Internationally acknowledged as a master of Comedy of Manners, both as actor and director, Brian Bedford unsurprisingly gives us a classic, landmark revival of Oscar Wilde's masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest. Bedford's directorial hand is evident in the elegance and wit of this exquisitely designed production, not least in his actors' perfect delivery of the dialogue, which although familiar to most of us and easily the most clever use of language in English drama here makes us attend to every speech and delight in it as if only now encountering it.
Bedford's entirely accomplished cast is chosen from attractive and gifted actors such as one expects at Canada's Stratford Festival, but they differ in styles and personalities more than some of the famed English casts of this play and are therefore perhaps more individually interesting. The discipline he exacts shows in their honesty of portrayal, overall lively pacing, and obvious delight in the dialogue.
The only play that I know that is constructed entirely of nothing but epigrams, The Importance of Being Earnest has been described as a work of pure unalloyed wit; but in fact, it is much alloyed with a showy collection of disparate comic devices and jokes and even fortified with self-parody of its own form of sharp-edged farce and happy-ending contrivance. Wilde keeps surprising us here with the timeliness of his biting social criticism and the absolute indestructibility of his playful comedy.
The central jewel of the performance is Brian Bedford's Lady Bracknell, whom Jack/Earnest describes as being "a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair ." For years Dame Edith Evans' stentorian, bombastic approach was the model for Lady Bracknell. In contrast, Stratford enjoyed a great Lady Bracknell in the late William Hutt's portrayal, which contrasted Hutt's physical grande dame (all in white in heels and a pillbox hat with a tall feather on top, his figure onstage stood close to 7 feet tall) with very mannered, ladylike gestures and a quiet voice. Bedford uses no exaggerated comic shtick: he simply becomes the impossible woman who can respond to Jack's pitiable tale of being abandoned as a baby in a handbag in a railway station's cloak-room by stating that she will never permit her daughter " to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel."
Not for a minute is Bedford working in the English "Panto Dame" tradition beloved in Christmas Pantomimes and Charley's Aunt, like Dame Edna. His Bracknell is an overbearing Victorian lady who lives "in an age of surfaces." And he embodies her ideally.
Even the haughtily disapproving Robert Persichini as Jack's manservant Lane is a hilarious study in manners. Ben Carlson's Jack is commanding and self-assured except when dealing with women or maddened by his friend Algernon's eating all the muffins. Mike Shara, making his Stratford debut after years at the Shaw Festival, typically plays down his good looks and makes Algy almost fey and a close-to-vaudevillian partner for Carlson.
Sara Topham is appropriately elegant, beautiful and commanding as Gwendolen, Jack's goddess who says, "I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train." Stratford veterans Sara Dodd and the extraordinary Stephen Ouimette are reliable delights as the fussy governess Miss Prism and her affected admirer, the Reverend Canon Chasuble.
Only Andrea Runge as "Little Cecily" seemed improvable to me: she offered the dialogue charmingly but with a bit too much earthiness for this quintessential ingénue.
Some delightful comic original music was composed for this production by Stratford's longtime, irreplaceable music director Berthold Carriere. And rivaling the rest of the artists involved, Desmond Heeley, my favorite designer in the world [consider that my declaration of non-objectivity], has provided gorgeous sets and costumes that manage to be appropriate and exquisite while including Heeley's uniquely witty touches. The opulent chandelier in the last scene, for instance, if examined closely, turns out to be made up of plastic champagne glasses and decanters. Heeley's costumes and scenery are rightfully greeted with laughter and applause.
A leading Canadian critic has already asked that this production be recorded and made available on film. It is worth cherishing and preserving.
