“The Importance of Being Ernest” - A Real Morale Booster
- Lifestyles
- Travel & Leisure
- Art & Entertainment
Author: Britney B.
Released 18 May 2003
Oscar Wilde
What with the miserable sandstorms we’ve been having and the recent attacks in Riyadh we’re all in dire need of some light relief.
So how about taking yourself to the latest DTG production, being shown at the theater from the 19th through 22nd May, to see one of Oscar Wilde’s best known works.
In “The Importance of Being Ernest” the brilliant Irish poet and dramatist uses light hearted satire and wit to make fun of the English upper classes. The plot revolves around Jack and Algernon, two fashionable young men in love with girls both determined to marry someone named Earnest.
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 to unconventional parents - his mother was a poet and journalist and his father, Sir William Wilde, was a gifted writer and specialist in diseases of the eye and ear. Oscar attended Trinity College, Dublin, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he shocked the faculty with his irreverent attitude towards religion and was jeered at due to his eccentric taste in clothes. On receiving his degree he moved to London, where his lifestyle and humorous wit soon made him spokesman for the Aesthetic movement that advocated art for art's sake. In 1884 Wilde married Constance Lloyd and four years later he published “The Happy Prince and Other Tales”, fairy-stories written for his two sons. Although married and the father of two children, Wilde's personal life was subject to scandal. His marriage ended in 1893 after he had met Lord Alfred Douglas ('Bosie'), an athlete and a poet, who became both the love of the author's life and his downfall.
Wilde made his reputation in the theatre world between the years 1892 and 1895 with a series of highly popular plays, most notably “Lady Windermere's Fan” and “Earnest”. His years of triumph ended dramatically, when his intimate association with Bosie led to his trial on charges of homosexuality (then illegal in Britain). He was sentenced to two years hard labour and was first imprisoned in Wandsworth Prison, London, and then Reading Gaol. After his release in 1897 Wilde lived under the name Sebastian Melmoth in France. There he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, revealing his concern for inhumane prison conditions, two famous verses from which are quoted below:
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of lust,
Some with the hands of gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Oscar Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on November 30, 1900, penniless, in a cheap Paris hotel at the age of 46. In particular, he will be remembered for his quick and clever wit. One famous witticism from “The Importance of Being Ernest” is: “Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years”.
Do go along to the DTG performance. You’ll really enjoy it. For more information read Helen Doherty’s article “It’s A Wilde Comedy” which explains more about the performance and shows photos of the cast in dress rehearsal.