Importance of Being Earnest Tour
Peter Gill Directs Penelope Keith In Oscar Wilde's Classic Comedy
Peter Gill directs a charming production of Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest", and has the audience laughing out loud.
Penelope Keith is superb in the new touring production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Taking on the role of Lady Bracknell is a weighty matter in this “trivial comedy for serious people”, especially since its past inhabitants have included Dames Judi Dench and Edith Evans. Rather than trying to match these heavyweights on their own Wagnerian terms, Penelope Keith plays Lady Bracknell with a slightly meandering air. Her barbs and paradoxes arrive as part of the flow of her conversation, rather than as declamatory statements, and are all the funnier for it.
Peter Gill’s direction keeps this Importance of Being Earnest keeps the pace lively, which is surely necessary in a play where most of the audience will know a good chunk of the lines already. It flags slightly in the second act, during the exchanges over tea between Cecily (Rebecca Night) and Gwendolen (Daisy Haggard), but that is more the fault of the script.
Wilde’s relentless setting up of parallels can make this act feel more like a game of chequers with the occasional joke thrown in, and the business with the sugar and the cake is very difficult to make funny once the audience know what is coming. The cast really find their feet again in the third act, which is an absolute pleasure, and have romped up to the finishing line before the audience know it.
Daisy Haggard delivers Gwendolen’s lines in a flat, slightly braying tone which brilliantly brings out their fashionable inanity. It’s an interesting contrast to Frances O’Connor’s more sympathetic romantic-comedy performance in the 2002 film of The Importance of Being Earnest, and one which surely comes closer to Wilde’s original character.
The costumes and settings are superb and precise. Algy’s flat, decked out with Chinoiserie wallpaper and the iconic “blue china” (recalling Wilde’s reputation at university as “that blue China cove”) contrasts splendidly with Jack’s morning-room, with its ghastly hunting mural and trompe l’oeuil wall of books. Both rooms reflect perfectly the impression their owners are trying to present to the world, and which will come apart during the progress of the plot. The fantastic outfit which Penelope Keith sports in the first act suggests vaguely that William Morris has caught on to the idea of installation art.
This lively version of Wilde’s classic, produced by Michael Codron, will be at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, until the end of September, and is touring to the King’s Theatre Edinburgh, the Festival Theatres at Malvern and Chichester, before arriving at the Richmond Theatre, London.
