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Saturday, 11 December 2004 02:06 pm
My earnest opinion
I was disappointed at the relatively small audience last night when I ushered "The Importance of Being Earnest." It occurred to me that probably fewer playgoers have the intellectual stamina for all the dry irony that Wilde packs in. It's also unusual in that it contains nothing censorable but definitely does not merit bringing a child along (a high school production of it bored me silly circa age 10). Maybe the biggest fans had merely opted for an earlier performance, or maybe it really wasn't that well reviewed.
My co-usher on the aisle, whom I found great company, agrees that TIOBE is almost entirely funny after more than a century, more timeless even than the Marx Brothers are to me. He also believes that it doesn't lend itself to movie format and perhaps is better read than played. I do know that what little I saw of the well-known older movie looked underacted, at least on the women's behalf, and the 2002 flick with Dame Judi Dench vanished rather quickly. Still, I had hopes for an Arena Fichandler (round) Stage production.
It had the opposite problem of the older movie. The director either didn't trust the script to carry itself or just felt like adding new personality to it. There was no need for the servant to cough ribaldly for attention or for the flowers to grow quickly upon watering with a cartoony sound effect, unless they really wanted to make a compromise for the audience members who didn't want all wit all the time. The hamming, especially by Algernon, pushed things a little beyond farce.
At least the costuming for Lady Bracknell and Gwendolyn was a hit. Those Victorian women looked like the could be hiding an extra set of legs, man.
I'm glad I saw the play, at any rate, because I had forgotten key parts, like much of Rev. Canon Chasuble's role. I'd even forgotten that he had a crazy name.
My co-usher on the aisle, whom I found great company, agrees that TIOBE is almost entirely funny after more than a century, more timeless even than the Marx Brothers are to me. He also believes that it doesn't lend itself to movie format and perhaps is better read than played. I do know that what little I saw of the well-known older movie looked underacted, at least on the women's behalf, and the 2002 flick with Dame Judi Dench vanished rather quickly. Still, I had hopes for an Arena Fichandler (round) Stage production.
It had the opposite problem of the older movie. The director either didn't trust the script to carry itself or just felt like adding new personality to it. There was no need for the servant to cough ribaldly for attention or for the flowers to grow quickly upon watering with a cartoony sound effect, unless they really wanted to make a compromise for the audience members who didn't want all wit all the time. The hamming, especially by Algernon, pushed things a little beyond farce.
At least the costuming for Lady Bracknell and Gwendolyn was a hit. Those Victorian women looked like the could be hiding an extra set of legs, man.
I'm glad I saw the play, at any rate, because I had forgotten key parts, like much of Rev. Canon Chasuble's role. I'd even forgotten that he had a crazy name.