Oscar Wilde’s 1895 play, The Importance of Being Earnest,
is subtitled “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People”. In its satirical way,
though, it’s not so trivial at all, even as it appears farcical. Yes, the story
is about two men who lie about their identities to get out of numerous
obligations, but in his criticism of a certain social strata, Wilde is
effectively calling out the people sitting in the audience. And with its
clockwork like structure, in some ways it’s really a Serious Comedy for (or
about) Trivial People.
Back in 2011, the Melbourne Theatre Company produced a
star-studded production of the play, with director Simon Phillips recreating
his 1988 production, reuniting some of his original cast with some new
theatrical stars like Christie Whelan-Browne and Toby Schmitz. This was a gorgeous
rendering of the play in full, savouring Wilde’s delicious language and turning
up the tension of his finely-tuned plot with some incredible physicality and
top-notch performances.
A few years earlier, Ridiculusmus (Jon Haynes and David
Wood) had staged a two-man version of the same play as part of the Melbourne Comedy
Festival. The pair have divided their time between the UK and Australia ever since,
challenging the shape and dynamics of stage craft with some strange theatrical
concoctions indeed. Their productions are always a wonderful mix of physical
performance and word-play, which are the main strengths they bring to Wilde’s
classic play of nine characters.
Yes, in this production, which I’ve heard talked about in
the fourteen years since it first appeared in Melbourne (it has travelled the
world before and since, last seen in Germany in 2011), Haynes and Wood perform every
character in the play. And as the plot twists and turns, the number of
characters on stage at any one time increases and the two actors have a lot more
on their plates than cucumber sandwiches.
Early on, there’s a lot of delight to be had in the
anachronisms and the theatrical inventiveness. The actors appear to change
lighting states themselves and play modern music to set various moods and
scenes. I went into the show expecting lots of quick changes, but then they
pull the rug out by doing slow changes and one you’re used to that rhythm, some
mind-boggling swaps from butlers to Bracknell.
A lot of the laughs come from Wilde’s original play, though,
and after a while, the stage trickery becomes a little more predictable. Haynes
and Wood try to change things up – there’s some puppetry at one point, but
eventually the humour that came from the two of them juggling multiple
characters dissipates. The longer it went on (opening night ran almost two and
a half hours, with an interval), the more I wished I was watching the full play
and revelling in Wilde’s witty dialogue.
Haynes and Wood have been together as Ridiculusmus for
thirty years and this production is fifteen years old. I wonder how it was
received as part of the Comedy Festival in 2006 and whether the fact it was now
programmed at the Malthouse meant I went in with different expectations. I
imagine the actors’ performances can only be that much stronger, but the
conceit itself slowly wore itself out over its lengthy running time.
Earnest isn’t an old play that needs much justification
to revisit it. The satire still lands, the jokes still work and because Wilde
plays with a lot of subtext because of the time in which he wrote it, it feels
much more modern than it really is. Part of the play is about gender roles and how
society sets its expectations of men and women.
Given the queer theatrical landscape
in Melbourne – a world of Sisters Grimm and Little Ones, this Ridiculusmus
production feels a little undergraduate and more than a little quaint. I
enjoyed myself, but really wondered what Little Ones might have done with Wilde’s
play – given their history of adapting some of his short stories into beautiful
theatrical gems.
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| Photos by Pia Johnson |
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