Exit the King

[Guest StuCotts]

If anybody coming to NY is interested in something offbeat on Broadway, consider taking in Ionesco's "Exit the King". It's a chance to see work by an author who doesn't get much play, performed by a first-rate cast. Lots of energy on stage. Incidentally, Geoffrey Rush has a Tony nomination.

And nobody will guess who'll be Lady Bracknell this year at Stratford:

http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/plays/earnest.cfm

[AdamSmith]

And nobody will guess who'll be Lady Bracknell this year at Stratford:

http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/plays/earnest.cfm

Thank you doubly. For the Ionesco callout -- anything to expunge memories of high-school drama departments' compulsion to extrude The Bald Soprano at least semiannually.

Even more for noting the Bracknell casting! No bon mot possible to top the fact itself.

[lookin]

[AdamSmith]

The Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout is more than amused...

That Was No Lady

If you’re looking for one-stop theatrical shopping, go north to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, which in summertime more or less takes over the smallish Ontario town for which it is named. This year the festival is presenting 14 plays on four stages, and the fare is richly varied. Much is being made of the fact that under Des McAnuff, the new artistic director, the festival has cut back on Shakespeare (three plays this season, five last season) and beefed up the budget for its roster of crowd-pleasing musical comedies. Be that as it may, classical theater remains Stratford’s mainstay, and Brian Bedford’s brilliantly zany staging of “The Importance of Being Earnest†is good enough to justify a trip to Canada all by itself.

Mr. Bedford’s production of Oscar Wilde’s ever-enchanting comedy of turn-of-the-century English manners is built around a gimmick that turns out not to be the least bit gimmicky: In addition to directing, he also plays Lady Bracknell, the money-hungry monster of propriety who is determined to stop Algernon and Gwendolen (Mike Shara and Sara Topham), her nephew and daughter, from marrying beneath themselves. I don’t care for camped-up drag acts, but Mr. Bedford, who makes himself up to look like Queen Victoria and carries himself like a snooty gargoyle, is giving us something completely different, an impersonation so sharp-witted and closely observed that it demands to be accepted on its own daring terms. Not since I last watched Mark Morris enact the double role of Dido and the Sorceress in his modern-dance version of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas†have I seen a man play a woman so convincingly. Indeed, I might well have taken it for granted that Lady Bracknell was being played by a woman had I not glanced at the program before the curtain went up.

I’d be tempted to say that Mr. Bedford’s star turn was the best thing about this “Earnest†were it not for the fact that everything and everyone else is just as good. Instead of galloping through their lines at the breakneck speed of farce, the cast strolls unhurriedly from scene to scene, giving Wilde’s double-edged epigrams plenty of time to seek and destroy their satirical targets. Desmond Heeley’s fantastic set, which looks as though Georges Seurat had sculpted it out of marzipan, adds immeasurably to the production’s comic zing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...3949293078.html

[Guest StuCotts]

Sounds like a good production and a good job from Bedford. The reviewer was good enough not to make comparisons with Edith Evans and the high standard she set for the role. I remember an interview with the great Margaret Rutherford in which she said that she toured as Bracknell for a long time and never felt comfortable in the role because she felt she couldn't measure up to Evans.

I looked on Youtube and found the original trailer for the 1952 film with the blockbuster cast. It has the play's most quoted (as far as I know) line. Anybody who has any interest at all in Wilde's plays and who hasn't seen this film must see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vt37AR-5H8

[AdamSmith]

Delicious!

the play's most quoted (as far as I know) line

Although one's particular favorite is: "Not even for ready money!"

... said nearly as often of local boys as of the subject (suggestive!) vegetable in the play.

[Guest StuCotts]

Delicious!

Although one's particular favorite is: "Not even for ready money!"

... said nearly as often of local boys as of the subject (suggestive!) vegetable in the play.

Speak of lines that can be applied to situations with young gentlemen, try the one below, delivered by guess who. I'm working from what's left of my memory, so I may be paraphrasing:

"Mr. Worthing! Arise, sir, from that semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous."

[AdamSmith]

"Mr. Worthing! Arise, sir, from that semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous."

The (alas) indispensable Google affirms your memory. Except for minor point that the citation appears to be "Rise," not "Arise". Even more apt to our present context-twisting.

P.S. The citation:

http://www.readeasily.com/oscar-wilde/00196/001960010.php

[AdamSmith]

... I shall have to win another contest here, take Andre to Stratford, and check this out. It will erase the memory of the half-hour of 'Coraline' we endured last month.

With apologies to any who liked that production.

[AdamSmith]

http://www.readeasily.com/oscar-wilde/00196/001960010.php

... Following that link, I find myself sucked into rereading the whole thing.

Propelled along by such as:

Jack. Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet. As far as she is concerned, we are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon . . . I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair . . . I beg your pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn't talk about your own aunt in that way before you.

Algernon. My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

Jack. Oh, that is nonsense!

Algernon. It isn't!

Jack. Well, I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things.

Algernon. That is exactly what things were originally made for.

[Guest StuCotts]

No idea how you found that link, but many thanks for it. As much as I dislike reading at length on a computer screen, I'll make an exception in this case. And I won't get away with reading just one scene, any more than I could get away with eating just one potato chip.