Review: The Importance Of Being Earnest

A relentlessly paced and liberating adaptation of a popular masterpiece, Bruiser NI's production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest, re-imagined by director Lisa May with an all-male cast, is the kind of vibrant production that frequently grabs your attention and toyfully plays with it in various ways from beginning to end.

It is a typical Bruiser production, an eccentrically revelatory and appreciatively celebratory approach to classic literature – in this case, a wild world and Wilde world at once. Punctuated, as it is, by catchy Gilbert & Sullivan-esque compositions performed by its cast, composed deftly by Matthew Reeve and choreographed amusingly by Sarah Johnston, this Importance Of Being Earnest - hereafter Earnest - embraces new ideas and commendably blends them as light entertainment and social commentary.

Without, despite the female characters in the production, a single female on stage. This is, as director May herself admits, a means of drawing parallels to contemporary Northern Ireland and social equality, reflecting Wilde's own struggles with a homosexual affair in the midst of a conservative Victorian society where he was surrounded by men.

It would be easy to think that Bruiser's Earnest will go full hog and everyone will be tempted to camp it up, having a bit of a - literally - gay old time on stage during the courtships. But the play is, instead, rather respectable. For better or worse, I see it as less an open challenge to sexual politics and more an exploration of gender roles, a strong exhibition of what men and men-pretending-to-be-women can do on one stage, without seriously calling attention to themselves.

We've recently had a successful all-female Shakespeare production in Belfast, so why not an all-male Wilde? Where, similarly, the inhabitation of the richly versed characters is paramount. And that's how it is for the strong ensemble of seven who immediately jump into enlivening us with the wit, bug-eyed expressionism and farcical comedy that wouldn't look out of place in a good episode of Frasier.

That classic sitcom was renowned for the mistaken identity and non-existent characters that permeate Earnest, namely Joseph O'Malley's Jack Worthing and Joseph Derrington's Algernon Moncrieff. For class purposes, Jack goes under the name of Ernest (not Earnest) in the town while retaining his own name in the country. And for Algernon, his imaginary friend Bunbury is a means of escape from unwanted responsibilities.

The freedom that both men perceive an alias to give them will be put to the test when Jack proposes to Gwendolyn Fairfax (Samuel Townsend) as Ernest, and when Algernon "borrows" the name of Ernest, pretending to be Jack's brother as a means to court Jack's ward, Cecily Cardew (Chris Robinson). Who's Ernest? Who's earnest? And what's in a name? It's all up in the air, where chuckles are frequent, if uproar is rare.

The Wildean wit ("All women become like their mothers... No man does", "The suspense is terrible, I hope it'll last") regularly crackles alongside surface tomfoolery, visual invention and creative costuming. Of note are Karl O'Neill's Doctor Chausible, playing his part like Tom Baker's Doctor Who, eccentricities and all; Chris Robinson's knowingly sensible and unexpectedly devious take on Cecily; and, best of all, Ross Anderson-Doherty's menacing and authoritative Lady Bracknell.

If some of the ideas come across better in concept than in execution, briefly, if not damagingly, drawing you out of affairs, the blemishes are not serious enough to blunt an on-the-whole pleasant experience. It is to Bruiser and May's credit that they have crafted an easily accessible and somewhat daring production dedicated to satisfying author, vision and audience, one that can be equally appreciated by Wildeans and those who have never read him.



The Importance Of Being Earnest ran at Belfast's MAC Theatre.

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