Theatre review: The Importance of Being Earnest, Roslyn Packer Theatre

Three years after The Picture of Dorian Gray was a runaway success for Sydney Theatre Company, the company has returned to Wilde with The Importance of Being Earnest. It is interesting to think about the two as companion pieces. Like Dorian Gray, Earnest deals with protagonists who are not all they seem, but where Dorian Gray deals with the darker side of hedonism, Earnest remains an effervescent joy throughout. I should probably put my cards on the table at the outset and say it is one of my favourite plays. Watching this production, I was delighted by it anew. It is so densely packed with wonderful lines that it almost feels like a highlights reel. 

The big question for a production of a play this good is how the company has managed to pull it off. And the answer, I am pleased to say, is very stylishly. The sets and lighting are gorgeous and Renée Mulder’s costumes are not only wonderful to look at, but a comic element in their own right. The score is great and the cast is uniformly excellent.

Helen Thomson’s Lady Bracknell is a particular highlight, her comic timing as formidable as the woman herself. Director Sarah Giles also knows when to play up the farce and when less is more (although I must admit I would have liked Thomson, like many Bracknells before her, to really let loose with ‘a handbag?’). 

Giles makes a concerted effort to bring out the class dimensions of Victorian England in the play. Because this is something studiously absent from Wilde’s text (apart from Bracknell’s occasional allusions to revolution), she has given the servants extra non-speaking roles in interstitial scenes. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure if this was working for me, particularly because I had the uncomfortable sense that their misery was being played for laughs, but the payoff at the very end made it well worthwhile. I won’t spoil it here, but I will say I think Wilde would have loved it. 

Read: Musical review: Bananaland, QPAC, Brisbane Festival

Although the satire is unmistakable, Giles shows restraint by not laying it on too thick. She knows you don’t go to see The Importance of Being Earnest for political commentary, but rather to see a genius at his most joyful. The play is a delight and they have pulled it off beautifully. What more could you want?

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Sydney Theatre Company
Roslyn Packer Theatre

Director: Sarah Giles
Set Designer: Charles Davis
Costume Designer: Renée Mulder
Lighting Designer: Alexander Berlage
Composer & Sound Designer: Stefan Gregory
Assistant Director: Kenneth Moraleda
Fight Director: Tim Dashwood
Intimacy Coordinator: Chloë Dallimore

Cast: Gareth Davies, Melissa Kahraman, Lucia Mastrantone, Brandon McClelland, Sean O’Shea, Emma O’Sullivan, Bruce Spence, Helen Thomson, Megan Wilding, Charles Wu

The Importance of Being Earnest will be performed until 14 October 2023.