BRACKNELL’S BACK
Teatro gets Earnest
Mounting a production of The Importance of Being Earnest has distinct challenges.
As one of the most quoted plays in the English canon (right up there with Hamlet), the Oscar Wilde classic, first performed in 1895, resonates strongly with the audience. We are inclined to like it and to laugh at all the clever lines (who doesn’t giggle at the mere thought of leaving a baby in a handbag, or the carelessness implied in losing not one, but two parents).
But at the same time, The Importance of Being Earnest is freighted with expectation. Key characters, including the formidable Lady Bracknell, have been played masterfully by the greats — from Dame Judi Dench to Geoffrey Rush — admittedly hard acts to follow. The script, so deliciously trivial, and the lines, so breezily sharp, are beautifully constructed and hard to mess up. But when you do, everyone knows.
So it was no slam dunk for Teatro La Quindicina to mount The Importance of Being Earnest. And the play wasn’t even director Jeff Haslam’s first choice for the second show of the Teatro season.
Actors in the Earnest cast were first lined up for Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple when the rights to the American comedy fell through, a happy disaster considering Mark Meer and Ron Pederson could not be more perfect for Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff respectively.
A quick refresh. The first act sees Algernon, who has a lot of time on his hands, greet his friend, Jack Worthing, who has come to London to propose to Algernon’s cousin, Gwendolen Fairfax (Louise Lambert). A bit with a cigarette case leads the audience to understand that Jack leads somewhat of a double life. He has been dutifully raising his young ward, Cecily Cardew (Shannon Blanchet), in the country. When he yearns for city life, he pretends he must decamp to rescue his invented, wastrel brother in London, Ernest. While in London, Jack assumes the name of Ernest, and lives extravagantly.
Algernon confesses that he, too, lives a double life. When faced with an unpleasant task, such as dining with his aunt, Lady Bracknell (Leona Brausen), he invents a needy friend named Bunbury, who frequently rests on the very lip of death. Lady Bracknell’s daughter, Gwendolen, accepts Jack’s proposal on the strength of being smitten with his city name, Ernest. Her
mother, Lady Bracknell, is dubious.
The second act sees Algernon embark on a mischievous journey to Jack’s country home, playing the disreputable brother Ernest, where he meets and falls in love with Cecily. Another proposal ensues. In the third act, Lady Bracknell wields the power to decide who marries whom.
The production, nicely-paced by Haslam, is two-and-a-half hours long including two intermissions. Costumes by Robert Shannon are carefully balanced, with a spare and elegant approach to all characters but Lady Bracknell. Here, imagine Anne Shirley playing a witch at Halloween. Lady Bracknell’s purple-and-black puffed sleeves are as big and angry as storm clouds, and I believe her stage-sweeping skirt is made from Elton John’s leftover drapery fabric. It is magnificent.
Now to the performances. Seeing Meer and Pederson frolic on stage is sheer joy — the muffin scene will go down as one of my Teatro favourites.
Julien Arnold as the inflated Canon Chasuble has few lines, but I found myself hanging on every one, and wished for more. The heat between he and tittering spinster governess Miss Prism (Cathy Derkach) can be felt from the first row; as the flirtatious vicar, Arnold appears to be holding plums in his cheeks, like a man with a fat secret he can’t wait to release.
Lambert and Blanchet are delightful as the two young ladies who nearly come to blows when they believe they are engaged to the same man. Lambert has a gift for uttering hypocrisy — she cocks her chin, and holds her mouth open just wide enough to allow two opposite concepts to collide on the way out.
Leona Brausen breathes fire as Lady Bracknell. Her jowls shake like jelly and each eyebrow has a fierce life of its own. When she shouts “Where is that baby?” to Miss Prism, I feel a stab of terror, as if I must locate the infant under my very seat forthwith. Though she struggled mightily with her lines, hampering the play’s momentum in the third act, there is little doubt Brausen was made for the role.