Classic Spring Theatre Co. (live broadcast), 09/10/2018
Oscar Wilde : The Importance of Being Earnest
Classic Spring Theatre Company
Directed by Michael Fentiman
The Importance of Being Earnest is, arguably, the most quoted - indeed, the most quote-full - English-language play after Shakespeare's works. The audience sits in wait for Wilde's cascade of cynical aphorisms and witty repartee, maybe not always quite sure where any given line sits exactly, but knowing that it will come, at some point, and expecting to be able to laugh at that point. To a director, and the cast, I imagine this can be something of a burden, A delight, perhaps, probably, even, but also a burden; how to make the appropriate impact, how to calculate just the right pace and timing to make for the most effective delivery. It's a delicate balancing act, and one that this production does not quite get right.
The problem from the outset was the delivery, particularly in the first act. While the text in An Ideal Husband, seen in June, flowed effortlessly, tossed back and forth with disarming ease between the characters, here, it groaned with artifice, subtlety of pacing sacrificed to speed, impossibly arch, heavily under-scored so that there was no room for any kind of gradation of interpretation, every line, every joke thwacked out into the open with minimal discretion. Wilde can take it, he's funny enough even at the worst of times, but it became wearisome, to be led around by the nose in such a determined fashion, and every single one of the five principals present in Act 1 was at it.
Matters improved considerably from the outset of Act 2, with Stella Gonet finally imparting a degree of naturalism to Miss Prism's speech, and Fiona Button's husky mezzo timbre, and charmingly capricious Cecily, pleasing to the ear and appealingly dotty as a character. With these two as anchors, the rest of the cast eased up on the artificiality, and Wilde's words finally flowed as they should, with the right degree of spacing that allows the listener to hear them in more than one way.
I still felt that Fehinti Balogun was working way too hard at Algie - and Fentiman's direction of the character as an all-purpose lothario was distracting - while Jacob Fortune-Lloyd was somewhat stuck on a single note of exasperation as Jack, but Pippa Nixon benefited substantially from the break. Gwendolen is, admittedly, an infuriating character, and it's very hard not to pity Jack his choice of wife, but there was a kind of awareness of her own ridiculousness that made her more endearing as the evening progressed.
Sophie Thompson's Lady Bracknell was marked by a wavering vocal range, from plummy snobbery to fluting uncertainty, making her a little more vulnerable in one sense, but also delaying the certainty that she's very much a parvenu herself. That said, the 'handbag' moment was nicely played, no vivid statement of aghast astonishment, but a small, almost squeaky, yet crisp repetition by way of affirmation that she had indeed heard correctly, all the while looking as if she had swallowed her tongue backwards.
The staging was traditional, period clothing and semi-period sets, substantially less cluttered than they probably would have been, which was a visual relief. However, Fentiman's direction was about as suavely urbane as a brick through plate glass. It's not because the piece is very well known that you have to underscore every point in fluorescent marker pen.
[Next : 11th October]
Classic Spring Theatre Company
Directed by Michael Fentiman
The Importance of Being Earnest is, arguably, the most quoted - indeed, the most quote-full - English-language play after Shakespeare's works. The audience sits in wait for Wilde's cascade of cynical aphorisms and witty repartee, maybe not always quite sure where any given line sits exactly, but knowing that it will come, at some point, and expecting to be able to laugh at that point. To a director, and the cast, I imagine this can be something of a burden, A delight, perhaps, probably, even, but also a burden; how to make the appropriate impact, how to calculate just the right pace and timing to make for the most effective delivery. It's a delicate balancing act, and one that this production does not quite get right.
The problem from the outset was the delivery, particularly in the first act. While the text in An Ideal Husband, seen in June, flowed effortlessly, tossed back and forth with disarming ease between the characters, here, it groaned with artifice, subtlety of pacing sacrificed to speed, impossibly arch, heavily under-scored so that there was no room for any kind of gradation of interpretation, every line, every joke thwacked out into the open with minimal discretion. Wilde can take it, he's funny enough even at the worst of times, but it became wearisome, to be led around by the nose in such a determined fashion, and every single one of the five principals present in Act 1 was at it.
Matters improved considerably from the outset of Act 2, with Stella Gonet finally imparting a degree of naturalism to Miss Prism's speech, and Fiona Button's husky mezzo timbre, and charmingly capricious Cecily, pleasing to the ear and appealingly dotty as a character. With these two as anchors, the rest of the cast eased up on the artificiality, and Wilde's words finally flowed as they should, with the right degree of spacing that allows the listener to hear them in more than one way.
I still felt that Fehinti Balogun was working way too hard at Algie - and Fentiman's direction of the character as an all-purpose lothario was distracting - while Jacob Fortune-Lloyd was somewhat stuck on a single note of exasperation as Jack, but Pippa Nixon benefited substantially from the break. Gwendolen is, admittedly, an infuriating character, and it's very hard not to pity Jack his choice of wife, but there was a kind of awareness of her own ridiculousness that made her more endearing as the evening progressed.
Sophie Thompson's Lady Bracknell was marked by a wavering vocal range, from plummy snobbery to fluting uncertainty, making her a little more vulnerable in one sense, but also delaying the certainty that she's very much a parvenu herself. That said, the 'handbag' moment was nicely played, no vivid statement of aghast astonishment, but a small, almost squeaky, yet crisp repetition by way of affirmation that she had indeed heard correctly, all the while looking as if she had swallowed her tongue backwards.
The staging was traditional, period clothing and semi-period sets, substantially less cluttered than they probably would have been, which was a visual relief. However, Fentiman's direction was about as suavely urbane as a brick through plate glass. It's not because the piece is very well known that you have to underscore every point in fluorescent marker pen.
[Next : 11th October]