Review on the Importance of Being Earnest Act 1

The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde.The version that I watched was played at the Kitchener Waterloo Little Theatre on the April 3, 2008, directed by Angela Yeates.

In this production, I notice that the setting is concise in which I could feel a sense of unity. As for the decoration of the room, I think it gives audience a warm felling. Besides, the theatre is little, which makes audience feel close to the actors. Therefore, the performance effect is much better for the audience could concentrate on the performance as soon as possible.

The actors, of varying ages and performance styles all struck the varying notes of this fast-paced script with precision and individuality.

With its mistaken identities mixed with love, as well as the happy marriage endings, we have two close friends each of whom has the dirty secret of being a "bunburyist" in this case(a person who has created a fake friend, or brother, or what have you in order to get out of unpleasant social engagements).

I pay much attention to one part of act 1; it is about Jack’s proposing to Gwendolen. Gwendolen’s performance in this production is splendid. I really appreciate the body language of her. When she uses some gestures and keeps eye contact with Jack, I feel kind of cold sense of humor that her performance expresses. Especially, I am impressed by her facial expressions which are full of exaggerations and intensify the impact of comedy. She obsesses with the name Ernest, and not with actually earnestness itself, Wilde satirizes Victorian society’s preoccupation with surface manifestations of virtue and its willingness in the most superficial displays of decent behavior according to which we could make the earnest/Ernest joke out. Moreover, the expression in Gwendolen’s eye is filled with passion and yearning, which I think is a wonderful performance to clearly explain her desire to marry to a person whose name is Ernest and to leave me...