Performing Oscar Wilde can be difficult. His plays are filled with such subtle wit and clever turns of phrase that lines that might get a laugh on the page can often fall flat onstage if not said with just the right expression. Fortunately, Trinity College Drama Society’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest (arguably Wilde’s best-known work) managed to do an excellent job with the text.
There are many couplings in Earnest, and every character has some sort of relationship with each other. The entire cast had great chemistry, which helped the banter remain convincing, whether it was the Reverend shooting lewd glances to Miss Prism, or John telling Algernon to stop eating his muffins. The cast was also capable of dealing with the difficult dialogue, as well as the accents. Although the latter threatened to be problematic at the beginning, after a few minutes the actors seemed to settle in, and remained consistent throughout the rest of the performance.
Although the entire cast was very strong as an ensemble, a few actors in particular distinguished themselves. Ted Witzel was a very enjoyable Algernon, just as adept at giving a childish pout as a naughty glint in his eye. Miranda Plant played Cecily with just the right amount of sweetness and naivety, without ever giving way to caricature. And Stacey Glenney hit all the right notes as Lady Bracknell and took full command of the stage whenever she was on it.
The only real weakness of the play involved the sets and props, or the lack thereof. The director obviously took a minimalist approach that unfortunately resulted in technical difficulties and unintentional laughs. Backdrops consisted of slides projected onto three screens, which were sometimes backwards, in the wrong place, or had nothing to do with the play at all. And while the few props on stage looked good, there just weren’t enough of them-most noticeably when the plot called for a bookcase, and a projected image of one was used, with the necessary book passed through a slit in the screen.
Ultimately, however, a show like this is about the dialogue, not the art direction. And a traditional, if minimalist, approach to the show is preferential to any sort of artistic attempt to take the play in a bold new direction, which usually only ends up being distracting. This way, it keeps the focus on the words themselves, which is really what any Wilde audience is there for. In that sense, Trinity’s production lived up to its name, its earnestness a virtue rather than a weakness.
