Review: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING WASTED at Anywhere Festival
The Importance of Being Wasted is Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy of manners with a twist… of lime, vodka (and maybe a dash of dirty bathtub moonshine), shaken, stirred and served well and truly on the rocks.
By: Virag Dombay May. 10, 2021
Presented by Act React and Anywhere Festival, The Importance of Being Wasted is a show set to leave you in hysterics. There's nothing quite like watching one of Oscar Wilde's comedies on stage, but to have the actors performing the show being drunk take's it to a whole new level.
Act React is a Brisbane-based company specialising in pop culture-inspired comedy and theatre. The company is an Anywhere Festival favourite, having produced Let Them Eat Cake (2017), Kiss of the Vampire Squid, (2018) and Titanic: The Movie, The Play (Anywhere BCC Award, 2019). When I found out that their next parody would be of arguably one of Wilde's greatest works, the drama graduate and theatre kid inside me starting down an inwardly, and outwardly, happy dance. And as I write this, I'm still doing that dance now as boy was this show a hoot and a half.
Each night, from a cast of six, two actors were selected to start the show wasted and proceed to get more wasted throughout it. Lines were slurred if they were even remembered, full glasses of champagne were chugged, exits and entrances were forgotten, characters were forgotten and Wilde's witty remarks were often replaced by f-bombs. I don't know how the other four actors did it; I would've completely lost my mind through it all. It also makes me quite curious to see what rehearsing for this show entailed...
The Lord Alfred adequately served the plays premise, with the cast performing around the bar, weaving themselves between audience members. The casting was perfect; each actor bringing their own interpretations to these wildely respectable roles, none more so than that actors being drunk off their face.Was there audience interaction? Indeed there was and I was one of its victims. I was given a party popper to pull at any time throughout the show after which Lady Bracknell would have to chug whatever drink she was holding it. It was quite a nerve-wracking task knowing when to pull it but when I did do it, the reaction from the actor was glorious. I do hope her liver is okay today though...
If you want a Wide night out on the town, then this production is the one for you.
Rating: 4 Stars
Tickets: https://anywhere.is/event/beingwasted
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