The Importance of Being Earnest
Rose Theatre Kingston
Reviewed: Thursday
Lyric Theatre, HK Academy for Performing Arts, until February 5
Here is a play to be enjoyed. Sure, you can read a lot more into this Oscar Wilde classic than just a comedy - it is also a satire on the sexual repression and hypocrisy in Victorian England, the social class system, and a study on identity duality with a homosexual subtext ('earnest' can be deciphered as 'gay', for instance). But why get so serious when the writing is so full of wit, charm and fun?
This Rose Theatre Kingston production directed by Stephen Unwin offers a thoroughly entertaining interpretation of this delightful play about two young bachelors who lead double lives; Jack Worthing pretends to have a brother named Ernest, while Algernon Moncrieff has a fictional friend, Bunbury. Both men use these characters as their alibis. However, when Jack's love interest, Gwendolen Fairfax, who knows him only as Ernest, meets his ward Cecily Cardew, who is in love with Algernon who claims to be Jack's brother Ernest, a farce of mistaken identity ensues. To further complicate the situation, Gwendolen's mother, Lady Bracknell, also has a secret that will reveal the real identity of Jack.
The performance is well-paced and engaging, so much so that Act One felt extremely short. The comic timing is superb; the delivery and mannerism contemporary; the cast sounds as if they come straight from a modern-day sitcom. Some may find that slightly unconventional, but it does inject freshness into this 117-year-old piece.
Mark Edel-Hunt makes a mischievous and dashing Algernon, while Daniel Brocklebank's Jack comes across as a little uptight and manic. But the star of the show is still the Irish author whose biting wit and use of English - listen out for those famous quotations - is what makes The Importance of Being Earnest an enduring and popular play.
