The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde may well be the most popular play of all time outside of the Shakespearean canon. The constant barrage of paradoxical quips and the steady building up to a gloriously chaotic farce make it a true delight to witness when performed well, or even competently. Unfortunately, even the strongest play is good only as good as its cast and director. I have seen this magnificent play on no fewer than ten occasions and been disappointed on no fewer than six of them. Wooden acting and forgotten lines are a fact of life, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about badly interpreting the text. Wilde has sketched out an hilarious collection of characters that all complement one another perfectly. Misunderstanding one sets the whole balance off. It is enough to make one want to go into the directing business just to show people how to do it right. Below are a series of notes about characters frequently mishandled and the correct manner in which to handle them.
Cecily:
We’ll start with Cecily as she is in fact that best character in the play. Cecily is something of an oddball, prone to absurd statements about being engaged to men she’s never met and writing love letters on their behalf. The character is brilliant, Wilde blends a playfulness, a sense of whimsy, a sense of irony and a keen intellect to create a fun and humorous personality for our enjoyment. Regrettably some directors seem unsure of how to manage such a complex character and instead take the low road of presenting her as stupid and on occasions even a little senile. Stupidity admittedly could account for some of her strange comments, but does not reconcile with many of her others.
Consider Cecily’s sparring match with Gwendolyn over tea and cake
Gwendolen. Are there many interesting walks in the vicinity, Miss Cardew?
Cecily. Oh! yes! a great many. From the top of one of the hills quite close one can see five counties.
Gwendolen. Five counties! I don’t think I should like that; I hate crowds.
Cecily. [Sweetly.] I suppose that is why you live in town? [Gwendolen bites her lip, and beats her foot nervously with her parasol.]
Gwendolen. [Looking round.] Quite a well-kept garden this is, Miss Cardew.
Cecily. So glad you like it, Miss Fairfax.
Gwendolen. I had no idea there were any flowers in the country.
Cecily. Oh, flowers are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in London.
By any reading of this scene Cecily can be, when she is called on to be, can be blistering. She is well equipped to take care of herself and portraying her as a ditsy young girl not only renders scenes like this one illogical, they also spoil her relationship with Algernon. Algernon and Cecily are such a wonderful couple because they are equals. Both are suave, witty and fond of the ridiculous, they are so alike they make a perfect match. But turn Cecily into a fool and Algernon becomes a little creepy. He’s a significantly older man, and if Cecily is a fool then he’s really just a sleaze picking up young, pretty girls. If she’s brilliant and funny on the other hand we can believe he is drawn to her personality and that is something we can all enjoy relatively guilt free.
Algernon:
While on the topic of Algernon, he is generally well portrayed but even he is sometimes misunderstood. Algernon is unemployed and lazy which some directors seem to interpret as meaning he is a slob. He is nothing of the kind, he is a dandy, fastidious in dress, courteous in address and intelligent in conversation. We need only examine the line
Algernon. If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.
To get a clear insight into Algernon’s characterisation. He is not unemployed because he is a bludger, he is unemployed because he is an educated aristocrat who sees menial labour to be too tedious for a fabulous intellect such as his. Which brings us to the second mistake we sometimes see with Algernon: He is not a self-doubting character, he is insouciance itself. Yes, he is in love with Cecily and that love is genuine but it should not reduce him to sincerity. He is always glib and clever, the more serious the context the more ridiculous he becomes, that is the whole point in the play. A Trivial Comedy for Serious people: where the trivial is treated with absurd reverence and the serious is treated with obscene levity. Algernon expressly says as much in the second act:
Algernon. Well, one must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life. I happen to be serious about Bunburying. What on earth you are serious about I haven’t got the remotest idea. About everything, I should fancy. You have such an absolutely trivial nature.
Jack:
Jack Worthing is probably the character most frequently mishandled, although the degree to which this occurs tends to be fairly small. He is often portrayed as a straight man. This is incorrect. It is understandable in a production with such brassy characters as Algernon, Lady Bracknell and Cecily that the subtler quirks of Jack are perhaps underappreciated, but they are nonetheless there.
Jack is tremendous hypocrite. He presents as virtuous and upfront but is in fact as duplicitous and as irrational as the cast of loons he purports to be above. So much of the opening scene revolves around Algernon baiting a trap for his dishonest friend, then smacking his lips hungrily as the net begins to close in around him. He should be a bit neurotic, his neurosis a product of his needing to cover the constant lies he tells. He is also a sardonic wit, though incorrect he does believe himself to be the only sane person in the play and, as a consequence, his contempt is very real when he snarks
Lady Bracknell. … A thoroughly experienced French maid produces a really marvellous result in a very brief space of time. I remember recommending one to young Lady Lancing, and after three months her own husband did not know her.
Jack. And after six months nobody knew her.
Or
Algernon. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!
Jack. That wouldn’t be at all a bad thing.
It does not so much damage the play to rob Jack of his personality. Few characters depend on him for their own development as Cecily or Algernon, but it is wasted potential, screaming to be used.
Lady Bracknell:
There is no doubt the aged old matriarch is supposed to be a broadly drawn character. But it is still possible, and indeed far too common, to overdo it. Lady Bracknell has many long monologues where it might be fun to blow her up into a cartoonish parody, but she also has some fast and feisty exchanges. Wilde has written a sizzling script and it is important to give the script space to do its job. Many an over-the-top Lady Bracknell has punctured the humour of these exchanges by distracting from the dialogue itself.
Lady Bracknell. In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?
Jack. In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.
Lady Bracknell. The cloak-room at Victoria Station?
Jack. Yes. The Brighton line.
Lady Bracknell. The line is immaterial.
Exchanges like this need to be fast paced, they need to be clear and the audience needs to allowed to focus on the dialogue. Done well this line can get the biggest laugh of the play. But with exaggerated acting and diction from Lady Bracknell, an audience can struggle to follow it and the punchline falls flat.
Gwendolyn:
Gwendolyn generally seems like a safe bet. She is a self-absorbed snob with a sneering wit and an unconventional set of principles. She is completely without self awareness, and cuts brilliant contrast with Cecily whose every utterance is dripping with mocking irony. Most directors/actors seem to be able to produce a solid Gwendolyn.
Most, but not all. I was recently subjected to a bizarre portrayal of her as a sort of aggressive, bogan diva. It was not inexplicable. Take a line like:
Jack. I do mean something else.
Gwendolen. I thought so. In fact, I am never wrong.
Something like this does lend itself somewhat to the temperamental brat, but the performance was no less painful for it. Gwendolen is a parody of aristocracy, she likes to think she is gliding majestically above an inferior rabble, not stomping petulantly beneath it. The exchange immediately below for example could only be delivered by a truly authentic member of the aristocracy. The bogan brat just doesn’t work.
Cecily. Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade.
Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different.
Other
Chasubel, Prism and Lane are all smaller characters and I won’t analyse them in detail only to say that just because they are more subdued characters, their comic worth should not be neglected. Too many directors play them as perfectly straight characters for the stars to bounce off, but they have much more potential than that. Many a good Chasubel has stolen the show from a wooden Algernon, and Cecily isn’t half so entertaining without a truly fogeyish Ms Prism to trade barbs with.
To me the true pleasure in the theatre isn’t the Sydney Theatre Company at the Opera House, but the local amateur troop performing in front of a hastily painted set at a run down Scout’s Hall. It’s in those smaller productions that the magic truly happens, where the grandeur of great sets, make up and sound effects is stripped away and all you’re left with is a sizzling script and your actors. That’s when you can really be transported into a different world. And understandably these actors aren’t going to have all the tricks of the trade that the STC have. I can forgive a little wooden acting, I don’t mind a mangled line here or there. But they must understand their characters. Everything else is secondary. The Importance of Being Earnest is such a well crafted play, if you can only properly interpret your characters, the script will do the work every time and the audience will have a good night.
lentern 