional, but are well defined and fit convivially into the world of innuendos. As his own Lady Bracknell, Bennett is suitably overblown, yet his Cecily lacks any real persona. Of course, the point is that they are standing in at the last minute, but there is no real coherence here either.

Technically sharp, Sam Rowcliffe-Tanner’s lighting accompanies the exaggerated scenarios and the sound (Harry Smith) adds to some odd and rousing moments with Verdi’s ‘Dies Irae’ summing up Lady Bracknell’s appearance and the farcical scampering around to Brahms’ Hungarian Dance. Denise Cleal’s costumes cleverly combine period style with practical quick- change needs.

Camp, in the very French literary sense that influenced Wilde, this effervescent version of his classic comedy of manners (subtitled by the writer as ‘A Trivial Comedy for Serious People’), piles comic melodrama, slapstick and caricature onto his intellectual farce, producing a colourful rumpus of a show with a fun finale. Perhaps not appealing to everyone’s taste in classical theatre but, judging by the standing ovation, popular with many.

 

Reviewed by Joanna Hetherington

Photography by John-Webb Carter

 


The Importance of Being Earnest

Turbine Theatre until 29th February

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Torch Song | ★★★★★ | September 2019
High Fidelity | ★★★★★ | November 2019

 

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