What finer way to spend a summer’s evening than drinking tea and eating muffins in the idyllic setting of Regent’s Park?
Actor Dominic Tighe must think himself a lucky man, for this is his quaint, distinctly English lot for the month of July, as he plays Algernon in the Open Air theatre’s production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest.
It is a break with tradition for the theatre which, for so long, was known for its annual programming of two Shakespeares, a children’s show and a musical. In keeping with this break from the norm, Kevin Knight’s set is not what one might expect for Wilde’s most popular comedy of manners. Stark, white and utilising a vast mirrored wall for Act I, it relies on the flora of the park to give it the feel of Victorian England.
The Open Air theatre is most famous for its productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but there is no little fantasy in The Importance Of Being Earnest. Leading men Algernon and Jack (Ryan Kiggell) lead wholly invented lives by way of escape when the real world proves too much, while their love interests Gwendolen (Jo Herbert) and Cecily (Lucy Briggs-Owen) indulge in imagined romances based entirely on a name. A suitor by any other would most certainly not smell as sweet.
In this tale of confused identities, Tighe and Kiggell spend the shorter first act setting up the concept that both lead double lives; while in the second, Briggs-Owen’s floaty, flighty, idealistic Cecily and Herbert’s tart, tactile and forcefully flirtatious Gwendolen bring the show alive with their swift-born friendship and rivalry.
It being the English summer, it will take more than tea and muffins to ward off a heavenly soaking, as Wilde’s Dr Chasuble warns, “Our weather is so changeable”. When the rain decided to make its entrance on press night (from stage left on this occasion), some of Wilde’s witticisms were washed away on a damp breeze and muffled by the rustlings of umbrellas and waterproofs being removed from handbags. But this is a show about the English upper classes, and it will take more than a little light rain to make the British stiff upper lip soggy.
MA