Review: The Importance of Being Earnest
The Rose Theatre in Kingston-Upon-Thames was the last stop for Denzel Westley-Sanderson’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The production had been making rounds across the nation, with an all-black cast of outstanding performers.
The Company of The Importance of Being Earnest. Photo Credit: Rose Theatre / Mark Senior
In short, The Importance of Being Earnest tells the story of two characters, Algernon (Abiola Owokonira) and Jack (Justice Ritchie), who use alternative identities to escape the mundanities and responsibilities of everyday life. However, these identities become handy tools for each gentlemen to entice the woman of their dreams. Algernon chases Earnest’s (Jack’s alternative identity) ward, Cecily (Phoebe Campbell), while Earnest works to win the hand of Gwendolen (Adele James), who is Algernon’s cousin. The body of the play continues with many laughs, as the characters fumble around with their identities with the aim of getting the girl. And of course, the end sees everyone together, families reunited and alternative identities dispelled. It is a good-feel play, which left my face aching from laughter.
The play altogether was an incredible feat of stagecraft and performance, however, there are a couple points I want to highlight as being truly brilliant. Firstly, I wanted to go into more detail about the thoughtful all-black casting. As a black historian, I am overwhelmed by Westley-Sanderson’s goal to start conversations and provoke general thinking around black Victorians. They existed! Black people did not just suddenly appear in England after the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush to Tilbury Dock in 1948. Westley-Sanderson shares this goal in an interview, stating “If seeing Black people who looked stunning in Victorian dress, who were rich, who weren’t just on the plantation, prompts some curiosity around Black Victorians, I’ll be very happy”.
To further emphasise this, the play has been accompanied by an Autograph ABP exhibition. Autograph ABP ‘champions photography that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights, and social justice’, and have created a pop-up display, entitled The Missing Chapter: Black Chronicles, ‘showcasing 19th century studio portraits depicting sitters of African, Caribbean and South Asian descent during the Victorian ear in Britain’. The exhibition contributes to the immersion of the play, providing an informative introduction to this adaption of The Importance of Being Earnest.
Another aspect I wanted to celebrate is the relationship between Dr. Chausable (Anita Reynolds) and Miss Prism (Joanne Henry), who have always gotten together in the end. However, Westley-Sanderson chose to have Dr. Chasable cast as a woman, unlike all of the previous adaptations. Black Victorian lesbians?! What a joy. I think this choice was a subtle nod toward Oscar Wilde’s homosexuality, and the ‘camp’ nature of the play.
This ‘campness’ has had a chokehold on Wilde and The Importance of Being Earnest, as Susan Sontag crowned Wilde as the ‘King of Camp’. Camp, in this context, referred to aestheticism, the elevation of ‘taste’, and how this contributed to the concept that art and life were only celebrated for its beauty. And to be honest, this is not far from our modern understanding of what it means to be camp. The play’s dress, stagecraft, props and cast are all representations of this aestheticism, and what ultimately brings together Wilde’s campness and modern-day campness is the presence of Daniel Jacob, also known as drag sensation Vinegar Strokes, as Lady Bracknell.
The entire play was a delightfully camp, all-black rendition of a well-loved classic, and I cannot emphasise this enough - a triumph for all involved.