The Importance of being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Directed by Claire Schoonover

April 22nd – 27th
This much loved classic is a delight from the first cucumber sandwich onwards as Jack’s double life catches up with him. The problems are resolved in an extremely charming and quite unexpected way and Jack and Algernon discover the Importance of being (E)rnest while both answering the name of Ernest.

People assume that Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of being Earnest is a window, through which we are looking at a different world, a different time. But there is a mirror inside that window. Perhaps a fun house mirror, but a mirror nonetheless. And this mirror is doing a very good job of reflecting many of our contemporary issues back at us, if we’re willing to look beyond the laughter. It’s why his play has lasted so long and is so widely performed. Not because it is perfectly structured, and incredibly funny and clever, but because it has the ability to tell us so much about ourselves now. 

Wilde’s play is filled with characters who focus on all the wrong things. All the time. It’s incredibly entertaining. They are caught up in what they look like. What they’re wearing. The women are in love not with a specific person called Ernest, but rather the idea of a man who has the name of Ernest. They are caught up in the idea of the thing, the rule of the thing. In short, they focus on all the wrong things. 

We are not much better despite having close to one hundred and fifty years to try and make some progress. We are all so distracted. Distracted by work emails, by how others are living their lives, by an imminent work crisis, or by Instagram, perhaps we’re online shopping and thinking about buying something new – in all circumstances we’re giving our precious attention to the wrong things. Wilde’s characters, loveable but flawed, are also astonishing hypocrites. In their defence they are a product of the times they lived in. The hypocrisy of Victorian society is breathtaking. We look back at it and go – gosh, bloody glad I didn’t live then. And yet the parallels are clear. How far have we really come? 

Wilde knew that in order for his audience to hear some hard truths they had to be entertained. It is a sentiment I share. Comedy is the greatest theatrical form to delve into political ideas and ask hard questions. And Wilde certainly trojan-horsed in a lot of very controversial ideas to this genius play. 

I think if we can take a moment, to laugh at ourselves, at the hypocrisy of it all, and take a good look in this fun house mirror, perhaps tomorrow morning we might realise we’ve been giving our precious time and energy to the wrong things, and maybe we’ll shift our focus. 

As Wilde himself said, “life is too important to be taken seriously.” 

Sarah Giles, Sydney Theatre Company, Design Presentation 27 June 2023