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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Wit on the Wilde side
In rehearsal, the pillars of high society: Back row left to right -Alex Parkinson as Lord Darlington, Chris Kay as Mr Cecil Graham, Dan Taylor as Mr Hopper and Terry Cooper Day as Parker the Butler; front row: Brett Westwood as Lord Windermere and Rock Salt as Lord Augustus Lorton. Lady Windermere’s Fan The Nonentities Rose Theatre, Kidderminster *** WIT with bite became a hallmark of Oscar
Wilde’s plays, first seen in Lady Windermere’s Fan, the first of his
comedies and his first major success. At its premiere in 1892
is was poking fun at the upper reaches of society with its social
season, its manners, hypocrisies, insincerities, insecurities,
affectations and its rather eccentric views on marriage. Wilde hit his targets with the precision of a
surgeon and although the targets may no longer be there, Victorian
morals and values having gone out of fashion, the wit is still much in
evidence, or at least should be. And this is perhaps where this production perhaps
falls down a little. Too often Wilde’s witty little gems, and there are
plenty, were lost in conversation, becoming a matter of fact exchange in
polite chat. They are worth more, and although a clearing of
the throat, move to centre stage, hand on breast declaration might be
over the top, a little more emphasis,
This is Wilde showing an audience how clever and
entertaining he is and I suspect Oscar would not have allowed his words
of wit, spoken by his characters, to hide so completely so often among
general conversation. For those who do not know the play Lady
Windermere, married two year’s and on the eve of her 21st
birthday party, is told by the society gossip The Duchess of Berwick,
played with a delightful enthusiasm for tittle tattle by Lynn Ravenhill,
that her husband is playing away as one might say.
Her visitor, Lord Darlington, Alex Parkinson, had
earlier hinted as much but it was the Duchess who put flesh on the
rattling bones of scandal. The experienced Marika Farr as Lady Windermere
brought a sense of injustice and betrayal as the woman scorned flouncing
about the splendidly simple upper crust set in her bustle waving the
birthday gift fan that was to become so integral to the plot.. Her husband, his Lordship, played with a sort of
exasperated air of a man both found out and wrongly accused, by Brett
Westwood, has the burden of not telling his wife the truth, which in
turn makes it more difficult to deny the affair particularly as he has
been giving the other woman, a Mrs Erlynne, substantial sums of money. When Mrs Erlynne finally arrives at the party,
invited by Lord Windermere under protests not far short of death threats
from his wife, we expect fireworks but they fail to ignite. Mrs Erlynne, played with a delightful charm by
Sandy Tudor, is enchanting to all the society women and beguiling to all
the men, the belle of the ball, or at least the small party Lady
Windermere insisted was all she was having. Amid the gusts we met the Australian Mr Hopper,
played by Dan Taylor, who was deemed suitable i.e. rich enough to marry
the duchess’s daughter Lady Agatha at the end of the season, but put his
chances on a knife edge by wanting to go back to Australia. Lady Agatha,
played by Hannah Tolley, we were told by her mother was a real
chatterbox, although we never hear her allowed to say anything but yes
or no ma’am. Bob Graham is a larger than life and somewhat
unctuous Mr Dumby while Chris Kay is a servant of hedonism as Cecil
Graham. As the party breaks up Lady Windermere has a
decision to make stay with her husband or go off to Lord Darlington, who
in a typical Wilde twist, having been asked by her ladyship to be her
friend, instead, has taken
The decision is made and It is then we learn of
Mrs Erlynne’s secret as she battles to save Lady Windermere from her own
fate, sacrificing her own reputation, almost, in the process.
The reputation is salvaged or at least repaired a
little by Lord Augustus Lorton, Tuppy, played by the splendidly named
Rock Salt, who seems a man desperate for love and has asked for Mrs
Erlynne’s hand. He will, it seems, believe any excuse or explanation she
offers no matter what the scandalmongers might say. So Lady Windermere never knows the full story as
we know it but she does know her husband was not having an affair so can
live happily ever after while the scarlet women, Mrs Erlynne, we have
discovered is a bad woman made good. The first act had perhaps too many prompts and
the play did lack a little pace, picking up a little in the middle but
never seeming to build up a natural rhythm With the first night out of the way though the
performance had enough good points to suggest that will soon be
rectified particularly with a director who is closer to Oscar than most. Ross Workman played Wilde in The Nonentities
excellent production of To Meet Oscar Wilde and, just to complete
the circle, the director of that production was Marika Farr, who is in
turn being directed by Workman here. The set, by Keith Higgins and Mike Lawrence, is
simple and gives a satisfying illusion of up market London apartments in
the 1890s and full marks to the wardrobe department with Carol
Wright, Jan Eglinton, Donna Abram and Alix Abram who provided authentic
looking costumes for both evening and day wear for a cast of 17. Roger Clarke |
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an
inflection here and there would not have gone amiss, after all these are
the play’s punch lines, the laughs, the comedy.
advantage
of her tattered emotions to profess his undying love for her, and
chucked in the fact he is leaving the country for ever the next day as a
sort of emotional leverage. Her Ladyship asks for friendship and
receives an offer of immorality, a dilemma which meant more in 1892 than
it does now.