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The Importance of Being Earnest

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Theatre

   The Importance of Being Earnest is a play by Oscar Wilde, a comedy of
   manners (extremely satiric) on the seriousness of society in either
   three or four acts (depending on edition) inspired by W. S. Gilbert's
   Engaged. It was first performed for the public on February 14, 1895 at
   the St. James' Theatre in London.

   It is set in England during the late Victorian era, and its primary
   source of humour is based upon the main character John's fictitious
   younger brother Ernest. John's surname, Worthing, is taken from the
   town where Wilde was staying when he wrote the play.

   Wilde's plays had reached a pinnacle of success and anything new from
   the playwright was eagerly awaited. The press were always hungry for
   details and would pursue stories about new plots and characters with a
   vengeance. To combat this Wilde gave the play a working title, Lady
   Lancing. The use of seaside town names for leading characters, or the
   locations of their inception, can be recognised in all four of Wilde's
   society plays.

Plot summary

   Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

   Algernon, a wealthy young Londoner, pretends to have a friend named
   Bunbury who lives in the country and frequently is in ill health.
   Whenever Algernon wants to avoid an unwelcome social obligation, or
   just get away for the weekend, he makes an ostensible visit to his
   "sick friend." In this way Algernon can feign piety and dedication,
   while having the perfect excuse to get out of town, avoiding his
   responsibilities. He calls this practice " Bunburying."
   The original production of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895 with
   Allan Aynesworth as Algernon (left) and George Alexander as Jack
   (right)
   The original production of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895 with
   Allan Aynesworth as Algernon (left) and George Alexander as Jack
   (right)

   Algernon's real-life best friend lives in the country but makes
   frequent visits to London. This friend's name is Ernest...or so
   Algernon thinks. When Ernest leaves his silver cigarette case at
   Algernon's rooms he finds an inscription in it that claims that it is
   "From little Cecily with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack". This
   forces Ernest to eventually disclose that his visits to the city are
   also examples of "Bunburying," much to Algernon's delight.

   In the country, "Ernest" goes by his real name, Jack Worthing, and
   pretends that he has a wastrel brother named Ernest, who lives in
   London. When honest Jack comes to the city, he assumes the name, and
   behaviour, of the profligate Ernest. In the country Jack assumes a more
   serious attitude for the benefit of Cecily, who is his ward.

   Jack himself wishes to marry Gwendolen, who is Algernon's cousin, but
   runs into a few problems. First, Gwendolen seems to love him only
   because she believes his name is Ernest, which she thinks is the most
   beautiful name in the world. Second, Gwendolen's mother is the
   terrifying Lady Bracknell. Lady Bracknell is horrified when she learns
   that Jack was adopted as a toddler when he was discovered in a handbag
   at a railway station. In her opinion it is absolutely below the
   standards of her daughter to "marry into a cloakroom and form an
   alliance with a parcel", as she puts it.

   Jack's description of Cecily appeals to Algernon who resolves to meet
   her. Algernon soon gets the idea to visit Jack in the country,
   pretending that he is the mysterious brother "Ernest." Unfortunately,
   Jack has decided to give up his Bunburying, and to do this he has
   announced the tragic death of Ernest.

   A series of comic misunderstandings follows, as Algernon-as-Ernest
   visits the country (as a dead man, as far as the hosts are aware), and
   Jack shows up in his mourning clothes. There he encounters Jack's ward,
   Cecily, who believes herself in love with Ernest - the non-existent
   brother she has never met. After Lady Bracknell arrives, it is
   discovered that Jack is a nephew of Lady Bracknell who was lost by Miss
   Prism, Cecily’s governess, who was then working for Lady Bracknell’s
   sister. That also makes him Algernon's older brother, and the first son
   of Algernon's father, whose name was Ernest. Jack, therefore, has the
   real name of Ernest, and he had all along been telling the truth
   inadvertently. A typical ' deus ex machina' solution. It is suggested
   at the end of the play that Ernest/Jack will marry Gwendolen and
   Algernon will marry Cecily. The play contains many examples of Wilde's
   famous wit. Many readers and scholars have agreed that Algernon
   represents Wilde's surrogate; he delivers many of the witty one-liners.

Characters

   It has a small cast, as follows:
     * Jack Worthing (Ernest): In love with Gwendolen. Bachelor. Adopted
       when very young by Thomas Cardew

     * Algernon Moncrieff (Algy): First cousin of Gwendolen. Bachelor.
       Nephew of Lady Bracknell

     * Lady Augusta Bracknell

     * Cecily Cardew: daughter of Thomas Cardew wand of Jack Worthing.
       Lives at his country house in Hertfordshire

     * Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax: daughter of Lady Bracknell

     * Miss Prism: governess to Cecily

     * Rev Dr. Frederick Chasuble: a minister who lives near Jack’s
       country house

     * Lane: butler to Algernon

     * Merriman: butler to Jack

Translations

   The comedy has been successful even when performed in translation. The
   title being translatable only to a few languages—it relies on "Ernest"
   and "earnest" being homophones in English—it is then usually staged
   under the title Bunbury, referring to deceit in general.

   In some languages, the literal title is maintained, but loses its
   character as a pun. In Norwegian it is staged as Hvem er Ernest?, which
   means "Who is Ernest?" In Spanish-speaking countries, the title is
   translated as La importancia de llamarse Ernesto (The Importance of
   Being Named Ernest).

   Several languages—German, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Czech—offer
   equivalent puns. In Germany the play and the 2002 movie are called
   Ernst sein ist alles ("Being Earnest is all"), keeping precisely the
   original pun (Ernst being both a first name and a German word for being
   serious). In Dutch it has been translated as Het belang van Ernst, in
   which the pun is also fully functional. In French, the play is known as
   De l'importance d'être Constant, Constant being both a mildly uncommon
   first name and the quality of steadfastness; the pun is preserved but
   with a slightly different meaning. The Italian L'importanza di essere
   Franco, or The Importance of Being Frank, similarly preserves punning
   with a slight twist. The same approach has been used in Hungarian: the
   title has been translated as Szilárdnak kell lenni ("One Must Be
   Steadfast"), Szilárd being also an uncommon first name meaning
   "steadfast". In Czech, the title is translated as Jak je důležité míti
   Filipa ("The Importance of Having Phillip"), which is an idiom for
   being clever, and Filip is a quite common name.

Four-act version

   When Wilde handed his final draft of the play over to theatrical
   impresario George Alexander it was complete in four acts. The actor
   manager of the St. James' Theatre soon began a reworking of the play.
   Whether to provide space for a 'warmer' or a musical interlude, as was
   often the bill, it is not entirely clear. However, Wilde agreed to the
   cuts and various elements of the second and third acts were combined.
   The "missing" extra act, coming between the current second and third,
   was heavily cut. The greatest impact was the loss of the character Mr
   Gribsby, a solicitor, who turns up from London to arrest the profligate
   "Ernest" (Jack) for his unpaid dining bills. Algernon - who is going by
   the name "Ernest" at this point - is about to be led away to Holloway
   Jail unless he settles his accounts immediately. The four-act version
   was first played on the radio in a BBC production and is still
   sometimes performed. The 2002 film includes the Gribsby scene from the
   missing act.

Possible in-jokes

   Wilde's use of the name Ernest may possibly be an in-joke. John Gambril
   Nicholson in his poem "Of Boy's Names" (Love in Earnest: Sonnets,
   Ballades, and Lyrics (1892)) contains the lines: " Though Frank may
   ring like silver bell, And Cecil softer music claim, They cannot work
   the miracle, –'Tis Ernest sets my heart a-flame." The poem was promoted
   by John Addington Symonds and Nicholson and Wilde contributed pieces to
   the same issue of The Chameleon magazine.. Theo Aronson has suggested
   that the word "earnest" became a code-word for homosexual, as in: "Is
   he earnest?", in the same way that "Is he so?" and "Is he musical?"
   were also employed.

   The words bunbury and bunburying, which are used to imply double lives
   and as excuses for absences are, according to a letter from Aleister
   Crowley to Sir R. H. Bruce Lockhart, an in-joke conjunction that came
   about after Wilde boarded a train at Banbury on which he met a
   schoolboy. They got into conversation and subsequently arranged to meet
   again at Sunbury.

   While these words may have been such mild in-jokes, Sir Donald Sinden,
   who had met two of the play's original participants in the 1940s: Irene
   Vanbrugh, the first Gwendolen; Allan Aynesworth, the first Algy; as
   well as Lord Alfred Douglas, wrote to The Times to dispute that the
   words held any sexual connotations, or that 'Cecily' was a synonym for
   a rentboy: "Although they had ample opportunity, at no time did any of
   them even hint that Earnest was a synonym for homosexual, or that
   Bunburying may have implied homosexual sex. The first time I heard it
   mentioned was in the 1980s and I immediately consulted Sir John Gielgud
   whose own performance of Jack Worthing in the same play was legendary
   and whose knowledge of theatrical lore was encyclopaedic. He replied in
   his ringing tones: "No-No! Nonsense, absolute nonsense: I would have
   known."

Trivia

     * John Gielgud was considered to be the greatest Jack Worthing of the
       twentieth century, and his 1947 Broadway production won the only
       Tony Award ever given for Best Foreign Production.
     * Lady Bracknell's phrase A handbag? has been claimed to be the
       single quotation in English drama that has given rise to the most
       varied readings, ranging from incredulous through scandalized to
       just plain baffled. There is scarcely an actress who has not tried
       to put her own personal stamp on it, but the most famous is that of
       Edith Evans in Anthony Asquith's film, who delivered the line
       loudly in a mixture of horror, incredulity and condescension.
     * The Marquess of Queensberry, father of Wilde's male lover Lord
       Alfred Douglas, attempted to enter the theatre on the play's
       opening night to publicly expose Oscar Wilde's homosexuality, but
       Wilde was tipped in advance and Queensberry was refused a ticket.
       Due to Wilde's personal troubles, however, the play was closed
       after only 83 performances, despite its success.
     * The name 'Miss Prism' is a pun on 'misprision', the word for
       concealing an error from authority.
     * When Jack tells Lady Bracknell that Cecily has a fortune of 'about
       a hundred and thirty thousand pounds' that is roughly the
       equivalent of £10,000,000 or US$18,000,000 in 2005.
     * At the time the play was written Victoria Station in London was
       actually two adjacent terminal stations sharing the same name. To
       the east was the terminal of the decidedly ramshackle London,
       Chatham and Dover Railway and to the west, the much more
       fashionable London, Brighton and South Coast Railway—the Brighton
       Line. Although the two stations shared a dividing wall, there was
       no interconnection: it was necessary to walk out into the street to
       pass from one station to the other. Jack explains that he was found
       in a handbag in the cloakroom at Victoria Station and tries to
       mitigate the circumstance by assuring Lady Bracknell that it was
       the more socially acceptable "Brighton line."
     * In 2004's Spider-Man 2, Mary Jane Watson ( Kirsten Dunst) appears
       on Broadway in a scene from Earnest.
     * The famous Spanish singer, Enrique Bunbury, named himself after the
       character Bunbury.

Film versions

     * The 1952 film of the play was directed by Anthony Asquith and stars
       Michael Denison (Algernon), Michael Redgrave (Jack), Dame Edith
       Evans (Lady Bracknell), Dorothy Tutin (Cecily), Joan Greenwood
       (Gwendolen), and Margaret Rutherford (Miss Prism).
     * The 1992 remake was directed by Kurt Baker.
     * The 2002 remake stars Colin Firth (Jack), Rupert Everett (Algy),
       Dame Judi Dench (Lady Bracknell), Reese Witherspoon (Cecily),
       Frances O'Connor (Gwendolen), Anna Massey (Miss Prism), and Tom
       Wilkinson (Dr. Chasuble) and was directed by Oliver Parker.

Adaptations

     * A musical based on the play called Ernest in Love opened
       off-Broadway in 1960 to glowing reviews. It starred John Irving as
       Jack and Louis Edmonds as Algernon. The show was later revived and
       translated into Japanese in 2005 for the Takarazuka Revue in Japan.

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