Lady Windermere’s Fan

Lady Windermere’s Fan

By Oscar Wilde

Royal Exchange Theatre, 21 May 2012

Lysette Anthony as Mrs Erlynne in LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN. Photo – Jonathan Keenan.

There are a lot of much quoted lines in Wilde’s play, that much is certain, the difficulty lies in making them sound fresh and newly minted.

This production in the main achieved this, due to the excellence of the performances.  Of these, my pick would be: Lysette Anthony as Mrs. Erlynne, a compassionate femme fatale; Oliver Gomm as Cecil Graham, an impish poseur, witty but light as soufflé; Cameron Stewart as Lord Lorton, not as dull a dullard as he makes out, for he knows on what side his bread is buttered and jammed.

Taking the play in the round, it is an astute study of society’s conventions, which is to say hypocrisy.  Finding human goodness isn’t an easy matter under normal conditions, but a crisis or a scandal (as here) will reveal it soon enough.

History and heritage may present Oscar Wilde as an effete dandy, much given to precious outpourings, and maybe he would have settled for that.  The play here reveals a social observer with a cold, cold eye and a glint of ice in his heart.  He saw all, missed nothing.

 Lady Windermere’s Fan is at the Royal Exchange Theatre until 23 June, further details can be found here.

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest
By Oscar Wilde
Library Theatre Company, 8 June 2010

Photo by Gerry Murray

With this strange and delightful production the Library Theatre, for the moment at any rate, loses its home.

 It will leave the current venue, where it has been performing plays for over half a century, once the current run of The Importance of Being Earnest comes to an end.

Little, precious little, is taken seriously in Wilde’s great play; it can hardly keep a straight, or indeed an earnest face.  Despite this jollity – and it almost goes without saying that it is a supremely entertaining play – there is an unflinchingly subversive reach on show here.  Everything is mocked, all is fair game: Wilde’s wit shoots down all the conventions and core values of his age.  And in doing so, he makes us smile.

The masterstroke of this production is to cast Russell Dixon as Lady Bracknell: he is superb, a queerly arch gatekeeper.  To have a man in the role of this senior, authoritative ma’am – and for it to be unremarked upon by Algernon and the rest – casts a most peculiar light on proceedings

You knew where you were with Lady Bracknell, or at least you thought you did.  She was the most strait-laced of Wilde’s creations.  She was the one who pulled all the other characters into line, and into happy marriages.  Now that we discover that she is a genderqueer matron, her moral compass seems decidedly dodgy.  Or off kilter somewhat.  Something is happening, but you don’t quite know what it is.

It is fun, though.

The doors have not closed quite yet, but it is clear that the Library Theatre has saved the best till last. 

The Importance of Being Earnest is showing at the Library Theatre until 3 July.  Details here.  Don’t, for the life of you, miss it.