THE IMPORTANCE OF GOING TO SEE 'EARNEST"

Not a real blog this - just a review (wot I wrote) of Rain or Shine's recent production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' in our neck of the woods. Just in case anyone reading this might be wondering whether to go and see it. The answer is 'yes.'

The Importance of Being Earnest. Rain or Shine Theatre Company - Bryn Garw, Bridgend. 9 June 2010.

If you love theatre then don’t miss Rain or Shine’s latest production of Oscar Wilde’s classic ‘The Importance of Being Earnest.’ They are touring throughout the summer and what better entertainment could there be to accompany your midsummer picnic? Light as a meringue, yet deep as the earth, Wilde’s genius is a vivid today as a century ago. The play ages not at all.

As with all Rain or Shine productions, the pace is fast, the acting bold, the costumes extravagant, the staging witty and the direction deft. You are promised a treat and take away the memory of a treat and a half.

Moreover, as with all their shows, you, the audience, are part of the production. The wind that blows on the actors faces blows on yours as well. The rain....... well, this time we were in a marquee! Five minutes into the performance a storm of tropical proportions broke above our heads. Jack’s exchange with Gwendolen about the weather "Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing......" took on vivid new meaning.

Yet, it is hard to watch a performance of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ - even one as true as this to the buoyant fripperies of the times - without being reminded of the sadness and despair from which Oscar Wilde constructed this lightest and most intelligent of comedies.

He had had a cruel interview with Lady Queensberry, the mother of his lover Lord Alfred Douglas; Lord Queensbury arrived on the first night of the show with the aim of pelting Wilde with vegetables as he took his bow. Fortunately, he was denied entry. As Wilde rapidly descended into social disgrace the show was pulled after only 83 performances. As Lady Queensberry lived in Bracknell, her transmutation into Aunt Augusta (Lady Bracknell) must have been yet another aggravation for the family.

So this is a play of savage contrasts. Wilde takes accepted wisdom and gives us the reverse. For each Victorian value - thrift, hard work, respectability, gravitas, his characters find a reason to do (or be) the opposite. We can laugh now at Wilde’s pricking of Victorian pomposity, but a hundred years ago some of the lines must have been close to the bone.

But ‘Earnest’ is also a play about identity, about trying to escape fate by pretending to be who we aren’t. “All women grow up to be like their mothers,” says Algernon. “That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.” Is there a hint in James Reynard’s direction that Pippa Meekings' Gwendolen is fast following in Aunt Augusta’s footsteps? I think so.

She, it has to be said, is not your traditional Aunt Augusta, though she shakes her walking stick in a manner to make the stoutest of hearts quiver. Hilary Derrett plays her as an intelligent matriarch who carries pencil and paper and who uses etiquette simply as it may suit.

The play has many memorable lines - lines that have entered the collective memory as vividly as any Shakespearian quip: ‘the truth is rarely pure and never simple;’ ‘to lose one parent, Mr Worthing, might be described as a misfortune.......’ and, of course, the totemic ‘a handbag!?’ (Edith Evans once said that she started that line by clenching the buttocks!).

Ah - the handbag! The one ‘point faible,’ I’m afraid, unless it was some substitute handbag that had made an accidental appearance at Bryn Garw. It seemed more of a briefcase and certainly not something within which to deposit an infant, even one asleep at the time. Surely, Miss Prism would have been carrying one of Mr Gladstone’s inventions, some voluminous carpet bag, especially to carry the manuscript pages of a three volume novel of ‘revolting sentimentality.’

Mmmm.. sounds rather intriguing - and like all missing manuscripts, I rather wonder what might have become of it, after it was found in that ‘remote corner of Bayswater?’

Still, clearly a five star show. Go see and enjoy!