'Earnest' pushes the limits of Victorian reality

Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest is an unabashedly self-indulgent comedy whose characters embody the ideal of effortless wit. The play takes the stage this weekend in a performance which, while enjoyable, experiences difficulty in fully expressing the satire that the author intended. While the actors play the deceptively challenging roles well, they fail to deliver, on occasion, the entire richness of Wilde's language by speeding over his carefully articulated phrases.

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH 'Earnest' has velvety sets and all.

The story takes place over a weekend, relating the complex scheming of two English friends. Each maintains the existence of a fictitious individual, convincing his friends and relatives of this individual's sudden illness whenever he needs to escape the inevitable dreariness of their company. The country-dwelling Jack (Daniel Larlham, SM '00) is in love with the cousin of his London chum, Algernon (Michael Gott-
lieb, TC '00).

Jack frequently visits his darling Gwendolen (Vanessa Wolf, BR '01), who knows him as Ernest, under the pretense of visiting his brother, Ernest. When Jack recounts that his young, attractive ward, Cecily, has become quite curious about Ernest, Algernon takes an immediate fancy to her. He excuses himself from dinner with his socially hyper-conscious aunt, Lady Bracknell (Vikram Somaya, CC '98), by conveniently claiming the ill health of his imaginary friend, Bunbury. Unbeknownst to Jack, Algernon proceeds to assume the person of Ernest, venturing to Jack's country residence to meet the alluring Cecily. Humorous confusion ensues as Algernon (as Ernest) woos Cecily, and Gwendolen arrives at the country house awaiting her Ernest.

Director Andrew Eggert, MC '00, strives to create an atmosphere of Victorian excess to capture the essence of Wilde's social satire. While certain elements of the production work effectively toward this end, the performance often struggles to achieve harmony between the reality of human emotion and the extraordinary (and even unnatural) wittiness of the characters.

Wilde intentionally loaded his script with clever dialogue and maintained a simple plot; the challenge in bringing the play to life lies in creating characters that understand their relationship to this ambience of social satire. Each character must discover in his or her nature the proportion of this relationship to his or her emotions; unfortunately, the actors often neglect one of the two, detracting from the truthfulness of their characters. It is only in Act III that all of the actors reach an awareness of these proportions and consequently succeed in conveying the tonal variations between playful moments of repartée and serious moments of emotional import.

At the outset, the male leads represent opposite extremes of the tonal spectrum. Eggert's interpretation of Algernon is somewhat overstated--he seems to be a parody of the character Wilde intended, rather than a stereotypical bourgeois Londoner. Gottlieb, however, performs Eggert's vision of the role excellently, capturing the daintiness of Algernon's physical gestures. He casually devours foodstuffs and spins out witticisms as Jack recounts his romantic difficulties. In the scene in which Cecily forces Jack to take Algernon's hand (believing him to be Jack's brother), Gottlieb is delightfully devilish in affecting painful distress at Jack's refusal to make up with him. Larlham, on the other hand, offers a heavier Jack, who seems too far removed from the cleverness of his cohort. Although Jack is markedly less sarcastic than Algernon, Larlham plays him with a decided reservation that hinders, on occasion, the light interchanges between the two.

Similarly, in the scenes between Gwendolen and Cecily, the subtlety of the ironic comments about social habits is sometimes lost. When their conversation about Ernest becomes a debate over rightful possession, some of the insults are well-aimed, exemplifying the gracefulness of a sharp, female tongue. Both actresses, however, occasionally deliver lines without pause sufficient for the audience to comprehend the impact of their words.

The set design, by Mary Hong, MC '00, represents splendid period work to highlight the extravagance of the 19th-century English upper classes. Each act has a unique setting; plush furniture abounds indoors while dazzling white wicker chairs and trellises give a summery feel to Jack's country patio. The crowning touch is the skillfully decorated walls which, painted green with dark fringes, give the amazing appearance of being covered in velvet.

As a whole, the production is successfully humorous, livening a script that has great potential with strong characterizations (Somaya tackles his cross-gendered role with surprising ease). A greater appreciation of Wilde's subtlely is the only element it requires to shine completely.

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