RAPPORT FRINGE ... MARGINAAL VERSLAG ... FRINGE BERICHT
Reviewing fringe theatre, film, art and performance in London and internationally credits
home
|
about
|
news
|
gossip
|
venues
|
brighton
|
dublin
|
edinburgh
|
film
|
features
|
interviews
|
awards
|
fashion
|
recipes
|
drinks Monday 5 January 09
|
newsletter
|
links
|
contact
Your ideas on sponsorship? details
Being Earnest: It's Rather Important
Verdict: A modern take on Oscar Wilde
Edinburgh 05 - C central - 5-29 Aug 05 - 10.10 (50 mins)
A young company (all under twenty) present The Importance of being Earnest in under an hour.
There's a simple set, 2 chairs and a table with dolls' tea set. As the audience arrives, a girl quietly plays guitar. The stage lights. The guitar plays full volume, accompanied by bongos and triangle. The cast sings Platypus - a song about a platypus, suggesting more strangeness to come.
Dress is retro-1960s. Acting is deliberately a touch histrionic. Shore Thing are a group that show immediate confidence and control of their material. However much they twist the play in their capable hands, it doesn't break.
Jack Worthington (Peter Morris) - Earnest - discusses with Algernon Moncrief (Joe Murphy) the advantages of Bunburying. Bunbury is an invented person who lives in the country and conveniently falls ill - and must be visited every time Jack wants to avoid a social engagement.
Jack particularly wants to avoid his aunt Augusta. Aunt Augusta/Lady Bracknell (Simon Cox) choses that moment to ring the doorbell - which sounds like Ride of the Valkyries.
She's accompanied by Gwendolin Fairfax (Amanda Browne), who falls for Jack (as Earnest). She strikes ridiculous poses, while he admires her from a chaise longue (which is a table). What she wants is a marriage proposal - not fawning puppy love. The proposal is made followed by a show of forgetting lines. It was all a rehearsal.
Bracknell is a man pretending to be a 13-year-old girl called Susan - his daughter - who is ill but wants the show to go on. A girl (Emily MacGregor), who plays Cecily in the Oscar Wilde play (The Importance of Being Earnest) is into Tibetan breathing and Stanislavskian preparation. She discovers 'Susan's' hairy arms, and follows him into the gents.
Bracknell interviews Jack about his marriage proposal. She sits on a high table, smoking a large cigar, while he crouches uncomfortably on a low and knobbly log. Suddenly Bracknell becomes Darth Vader - a part Susan's father always wanted to play (Bracknell is the next best thing). He/she beats up Jack, knocking him out.
Wilde's script continues (after Jack has recovered) with Cecily in the garden and Algernon (as Earnest) promising to reform. Cecily has fantasised their romance and accepts his marriage proposal with a too long and cartoon-silly kiss. Algernon rushes off to be christened Earnest.
Will there be a well-staged croquet game? Will there be deliberately mistimed sound effects of balls being hit - to punctuate the conversation? Will all end happily? Of course. Shore Thing Theatre know their stuff.
There are no weak characters. Staging is simple but effective. The performance is physical and in-the-face, but never so extreme as parody or pastiche. The company grab Wilde's script by the throat, give it a good shaking, and re-enact it in a knowing and ironic way. Shore Thing do not yet produce great theatre but they do produce theatre that is very good indeed.
Cast Credits: (alpha order): Amanda Browne - Gwendolen. Simon Cox - Lady Bracknell (* this role is performed by 'Lloydie' from 15 Aug 05). Emily MacGregor - Cecily. Pete Morris - Jack/Merriman. Joe Murphy - Algernon.
Company Credits: Writer - Oscar Wilde. Director/Adapter - Joe Murphy. Technical Operator (tonight) - Chris Powell (* Chris Cherrett from 15 Aug 05). Company - Shore Thing Youth Theatre.
END
(c) Peter Andrews 2005
Reviewed 9 August 05 / C central
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
www.fringereport.com
