A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
In an effort to become more cultured, Jesse and I got ourselves tickets to go see The Importance of Being Earnest at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles. The theatre was close, cheap, and it was a play I read in a college lit class. We probably even studied the play in that class. Come to think of it, we probably studied Wilde as a whole, at least half of a lecture worth on this play. Whatever the case, it’s kind of embarrassing that I had forgotten the end of the storyline and couldn’t think of any other Wilde writings.
After arriving, and loving the intimacy of the theatre I realized that there was no set dec. In fact there were only six or so microphones across the stage. What the heck was going on? Table read? Early rehearsal? The night was going to be a complete bust; no wonder the tickets were so cheap. The bust turned out to be the most perfect way to experience such a well-written comedic masterpiece (I use the word loosely since I think you need to have read way more then I have in order to be qualified to label things as such). Anyways. Earnest. The play-ish thing… I loved it. Every moment.
The microphones were set up because NPR recorded the evening as a part of a series. A foley artist provided the listeners at home some audio and for those of us lucky enough to be there both audio effects and a whole other artistic element to the evening that was fun to watch. He seemed to have more going on at his little table then the rest of the performers up front.
The dialogue was the focus, and no one waited for a laugh cue before continuing. Actors were great, the roles were perfectly filled for this particular evening. Last minute recasting took away some “star power” but also eliminated any potential distractions from the writer’s words. An interesting casting choice, whether it intentional or a necessity, was the casting of Lady Bracknell. An older man, wearing a pretty hat, read her part. Distracting at first, then it kind of worked, then I just heard him as a woman, then it made me think way too much about the character being a man instead of a woman and how it changes perceptions of the situations since the two male leads are struggling with identity issues to start out with… That was on its way to being a thesis which means it is time to run in the other direction…
I have read the play, seen the movie, listened to lectures, and written an essay on Wilde’s play all prior to this evening. But not until seeing it performed in this way did I truly appreciate the writing and comedic gold that Wilde presents.
I thoroughly enjoyed my evening, even on major lack of sleep. Though there isn’t any video, the “P” in NPR means that you can all go search the interwebs and enjoy it yourselves.
Link to the theatre: www.skirball.com
