THEATRE: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
REVIEW BY CARLIN HURDIS
In Oscar Wilde’s Importance of Being Earnest, two young Victorian gentlemen each create an alias to indulge their ungentlemanly fancies; the Ridiculusmus production stretches pretence to high tension, with a two-man cast sharing nine parts.
Art’s aim, Wilde said, is to reveal art and conceal the artist, but in this production, on-stage costume changes demand actors Jon Haynes and David Woods expose themselves, right down to Woods’s wedged Y-fronts.Neither seemly nor seamless, the increasingly frenetic transformations push aristocratic hypocrisy into stark relief, and serve as outward manifestations of the anxiety gripping both Jack (Woods) and Algernon (Haynes), both of whom sacrifice their doubles and prepared to be christened anew.
Meanwhile, the duo are frocking up as the respective love interests, Gwendolen and Cecily, and defrocking, with the debauched vicar turning croquet into a contact sport when taking on the schoolmarm, Miss Prism. Pleasingly, the flurry of costumes does not distract from Wilde’s sparkling dialogue.
The witticisms are delivered as part of a verbal one-upmanship suggestive of imminent violence and anarchy, yet the dialogue is often often interspersed with displays of carnal inarticulateness. The conflict between the two actors’ styles draws out the latent chaos from the script. Haynes’s characters are composed, refined, knowing. Woods bears resemblance to Private Joker from Full Metal Jacket, but plays his characters with the leers, threatening and lustful by turns, of that film’s half-wit.
The stage is a jigsaw of Persian carpets, with a backdrop an array of paisley wallpapers. But any thought that this is a comment on bygone excesses is confused when the butler opens a disguised bar fridge and handclaps on the ceiling lights.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Until November 30
Upstairs Theatre at the Belvoir St Theatre
Tickets: $33-54, discounts available for multiple bookings, 9699 3444, or www.belvoir.com.au
