Theatre: “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde
Date(s):
Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Friday, April 13, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Friday, April 20, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, April 21, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, April 22, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Location:
Studio Theatre, University Center for the Arts 1400 Remington St.
Price:
$8/CSU student, $9/youth (under 17) $18/adult
Directed by Eric Prince
Opening night followed by a Meet the Artist Reception
First performed in 1895, The Importance of Being Earnest is a timeless classic loved by many as one of the funniest plays ever written, with dazzling, dizzying dialogue. Oscar Wilde (pictured left) treats “all trivial things very seriously and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.” The beguiling characters – Algernon and Jack, Cecily and Gwendolen, Lady Bracknell and Miss Prism – endure across time as some of the wittiest and silliest stage characters ever created. We laugh as we travel along the play’s hilarious bumpy road to connubial bliss, wallowing in witty aphorisms, utter nonsense and the most preposterous of plots. Wilde’s great genius was his keen understanding of the paradoxical quality of life. Worldliness or spirituality? Pleasure or duty? Seriousness or triviality? Though we try to present masks of conformity to the world, most of us live somewhere in between. Wilde himself lived a notoriously double life and paid a heavy price for flouting his society’s rigid code of behavior. Fortunately the people in Earnest suffer no such punishment; the course of true love may not run smoothly, but it does end happily. It’s hard to imagine a finer entertainment for a spring evening.
I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing. ~ Lady Bracknell
In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing. ~ Gwendolen