Reviewed Tuesday 29th July 2014
The State Theatre Company of South Australia are presenting a production of
Oscar Wilde's very witty comedy of manners.
The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trival Comedy for Serious People, under the direction of their Artistic Director, Geordie Brookman. He has brought together a marvellous cast and created a production in which Wilde's lines sparkle anew, to the delight of the first night audience who laughed incessantly.
The very respectable John (Jack) Worthing J. P. lives in the country with his ward, Cecily Cardew, and her governess, Miss Prism but, from time to time, he goes up to town for some fun, where he calls himself Earnest Worthing, supposedly Jack's younger brother. Here, he has fallen in love with the Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax, the daughter of the formidable Lady Bracknell, and the cousin of his even more disreputable, serial womanising friend, Algernon Moncrieff, to whom Lady Bracknell is his Aunt Augusta.
He foolishly tells Algy about his ruse to escape the country, and Algy admits that he occasionally needs to escape the city, and has invented a permanent invalid called Bunbury, whose relapses require him to rush to his imaginary friend's side at opportune moments in order to escape his obligations, an activity that he calls Bunburying. Jack even more foolishly reveals that he has a beautiful young ward, an heiress, in his care, and Algy then overhears him tell Gwendolen the location of his heretofore secret country home.
Algy sees the chance of yet another conquest and races off to meet Cecily, claiming to be Jack's wicked brother, Earnest, but Jack is intent on preventing it and so, as Sherlock Holmes said, "the game's afoot". That is only the first of the three acts. You probably already know the play, and the result of all this, but it is one of those wonderfully clever works that is always worth another production, and this is a worthy production.
Nathan O'Keefe plays the wily Algy with gusto, and an acute eye for every little hint of a way to send the audience into guffaws. Whether it be playing a role in a dark and sinister play, or a broad knockabout comedy, or anywhere in between, O'Keefe seems to excel, and this is no exception. He is perfectly cast in this role, adding yet another success to his list.
Yalin Ozucelik takes the role of Jack, rising to the occasion as a superb foil for O'Keefe, and making his Jack give as good as he gets from Algy. Ozucelik begins by presenting Jack as happily confident in his simple, if duplicitous, lifestyle, then develops his character taking on board the obstacles placed in Jack's way, and the skulduggery of his devious friend.
Lady Bracknell is played by that great star of the Australian stage,
Nancye Hayes, who sweeps onto the stage and, were it not for the strength, great stage presence, and experience of the other members of the cast, could have overshadowed everybody without even trying. She is everything that one could wish for in a Lady Bracknell, superior, self-important, blustering, easily outraged, overbearing, commanding, and hilariously funny. She was surely born to play the role.
Anna Steen plays Gwendolen, the single-minded young lady who could never love anybody unless their name was Earnest, which creates a problem for Earnest Worthing, as his real name is John (Jack). The names John and Jack, of course, have always been interchangeable. Steen presents Gwendolen as exceptionally eager to get Earnest to the altar or, more accurately, the marriage bed. There is more than a hint of nymphomania on display, held in check purely by Victorian conventions and austerity.
Newcomer, Lucy Fry, a 2013 graduate from the Flinders University Drama Centre who appeared in The Seagull in the Adelaide Festival in March, plays the sweet and naïve, and overly-imaginatively romantic, eighteen year old Cecily. Fry makes Cecily all sweetness and light, but with a psychotic edge in her imaginative approach to establishing a relationship with the yet unmet Earnest.
Steen and Fry get some sparks flying when Gwendolen and Cecily meet for the first time, and each mistakenly thinks the other is after the same Earnest.
Rory Walker, and the three characters that he plays, has not yet been mentioned. Algy's manservant, Lane, Merriman, the butler at Jack's country place, and the Reverend Canon Chasuble, all rely on Walker's versatility to bring them to life. Walker has that ability to make even the briefest of appearances memorable, and that is precisely what he does here, with a gesture, a facial expression, or they unexpected way in which he delivers the seemingly most straightforward and innocuous of lines, drawing more laughter from a willing audience.
Caroline Mignone tackles the role of Miss Prism, the rather befuddled governess who is so easily distracted that she once mixed up a baby with her manuscript for a three book romantic novel she had been writing. Mignone makes Miss Prism sufficiently ditzy that we can accept her unfortunate history, and her giggly girlishness in the company of the Rev. Chasuble, without descending into caricature, a fine line to walk in this role.
Ailsa Paterson's effective and imaginative design work well and looks good, although some of the costuming is a little over the top. It works hand in hand with the lighting design, by
Gavin Norris, the back lighting on the curtains proving most effective. Music to suit the Victorian setting is safely left in the province of Stuart Day.
There are a few modern comedic devices which really are not needed to get extra laughs, in the Victorian era Lane would no more drink port straight from a carafe than Algy would drink directly from the spout of the teapot, but these can be forgiven in the face of the extremely high standard of the rest of the production
If you have not bought your tickets yet then, if there are any left, book now, because this is going to make your day. Take the family, take friends, but whatever you do, go and see this winning production. You will kick yourself later if you miss it.
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