The importance of being earnest script5/31/2023 ![]() ![]() This recontextualisation pushes the play forward in time around 30 years from the 1890s to the 1920s. In this Wildean spin on the mistaken identity trope, good honest Jack Worthing (country esquire), played by Lyle Fulton, morphs into his hedonistic brother Ernest, in order to gallivant around London. When love arrives on the scene, the pretence is stretched to the limit with hilarious consequences. In the amphitheatre of The Roman Theatre of Verulamium, St Albans, in what felt like a hurricane of flying ants, The Maltings Theatre attempts this most tricksy work. His play The Importance of Being Earnest is likewise a tale of duplicity, and a difficult one to get right. Oscar Wilde rightfully seizes the name of wit. His work is infused with the dark contradictions of the Victorian era, as a writer forced to hide a large part of himself. The production races around with frantic energy, humorously ‘Putting on the Ritz’, but in the process losing some shades of meaning. ![]() This tale of deception in the upper classes is given a roaring 1920’s overhaul. ![]()
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