Impossible to attend a performance of Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest without the memory of Dame Edith Evans fruity, outraged enunciation of the immortal line above. It has laid its fell hand upon this play and all actresses playing Lady Bracknell have to find a way of ridding the audience's collective memory of this particular Dame and make it their own.
I have seen it done many times and in various ways and they all work, if the actress is good enough, so it should. I have the Divine Judi Dench version on DVD (which I may watch again this afternoon as I feel the casting of Rupert Everett and Colin Firth as the male heroes well nigh perfect) and she was, of course, superb but Penelope Keith last night was also excellent. She surmounted the hurdle of THAT line by not emphasising it all all. She merely raised an eyebrow and said inquiringly 'A handbag?' as if to say, how odd. Totally thrown away and probably very sensible too.
Lady B tends to be portrayed as an old dragon but it is worth remembering that she has a daughter, Gwendolyn, who cannot be more than 20 and therefore, is hardly likely to be old enough to be of grandmotherly age which seems to be the norm in her portrayal.. She cannot be more than 45 when you think about it. This particular characterization appealed to me enormously and I found myself becoming rather fond of Lady B. She has a clear eye for the benefits of money and position, but is not such a crashing snob that she allows herself to forget that she got where she was today by a good marriage. She knows she is not aristocratic to the backbone and her delight when she learns that Cicely, who has just become engaged to her nephew Algernon, has '£100,00 in the funds' is very very funny. However, she maintains she sets no store in the importance of money in a marriage
"When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind. But I never allowed it to stand in my way"
Priceless.
This play is almost indestructible. I have seen some slightly less starry efforts in various guises throughout my years of theatre going, but have never found a truly bad performance. Wilde's lines are, quite simply, impervious to bad acting. Just saying them seems to lift an indifferent actor into making a huge effort to be better. I cannot say what pleasure it gave me last night just to sit and listen to superb English, witty and pointed, being delivered so faultlessly. Full house and half the stalls were filled with a very large party of teenagers and I am going to be honest and say my heart sank when I saw them there (yes I know, just call me miserable old bag I don't mind) but they confounded my prejudices by listening in rapt silence, punctuated by hoots of laughter and huge cheers and thunderous applause at the end. A simply delightful evening.
Grabbed a cab within two minutes of exiting the theatre which was wonderful, thereby catching an earlier train than anticipated and tucked up in bed by 11.30 - not bad going from the West End of London to Colchster in little over an hour and a half. Glad I took today as holiday though as I feel shattered again and am very glad to rest up.
One of my birthday presents from my elder daughter is the promise of tickets for Dame Judi Dench appearing at the Donmar Warehouse at the end of the year. 'I know you like her mum so thought this would be a good pressy for you'.
Aren't I lucky?
