Over the weekend a friend of mine treated me to a showing of one of my favorite plays, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Though it's one of my favorites, it had been quite some time not only since I'd read the play, but also since I've even seen the movie with Judi Dench, Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon. In a way, although I knew the plot and most of the lines by heart, the play felt fresh and new.
Now I don't want to give away too much of the play's plot, because like so many comedies to spoil the plot would be to spoil some of the surprise and comedic suspense. So when I tell you that Earnest is a comedy centered on secret identities, double lives, twisting social conventions and figures of speech on their ear...I know it's going to sound boring, but believe me that I'm trying to save the best for when you actually see or read this play for yourself.
(For those readers who already know the plot, c'mon. You know I'm right.)
Back to this one performance. First let me say it was great. You have to admire a troupe who'll perform in the period costume of three-piece suits, neck-to-toe dresses and evening gloves, all in 80+ degrees Fahrenheit. I was sweltering in my shorts and T-shirt, and watching Algernon's actor wearing a velveteen dressing gown nearly made me pass out in sympathy. I heaved a sigh of relief when his butler took off the dressing gown...only to have it replaced with some sort of velveteen jacket. Ugh.
Throughout the play I was glad I had read it, because Wilde's lines are so quick-witted that most of them are "blink and you'll miss it"--which I know doesn't make much sense because you're hearing the lines and ears don't blink, but I think I've made my point even if the metaphor was a bit on the fuzzy side--and I wanted to focus on the individual actors' performances as opposed to the words alone.
"Oh, my favorite line from reading it is coming up. Something about being overdressed...I know Algie says it," I was thinking to myself between chuckles. But for the life of me--and maybe it was the heatstroke at that point, as the sun was beating down on my neck--I could not remember the exact quotation. I knew I'd used it a lot in defense of my questionable fashion choices. I knew I'd written it on a writing journal in college. But I couldn't remember the exact words, or even the precise part where Algie spoke it in the play.
"At any rate," the character Jack was saying, "that is better than being always over-dressed as you are."
Yes! I thought. "Overdressed" being the keyword, I knew my favorite quotation was at hand!
"If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated."
My laughter at my favorite line was quashed when Algie (who had been breaking the fourth wall all over the place anyway) turned and looked, it seemed, directly at me and smiled and winked in a very "I know you were waiting for that line for the whole play" sort of way.
That moment is exactly the kind of thing you can experience at a live performance of a play, as opposed to reading it alone or watching an adaptation on your television. I've probably said this before, but I've never been a fan of merely reading drama. Plays were written not to be read, but to be played, performed in front of a live audience where real-time interaction is possible. This is not to say that reading a play is a bad thing; just like my experience yesterday, reading is a great way to prepare to enjoy a performance. In simpler terms, if you know the words, you can let yourself be carried away by the action.
And besides, if you read The Importance of Being Earnest, which I am now assigning to you as Blog Reader Homework, then I can discuss it soon without worrying about spoiling anything for you.
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