The Importance of Being Earnest (2008)
St Kilda Rd’s Adamson Theatre Company launched its 2008 season on April 16th with a festive cocktail party in the Cato Room, attended by numerous former stage-strutters from the last five years, followed by a truly elegant and sophisticated performance of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. It is never easy doing a famous play, since audiences come with many expectations, but the cast of experienced actors and some talented newcomers more than did justice to the wit and wisdom of Wilde’s dialogue (much of it so well known that any performance is like sitting through a dramatisation of the Oxford Book of Literary Quotations). As highly experienced directors Tony Scanlon and Clare Cooper pointed out in their program notes, there was a need to focus on the clarity of diction and the cadences of speech unfamiliar to contemporary Australians, and hence early rehearsals were akin to ”an extended elocution lesson.” It can only be said that in the rendering of Wilde’s silky aphorisms, and linguistic tricks, the production was a triumph.
Equal to the style of the design, which perfectly captured the effete world of Wilde’s own chattering class, were the individual performances of the actors, several of whom were tackling big roles for the first time. Chief among these was Lauren Midgely, well known to musical patrons, in her first purely dramatic role, as the formidable Lady Bracknell. She commanded the stage during her several appearances, and delivered Wilde’s words with stentorian vigour. As the two young men, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, newcomer Ilya Milstein (a deep admirer of Wilde’s work) and Ben McMullin (an old hand in his first lead role) complemented each other perfectly with beautifully restrained, and equally beautifully spoken, performances. Joanna Blair and Ellen Coyne (sharing the part of Gwendolen) and Grace Louey and Tashi Dewhurst (doing likewise with the role of Cecily) were all outstanding, finding in Wilde’s heroines all kinds of strengths and subtleties (even beyond what the author might have imagined). And there was much delight for the audience in the coy romance of Miss Prism (a lovely and often poignant characterisation by Annabelle Tudor) and the venerable Canon Chasuble (another newcomer Ryan Murphy, with an instinct for under-stated comedy. He has a gift for the stage you can’t teach). The underlings and servants, played variously by Morgan Stubbs, Chris Borzillo and Max Simon, were also studied and graceful in their subservience, and added to the authenticity of this production’s re-creation of a vanished world.
The usual production team was on hand to showcase the talent on display. Clare Cooper and Tony Scanlon as directors handled the material with customary assurance and insight, and their vision for the play was supported by the technical direction of Sabino Delbalso and the costumes of Stephanie Des Barres. Sam Cook (OW) helped design the marvelous and evocative sets, and year 12 student Francesca Kavanagh did a splendid job as the Stage Manager.
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