This altered 'Earnest' deserves another run
Considering how little theater survives from the era of Oscar Wilde, the durability of his 1895 featherweight comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest is best left untested. Or so it seemed prior to the updating and gender reversal at the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival on Thursday. Wilde words weren't always comfortably framed, but in a limited way the play thrived.
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Considering how little theater survives from the era of Oscar Wilde, the durability of his 1895 featherweight comedy,
The Importance of Being Earnest
is best left untested. Or so it seemed prior to the updating and gender reversal at the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival on Thursday. Wilde words weren't always comfortably framed, but in a limited way the play thrived.
Upon entering the Walnut Street Theatre's Studio 5, viewer expectations needed to be immediately adjusted. Remaking such a great play requires more time, money and stagecraft than what's possible under these festival circumstances. But in an indication of what was accomplished, this team, directed by Jennifer MacMillan, would be crazy not to somehow continue this endeavor beyond the current run.
The updating and gender reversal were only part of a larger free-floating artificiality that recontextualized Wilde's geometrically plotted drawing-room comedy about mistaken-identity romance. The broad-strokes, primary-colored set resembled Pee-wee Herman's playhouse with a miniature trampoline allowing characters to make bouncier entrances. Few had hair (or hair colors) found in nature. When characters disguised their gender, mustaches were purposefully fake. Even when playing the stuffy, imperious Lady Bracknell, Alex Bechtel (who comically towered over everybody, in drag of course) was smart to use the possibilities of his natural baritone voice.
Amid so much artifice, you never questioned Wilde's contrived plot points and instead focused on the play's source of reality - the layers of emotional dynamics. But even just looking at the surfaces, the insular qualities of Wilde's upper class coincided surprisingly with the clueless, Gen-X slacker types seen here. Some text-stretching was required, and the concept wasn't carried out with seamlessness or consistency. That meant the production's success ultimately was up to the actors. They all came through, though sometimes fitfully.
Laughs flowed most consistently from Kristen Norine's turquoise-haired Algernon, thanks to her considerable verbal acuity and a look that suggested Linda Ronstadt's criminal twin.
Fine feats of comic timing also radiated from Sarah Milici's pink-haired Cecily - one of the few characters played in her/his original gender. Everybody had a manic quality seldom seen in Victorian theater - but then you noticed how much the vigor of Wilde's text asks for it.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Written by Oscar Wilde, directed by Jennifer MacMillan.
Cast: Kristen Norine (Algernon), Jamie Branagh (Jack), Alex Bechtel (Lady Bracknell), Adam R. Deremer (Gwendolyn), Sarah Milici (Cecily), Ben Stanley (Rev. Chausable and others).
Playing at: Walnut Street Theatre's Studio 5, 825 Walnut St. Through June 24. Tickets: $17.50 Information: 215-922-1122 or www.philagaylesbian
theatrefest.org.EndText
Theater Review
The Importance
of Being Earnest
Through June 29 at Walnut
Street Theatre Studio 5,
825 Walnut St. Tickets: $17.50. Information: 215-627-6483, www.philagaylesbiantheatrefest.org.