The Importance of Being Earnest – REVIEW
Image: Sean O'Shea, Megan Wilding, Helen Thomson, Charles Wu in Sydney Theatre Company’s The Importance of Being Earnest, 2023. Photo: Daniel Boud ©
The STC ’s new production of The Importance of Being Earnest bursts onto Roslyn Packer Theatre’s stage like the first days of spring, shining a new light on a text with which most are familiar, at least to some degree, but not always heard with clarity.
While depending less on the studied facades of the English upper class, by stripping this away director Sarah Giles has allowed Wilde’s delicious language to shine through the cast with more than a nod to the age old techniques of a bedroom farce.
Company’s The Importance of Being Earnest, 2023. Photo: Daniel Boud ©
The action is quick, the dialogue is delivered sharply and the duplicity and hypocrisy of the Victorian era English upper class is allowed to come to the fore.
As the play progresses we also realise that while these societal foibles are seen through an English prism of another time and class system, they still resonate with us today if we care to examine our own reflections.
Earnest, 2023. Photo: Daniel Boud ©
Earnest begins with two friends, John Worthing (Brandon McClelland) and Algernon Moncrieff (Charles Wu) deciding what to do with their vacuous and pampered lives, while we are privy to the lives of the supporting ‘downstairs’ class.
Worthing tells Moncrieff how he has invented a character called Bunbury, whose fake illnesses he uses as an excuse to avoid social engagements that the does not desire.
Moncrieff’s attention soon turns to Cecily (Melissa Kahraman), Worthing’s young ward, and Worthing’s eye turns to Gwedolen (Megan Wilding), whom he is forbidden to marry by her haughty aunt, Lady Bracknell (Helen Thomson).
What plays out is a series of mistaken identities, deceit, snobbery and the use of language to mask intentions and desires as the acts change from city to country and our perspective on the players also change.
Brandon McClelland and Charles Wu bounce off each with the ease and quickness to anger that can only come from friendship as they discover unpleasant truths about each other.
While Helen Thomson owns the stage as Lady Bracknell, she is ably supported by Megan Wilding as Gwendolen Fairfax and Melissa Kahraman as Cecily Cardew.
Bruce Spence captivates as the hapless Reverend Canon Chasuble and Lucia Mastrantone gives Miss Prism the right amount of duality to her character.
Sean O’Shea, Emma O’Sullivan and Gareth Davies play multiple roles as servants with a mix of comedy and pathos.
Supporting the accomplished cast is the creative use of staging, costumes and sets that makes this production shine.
Set designer Charles Davis’ realistic designs for the upper class salons are pared back and drained of colour that allows costume designer Renee Mulder’s exaggerated and eye-popping costumes to work a treat, counterpointed with the monochrome servants quarters and costumes.
Lighting designer Alexander Berlage takes advantage of the pared back sets to work his magic which take on the palette of Victorian paintings.
Sound design from Stefan Gregory brings in some unusual but tasteful tracks from a bouncy instrumental version of “Nine to Five” and Enya’s “Orinoco Flow”.
This version of The Importance of Being Earnest is a light, bubbly and absolutely joyful new interpretation of Wilde’s most ‘trivial’ of plays that Sarah Giles has realised and is one that will be discussed for years to come.
