PREVIEW
The Importance of Being Earnest
Teatro La Quindicina
July 12 to 28
At Varscona Theatre
10329 – 83 Ave.
Tickets: Start at $25 visit www.teatroq.com
Teatro La Quindicina enjoys a golden reputation for producing playwright-director Stewart Lemoine’s elegant satires.
But this month, the theatre company is mounting Oscar Wilde’s most enduring play, The Importance of Being Earnest. Packed with witty one-liners, the popular theatre classic is considered one of the funniest plays ever written.
On the surface, it’s a farcical comedy about two gentlemen who do anything to escape pedantic social obligations or responsibilities. That is until they are snared in lies of their own making.
On a deeper level it’s a scathing attack of the late Victorian upper class's rigid social attitudes and hypocrisy.
“What’s fascinating about the period is it had become so studied, so conservative, so completely airless. What Oscar was about was bursting the conservative bubble. The play was considered quite shocking at the time. To prick the conservative bubble in Alberta is quite the delightful thing,” said Teatro’s artistic director Jeff Haslam.
Haslam explained there were several reasons for staging the play. Not only is it funny and entertaining, but the ideal actors were available.
“If we can’t get the right cast, we do something else. I’m blessed with funny actors that bring freshness almost as if it’s improvised,” said Haslam.
This comedy of manners centres on Jack Worthing (Mark Meer) and Algernon Moncrieff (Ron Pederson), the two gentlemen leading a double life.
“I saw Mark act with Ron and they’re best friends and I was interested to see what they would concoct together. They are the kind of actors that embrace the element of surprise. There are great swaths of text in the play that can turn on a dime and they understand the requirements.
“This kind of play requires the actors to understand the sense of surprise. They need to be surprised over and over and over.”
Interestingly, the two ladies the gentlemen romance – Gwendolen Fairfax (Louise Lambert) and Cecily Cardew (Shannon Blanchet) – drive much of the action.
While Lambert’s Gwendolen is vain and cunning, Blanchet’s younger Cecily is a more innocent version.
“They’re delightful to watch. They are strong women and understand they are not just ingenues.”
But the icing on the cake is the casting of Leona Brausen as the supercilious Lady Bracknell, one of theatre’s most delightfully snobbish characters.
“Leona is a real battleaxe. She’s one of those people that immediately inhabits the character, so it wasn’t a giant step for her. The most important thing was to get the lines right and all the epigrams spoken clearly.”
Haslam shies away from spelling out his vision preferring to let Wilde deliver the commentary while the company “interprets it trippingly on the tongue.”
He goes on to describe the two-act as a confection.
“It’s like floating on a cloud. It requires a light, deft touch and that’s what I want everyone to remember. If the actors are having a good time, the audience will, too.”
The Importance of Being Earnest runs at Varscona Theatre July 12 to 28.
