Cast Members Anticipate “The Importance of Being Earnest”
By Erin Ellis ’10
News Reporter
Written in 1894 in Worthing, England, by the witty and astute playwright Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest” is one of two plays that will be performed at Choate this fall.
The play focuses on the lives of four young men and women: Jack Worthing, Algernon Moncrieff, Gwendolyn Fairfax, and Cecily Cardew. Jack, played by Cameron Cuffe ‘11, is expected to live up to high moral standards. To the pressure that comes as a result of his countless responsibilities and to pursue Gwendolyn, Jack creates a fictitious identity named Ernest. Algernon, played by Nathaniel Moore ’08, also leads a double life—his alternate identity, however, goes by Bunbury. Kim Solow, the assistant director and stage manager of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” said, “At the end it gets really chaotic with who is who. There are a lot of name and identity switches and Algernon even pretends to be Ernest.”
Moore said, “[The Importance of Being Earnest] was originally written for British nobility, so it has a lot of witty humor and speech, and people pretending to be who they’re not so that they can get closer to certain women and eventually marry them.” He also said that Algernon is “kind of foppish and a little bit of a player. He is ridiculous and extravagant in a lot of ways.”
Solow, who helps direct and block the play with director Deighna DeRiu, says, “There is an optional fourth act and we took a scene from that. It kind of just shows the confusion in the identity crisis.” The cast rehearses every day for about two and a half hours. Thus far, they have been very productive and have blocked all three acts. The cast members seemed excited to run the play in the early stages of production, whereas in the past, many plays have only practiced lines during the first few weeks of rehearsal. Students involved in the play are undoubtedly enthusiastic about “The Importance of Being Earnest” and love the witty tone of the play.
The production will be shown on November 8th, 10th, and 11th in the Joan Harris Gelb Theater, which is located in the basement of the Chapel. The play will run for two hours and will have two intermissions.
According to Moore, “The lines are just wonderful—beautifully written, very clever. I knew it would be a lot of fun.” Solow is equally enthusiastic about the play. She said, “It is a comedy and everyone has a British accent, which really adds to the humor of it.” It sounds like “The Importance of Being Earnest,” with its talented cast, lively tone, flawless lines, and scintillating humor, is a likely success on Choate’s fall theatre scene.
The cast of “The Importance of Being Earnest” rehearses. PHOTO/Greg Stasiw ’11
