Brian Hemmingsen and David Bryan Jackson. Photo by Jae Yi Photography.
When we think of the Victorian era, which produced subversive wits like Oscar Wilde, we tend to stereotype it as a time of prudishness and ultra-conservatism. And yet Wilde’s London was filled with performers who shot to fame for cross-dressing. When women weren’t starring in “breeches” roles—for which they either played men or women pretending to be men—the Music Halls and Christmas Pantomimes often featured men in skirts, playing rude dames for laughs or sentimental mothers for tears.
Naturally these performers made for brisk business in the tabloids of the day, and audiences often wondered at the private lives of these shape-shifters. It’s hardly material that their private lives were often as quiet as their stage lives were bold; people were keen to speculate wildly.
…McNamara has assembled considerable talent indeed.
I mention this because although the concept of cross-gender casting might raise a few eyebrows in our own day it was actually par for the course in Victorian times—in fact it was known to gin up business. Robert McNamara’s revival of his gender-bending production of Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is actually part of a long and distinguished tradition, which allowed actors to demonstrate the full range of their talents—and McNamara has assembled considerable talent indeed.
Wilde’s classic play centers on two eligible bachelors, Jack and Algernon, who confess to leading double lives. Each has created a fictional relation – Algernon’s famous “Bunbury” and Jack’s rakish brother “Earnest”—whose troubles force them to leave hearth and home. Once out of their family’s clutches they live as they please; but when romance rears its pretty head, they quickly find themselves the victims of their own schemes.
Leading this cast of Scena regulars is the inimitable Brian Hemmingsen in the role of Lady Bracknell; Hemmingsen’s quiet authority and imperturbability anchor the show in the cockeyed reality of Wilde’s universe. And it’s a real treat to watch Nanna Ingvarsson swagger – that’s right, swagger – onstage as Jack, Bracknell’s prospective son-in-law. Ingvarsson has mastered the tics and vanity of the male of the species, which makes their scenes together well worth the trip to wild and woolly H Street, NE (which on the night I attended looked like a scene out of American Graffiti, a nice after-show). Danielle Davy, while new to the role of Algernon, does a creditable young man-about-town.
The other love-birds have some nice moments as well: David Bryan Jackson is brilliant as the frazzled Miss Prism (whose misplaced novel lies at the core of the plot), while Amie Cazel cuts a discreet figure as Rev. Canon Chasuble. Ellie Nicoll and Mary Suib serve ably as the laconic, long-suffering butlers Lane and Merriman, and have the benefit of Alisa Mandel’s stylish taste in male costume. Meanwhile Michael Stepowany‘s open set, laid out in Gatsby-esque style has the flexibility required to show a typical upper-crust mansion and its grounds. With the action set in the silent-film era, this gives Tony Starnes the opportunity to provide commentary on the action with intertitles projected onto the upstage wall, running the gamut from contemporary puns to footnote-style references to Wilde’s contemporaries (“GBS”= George Bernard Shaw, for example).
I stress the performers and design here because although they are all worth the ticket, unfortunately the production concept is less effective. Given McNamara’s gifts as a director it is surprising to see such a brisk, witty script given the slow, Symbolist treatment. The pace that worked so famously for Wilde’s Salome (produced so brilliantly two years ago) tends to weigh down the business here. Slowing down the pace for extra sight gags and poses tends to kill the laughter—which is a shame because with Earnest, Wilde’s humor thrives on rapid-paced, straight-faced delivery. The mugging is unnecessary, and although there’s always room for physical comedy there’s little need to stop the play in its tracks for it.
Running Time: 2 ½ hours with one intermission.
The Importance of Being Earnest runs through September 13 2015 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center which is located at 1333 H Street NE, Washington, D.C. For tickets, call the Atlas box office at 202-399-7993 or click here.
