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ASF Study Materials & Activities for

The Importance of Being Earnest by Wilde

Director Geoffrey Sherman Study materials by Dr. Susan Willis Set Design James Wolk ASF Dramaturg Costume Design Elizabeth Novak [email protected] Lighting Design Ann Wrightson Contact ASF @ www.asf.net 1.800.841-4273 The Importance of Being Earnest by

Welcome to The Importance of Being Earnest

As one of the most nearly perfect plays in English drama, both rock solid and airy delight, Characters The Importance of Being Earnest challenges us John (Jack) Worthing, J.P. with its style, its wit, and its comic credo. Amid the A Very Polite Cat Fight in the Country (Justice of the Peace), of exploration of young love and the trickster the Manor House, Woolton, spirit that comedies have negotiated for Hertfordshire millenia, Oscar Wilde whips up a frothy Algernon Moncrieff, his friend elixir of elegant phrasing, elegant timing, Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax, and elegant self-assertion, bearing the Algernon's cousin, in love subtitle "A Trivial Comedy for Serious with Jack People." By examining misbehavior Lady Bracknell, her mother clad in perfect couture, Wilde reveals the Cecily Cardew, Jack's ward pretentions of a self-proclaimed "perfect" Miss Prism, her governess human society and its self-indulgent and Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D., vastly amusing inhabitants. Rector of Woolton The play breathes deeply the air Lane, Algernon's manservant of its fin de siècle context even as it Merriman, Jack's butler in embraces the comic tradition of farce Woolton that has delighted theatregoers since theatre began. Farce involves desire Setting: 1895, Algernon's and impulse, blockade and breach, London flat and Jack's scheming and gratification. It is a runaway manor house in Woolton, train that somehow safely pulls into the Hertfordshire station right on schedule, a tour de force of energy and acting and self-assertion. Consequently, such a play offers us the Delicious comedy emerges from Wilde's duo theatrical opportunity to see ourselves in the tea scenes—first in Act 1 in London with the two foibles and hopes of others and to laugh at About the Names young men and then in Act 2 in the country with • Gwendolen's honorific title of ourselves even as we see them and ourselves the two young ladies, each in love with "Ernest" "Honourable" means her father more astutely. Wilde offers the ideal expression is a viscount or a baron in the play's goal in its dialogue: English aristocracy, but she is "It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as addressed as "Miss." any observation in civilized life should be." • A chasuble is the outermost About the Study Materials garment worn by bishops Southeast England: Locales in Play These study materials offer information and priests in celebrating the about The Importance of Being Earnest, its Eucharist. Its use was revived context in England of the 1890s, its structure in the mid-19th century. It suggests the rector leans to the and artistry as comedy, as well as background High Church. information on the author, Oscar Wilde, and his • Miss Prism's name may derive wit and humor, plus production design renderings from a governess's phrase (when available), and activities for discussion in Dickens's Little Dorrit: and/or writing (which are boxed in purple). "potatoes, poultry, prunes, and •London Adapt the materials to the level, needs, prism, are all very good words for the lips: especially prunes and interests of your students; they fit most and prism." educational standards and will let you • Worthing is the name of the supplement the performance experience with seaside resort in which Wilde more detail, activities, and analysis. first drafted the play in 4 acts during late summer 1894. • Woolton is a fictional town.

"I can resist everything except temptation." —Lady Windermere's Fan The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde The Inimitable Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde had English parents, but like and goods, including manuscripts, were sold; many of England's finest comic writers, he was his wife divorced him. Despite these calamities, born in Ireland, October 16, 1854. His father was Wilde wrote his famous poem, The Ballad of a physician and his mother a doyenne who wrote Reading Gaol [Jail], while in prison as well as Irish nationalist poetry; she emigrated to England his meditative letter to Douglas, . after her husband's death in 1876. Wilde was a When released, he moved to Paris, where he remarkably successful student, winning the Gold died and was buried in 1900. Medal for Greek at Trinity College, Dublin, and taking a First in classics at Magdalen College, In the Words of His Contemporaries: Oxford, as well as winning the Newdigate Prize • "Oscar was the greatest man I have ever for poetry in 1878. known—and the greatest gentleman." Wilde settled in London in 1879 and quickly —, actor-manager became known as an aesthete. The next year he toured the United States and Canada lecturing • "The dinner table was Wilde's event and on the new aestheticism and the arts and made him the greatest talker of his time, crafts movement, always wearing velvet knee and his plays and dialogues have what breeches and sporting a sunflower or lily in his merit they possess from being now an buttonhole, a style that was much lampooned. imitation, now a record, of his talk." Later, in Paris, he began writing plays; he also —W. B. Yeats, poet Oscar Wilde continued to lecture and began writing reviews. He settled with his wife and two sons in Chelsea, • "When to the sessions of sad memory I the heart of London's artistic community. summon up the spirits of those whom I Between 1888 and 1895, Wilde published have met in the world and loved, men poems, stories, essays, a novel, and plays, famous and men of unfulfilled renown, and for a time edited a woman's magazine. In I miss no-one so much as I miss Oscar 1890 his acclaimed short novel, The Picture Wilde.… I have known more heroic of Dorian Gray, appeared. His first dramatic souls and some deeper souls; … but I success was Lady Windermere's Fan, which have known no more charming, no more opened in London in 1892. By 1893 Wilde quickening, no more delightful spirit.… was a successful and self-indulgent man, It may be that I prize humour and good generous, fiscally improvident, and accustomed humour and eloquent or poetic speech, to an expensive lifestyle. His play Salomé was the artistic qualities … But the lovable refused performance rights, despite the efforts and joyous things are to me the priceless of its French star, Sarah Bernhardt, but Wilde things, and the most charming man I have completed A Woman of No Importance and An ever met was assuredly Oscar Wilde." Ideal Husband, the latter finally reaching the Above, an —Frank Harris, writer 1883 parody stage in January of 1895. A month later The of Wilde the Importance of Being Earnest opened to rave • "Behind the brilliance of his talk, behind and aesthete, and reviews and widespread acclaim. infinitely more charming than his poses, right, entering Wilde's high point also became the turning in those days before his bitter ruin came the theatre for point of his life. As a result of Wilde's relationship upon him, was an extraordinarily amiable opening night with , Douglas's irascible and sunny spirit which wished well to of Earnest father attacked Wilde in writing four days after everyone, and the sense of that gave him the opening of Earnest; Wilde prosecuted him a charm that many … were unable long to for libel and lost. Wilde, however, was then resist." arrested, tried twice and eventually convicted of —E. F. Benson, novelist "gross indecency," and sentenced to two years at hard labor. He was bankrupted and his house

"One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art." —Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde England and English Theatre in the 1890s

In discussing the Victorian age in their Literature and the Stage Norton introduction, Carol T. Christ and Catherine Fiction and poetry inspired major Robson state that despite shifts in economy achievements by major English authors during driven by manufacturing, new discoveries and the Victorian era. The theatre, however, while theories in science, and utilitarian political widely popular and growing in size to 3600-seat theory, the era radiated complacency, stability, houses, fed its audiences melodramas and and optimism, a country satisfied with its empire spectacular thrillers with towering infernos and and dominant place in the world. That "golden sinking ships on stage. Nearer the end of the glow" pervaded the end of the century, yet by the era, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry culminated 1890s, Victorian values were palpably "breaking a century that restored Shakespeare's text to down"—the 50-year-old Prince of Wales was the stage with powerful renditions of his plays a continual playboy, the aesthetic movement at the Lyceum. Actor-manager George Alexander exuded a sophisticated languor, and notoriety Just as the reading public devoured novels was in the air. They continue: and others waited eagerly to have broadsides In Dickens's David Copperfield (1850) the read to them, theatre scholar Robert Corrigan About 1890s Society Drama hero affirms: "I have always been thoroughly in reports that 150,000 audience members a day Society drama evolved in the earnest." Forty-five years later Oscar Wilde's last half of the 19th century, taking attended theatre in London alone—for the stage the best of melodrama, "its ability comedy The Importance of Being Earnest was the equivalent of our modern television. to move audiences, simplicity and (1895) turns the typical mid-Victorian word While entertainment for the masses meant stage directness of effect," and, after plays earnest into a pun, a key joke in this comic effects, the society comedies that appealed to pitting class against class, at last spectacle of earlier Victorian values being the upper and upper-middle classes pursued began to look within classes, notes turned upside down." a realistic staging—more and more verisimilar theatre historian Russell Jackson. By Only twenty years prior to World War I, that drawing rooms and country house weekends the 1890s "Society Drama … deals coming world so forcefully forming was unseen with real furniture and props. with the ways in which the ruling class policed itself." by contemporaries. A powerful Germany and On the continent Ibsen, Strindberg, and "The moral world of these plays unified Italy had changed the European dynamic, Chekhov were bringing edgy new issues, new is clearly defined," he continues. "The and global unrest in the colonies presaged psychological pressures, and new techniques chief material responsibilities of their unresolved issues. to drama, but England balked at this progress, class and their country are borne by On the domestic front, the "restless natives" considering the issues unseemly or repugnant, men, on whose strength of character were the large working class, but on a new front daring only to work around the margins of such all depends. The man who makes they were mostly female, and the question of the truths as "a woman with a past." Instead, English nothing of his life can command no era was "the Woman question." Without the right society sought unruffled commendation of its respect, and it is one of the principal functions of women to determine to vote, gaining the legal right to own and handle values and virtues. who merits respect and to make their own property only slowly, and with double their discrimination apparent in their standards in place everywhere from social norms choice of whom to marry. Women to the divorce courts, women pressed for rights. set the spiritual tone, and without a By 1900 a number of universities or colleges supply of good women, Society will finally allowed women, though they still could crumble.…" The mean, unmanly, or not take a degree from Oxford or Cambridge. wicked men "will need the support of Working class women could labor in factories a good woman if they are to redeem themselves." or mines—or prostitution—while middle-class This is the social world and women could only become governesses. The these the social roles Wilde portrays cause of the "emancipated woman" was new as with such acuity, charm, and satiric the century ended, and now such new women wit in his play. and suffragettes wanted the vote. —Quotations from Russell Jackson, ed. The Importance of Being Earnest (New Mermaid ed.) For Discussion • Track the way Wilde uses or inverts these social roles The St. James Theatre, where Earnest premiered. and expectations in the play. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde The Story of The Importance of Being Earnest

Act 1 Act 2 As Algernon Moncrieff prepares for the As Cecily tries to get out of doing her arrival of his aunt, Lady Bracknell, and cousin lessons with her governess, Miss Prism, Mr. Things to Watch in the Plot Gwendolen for tea, his friend Ernest Worthing Ernest Worthing is announced. It is Algernon, • Although Wilde is writing in an drops in. Algernon proceeds to pursue the who is so charmed by Cecily that he proposes, age of realistic drama, this mystery of Ernest's identity, a mystery he only to learn Cecily considers them already play is farcical—that is, it discovered by finding his cigarette case, which is engaged, since she has fabricated an entire relies on improbability rather inscribed to "Uncle Jack" by a "Cecily." Accused courtship with him in her imagination based on than probability. of being a "Bunburyist," Ernest confesses he Uncle Jack's stories. As the action proceeds, take is actually John (Jack) but has invented a Jack then enters in deep mourning dress note of how often something dissolute younger brother Ernest as an excuse and announces Ernest's death, only to have unlikely or convenient or to get into town from his home in the country, Cecily tell him Ernest is in the house. Upon almost fantastic occurs at where his late adoptive father, Mr. Cardew, has seeing Algy, Jack tries to throw him out. Left in just the right/wrong moment. left him an estate and made Jack guardian to the garden, Cecily meets Gwendolen, who has • Any comedy, farce or his granddaughter Cecily. Algernon responds come from town to visit Jack. The two young otherwise, that involves that he has likewise invented an invalid friend, women discover they are each engaged to Mr. wooing will have love and Bunbury, as an excuse to get out of town to Ernest Worthing, and when the men re-enter, obstacles. Watch the basis the country. each woman reveals the true identity of the of the love and the nature When the ladies arrive, Algy distracts Lady other's fiancé. Since each will only marry a of the obstacles as they Bracknell so Jack can propose to Gwendolen, man named Ernest, the engagements are in emerge. What will it take to who declares she could only marry a man named a shambles. move these obstacles? Ernest. Lady Bracknell interrupts and interviews "Ernest"; when she discovers he is a foundling, she tells him marriage is impossible Act 3 without the social cachet afforded Lady Bracknell arrives, having pursued by parents and is thus impossible Gwendolen from London. She meets Cecily, and with Gwendolen. Gwendolen returns when she learns Cecily is an heiress agrees to to get his address in the country, Algernon's engagement with her. Jack, however, which Algy overhears. Though Jack refuses his permission unless he can marry determines to kill off Ernest, Algy Gwendolen. Miss Prism breaks the stalemate, determines to "Bunbury" to Jack's for Lady Bracknell recognizes her as the nanny estate to meet Cecily. who years ago misplaced her infant nephew. After the corroboration of the handbag in which the infant was mistakenly placed, Jack learns A sketch of Act 2's confrontation he is in fact Algernon's older brother and named between Jack and Algy from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic Ernest, so all the couples end up happily. News, 9 March 1895, based on the premiere production of the play.

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance." —Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Structure and Image in Earnest

Usually structure describes the action of a Responsibility crumples before a quick excuse, play and its import for plot, issues, and character and Algernon will satisfy himself at all costs, as he arcs. Since Earnest builds its own world while proceeds to do regarding the cigarette case. satirizing the world of 1890s' English society, The inscription on the cigarette case causes however, its characters experience no deep Algy to refuse consent even before his friend change. What they are and want at the beginning can propose to his cousin due to the mystery Things to Consider in the they are and want at the end, with a few "minor of "little Cecily." (Later Lady Bracknell's first Production details" such as mates and money introduced question to Jack during their interview will be • the role of proprieties and on the way. Their crises are challenges to be "Do you smoke?") Algy's interrogation reveals manners—the correct overcome, as often involving dinner invitations his friend's true identity. He is not "Mr. Ernest social surface the social as marriage, and seldom choices involving Worthing," as Lane announced him when he occasions, especially of taking responsibility. Jack is told to "acquire entered, but actually John Worthing, J.P., who taking tea—work amid the some relations," including at least one parent flees his local responsibilities on occasion and schemes and desires of the if he wants to marry Gweldolen, and by play's is known to Algy and the town by the name of characters end, he does! a brother he invented as an excuse to come to • what rules for behavior are The conventional plot development can be London for pleasure. cited and who makes them summarized as: At once Algernon recognizes Bunburying, • how Jack's silent appearance Act One: Proposal—Ernest (Jack)/ his own name for such escapism, which he also in mourning clothes in Act Gwendolen, blocked by Lady Bracknell; indulges in to avoid the social obligations of the Two works. Can a visual jest real name revealed to Algernon town. Each wants a private life allowing more be as powerful as a verbal Act Two: Proposal—Ernest (Algernon)/ choice and less scrutiny, so they "bunbury." How jest? Cecily, blocked by Jack and rejected by these alternate identities work and which is the • the role the women's diaries women when real names are revealed real identity deserves some thought. and Miss Prism's three- Act Three: Disposal—revelation of Cecily's Act Two: Diaries and Muffins volume novel play—and fortune gains Lady Bracknell's approval; What the cigarette case and cucumber reading in general revelation of Jack's parentage allows him sandwiches are to Act One, the young ladies's to marry Gwendolen diaries and the afternoon tea in the country are All the action is accomplished absurdly as to Act Two. Cecily's diary explores the Wildean Wilde uses farce to invert values frontier between life and art, reality and fiction, of serious/trivial as he creates his as it becomes a formidable weapon for when "Earnest" world. Algy, posing as Earnest, appears and proposes, Act One: Cucumber Sandwiches and Cecily proves from her diary that they have a Cigarette Case already been engaged for three months. She has The social niceties reveal not waited for the actual man; she has created characters in Earnest. Cucumber the desired events as if shaping an avatar in sandwiches are the quintessential the virtual universe of her life. comestible at a proper English tea, Later, when Gwendolen arrives, both and from the moment Lane serves in a women prove their engagement to Ernest with tray of them prior to Lady Bracknell and entries from their diaries; reality is what is written, Gwendolen's arrival for tea, Algernon whether fiction or fact. proceeds to devour them, one by one, Taking tea just continues their fangs-bared while denying them to Jack. When his conflict, with Cecily fighting with sugar cubes and A magazine sketch of the young aunt arrives the plate is bare: women in Act 2 of the premiere serving spatula, ignoring her guest's requests. Algy: (picking up empty plate in horror) Good Once rejected and abandoned by their beloveds, production of Earnest heavens, Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially. the men take over the tea and Algy, as usual, Lane: (gravely) There were no cucumbers in the begins to devour the muffins and they spat market this morning, sir. I went down twice. about that, otherwise at a loss for salvaging Algy: No cucumbers! their engagements, save by baptism. Lane: No, sir. Not even for ready money. Act Three: A Handbag and the Army Lists Algy is holding the empty plate; obviously, Without food, Act Three propels itself into had there been no cucumbers available, Lane questions and revelations, solved at last by an would not have served in an empty plate. But earnest search in Jack's closet for a handbag they cover the crisis with sang-froid and blame and in the Army Lists that together improbably the market for the self-indulgence of the host. allow fabrications to become truths. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Details of the Social Milieu of Earnest

Taking Tea For hundreds of years during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, daylight determined the workday and the meal schedule. The two regular meals were some breakfast and then a dinner at noon, the big meal of the day. Before people went to bed shortly after sundown they might eat what we would call a snack, a bit of supper. During the 18th century and certainly after the invention of gas and electric lighting, the moneyed classes could extend their lives into the evening, so dinner for them moved from noon to after dark, beginning at 8:00 or later. Because a light lunch did not sustain one until a late dinner, at mid-century the Duchess of The morning room in Ugbrooke House in Devon Bedford is credited with starting to take tea with a small piece of cake or bread and butter in the The Morning Room late afternoon in her room. This repast turned Both Algernon's flat in London and the into a social event with her friends and moved Cardew/Worthing estate in Hertfordshire (a into the parlour, where the tea was served on county northeast of London on the way to the low tables amid the sofas and chairs—"low Cambridge) have morning rooms, and the action tea" for the high society. of Act One and Act Three takes place in them—at For the working classes, however, this late or after tea time in the late afternoon. afternoon meal took place after work, often at or A morning room ideally has a southeast after 6:30 at night, a cold repast of bread, cheese, aspect to capture the sun of the first half of the perhaps cold meat (leftovers from their dinner day. It is intended to be an informal drawing at noon) and was eaten at the higher kitchen room with large windows, some of which may table—"high tea" (or "meat tea") for the lower extend to the floor and open into the garden or classes for whom this was the only evening meal. onto the lawn. In annotating the morning room The name derived from the height of the table, in his edition of the play, Donohue although as the custom spread into the tourist quotes Manners of Modern Society (1872) as industry in the 20th to the furnishings: century, the high The morning-room should be cheerful and in "high tea" was sunshiny, and wear a domestic, cozy look. It is misunderstood as not fitted up with any particular style of furniture. referring to the The curtains and covers will be of some kind of social stratum small-patterned chintz, with a carpet to . and the tourist Nothing very grand or very new should find its way trade responded, into this apartment—nothing stiff or formal. Tables so that now posh here and there, and chairs of different sorts and hotels offer at sizes, a stand with plants, a small piano, a low bookcase—these are the principal features in a "high tea" what room of this description, a general elegant déshabille Victorians enjoyed pervading the whole. at "low tea"—tea, On stage, of course, because Lady small crustless Bracknell will decree her judgments about estate sandwiches (also and marriages in this environ, many designers invented by a place the action in a much more formal drawing Brit, the Earl of room—because somehow the words "nothing Sandwich), and very grand" and "nothing stiff or formal" do not some sweets and mesh with the presence of Lady Bracknell in cake slices. many people's minds. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Wilde's Uses of the Traditions of Comedy

Oscar Wilde keenly observed the fashions of Algernon proves even more flighty in his contemporary theatre, but he was also a classics love; he merely hears of Cecily's existence, scholar who knew comedy as far back as its decides he must meet her, does, and is instantly Greek origins with Aristophanes and Menander charmed, so within moments he proposes to in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. her: "I don't care for anybody in the whole world The outline of Western romantic comedy by you. I love you, Cecily! You will marry me, shares Menander's focus on domestic subjects, won't you?" The romance surges, and Wilde, usually young love. In these plays, later adapted in his crafty way, twists the moment perfectly by Plautus and Terence in ancient Rome, with Cecily's reply: "You silly boy! Of course. the lovers rely on scheming servants to help Why, we have been engaged for the last three overcome the obstacles posed by blocking months," for she has not waited to meet the fathers whose permission is essential for a actual "Ernest" but has been attracted by tales happy marriage to occur. In Terence, long lost of the fictive brother. children often discover their wealthy parentage The third, not-so-young couple takes the just in time to seal their engagement. longest to arrive at an understanding, since With a wry satiric acumen worthy of each has a professional "place" in society to Aristophanes, Wilde adapts their classical comic consider. Canon Chausuble, in his first scene, form to his own interests and ends. He gives us chastizes Cecily for being inattentive to her two sets of young lovers and one set of older tutor's ministrations: lovers, no wily servants—although there is a drily Were I fortunate enough to be Miss Prism's funny butler—and the blocking parent to end all pupil I would hang upon her lips. (Miss Prism glares.) blocking parents, except this one is a mother. I spoke metaphorically—the metaphor was drawn from bees.… Wilde, after all, knows the late Victorian world he is portraying and gets it right. The two cover their endearments with these "metaphorical" explanations, and it is very Sketches of actor-manager The Young Lovers satisfying when at last they ride the tide of George Alexander in the premiere Rather than have several men vying for one romance into each other's arms. production of Earnest woman, as often happens in classical comedy, Wilde gives us the right gentleman for each Thinking about Men, Women, and Courting lady. The wooing itself is effortless; everyone is • We meet the young men first, and they ready and willing to fall in love, as if that were have plans. Jack plans to propose to their one purpose in life. Gwendolen and Jack Gweldolen, and Algy to solve the mystery have met in society, flirted in society, and now of Jack's cigarette case, revised to include take advantage of a social event—Algernon's meeting Cecily. The minute we meet the tea party—to become engaged. Gweldolen women, however, they take over and are tells Jack she will accept him even before he two steps ahead of the men and far more proposes, but she still expects the form to be authoritative. met: he must kneel and ask. He bends his knee, Describe the dynamics of the male/female utters the few magic words, is gratified by his relationships as the play proceeds and beloved's acceptance, and then hears Lady how Wilde portrays this social mating Bracknell's stentorian tones: "Mr. Worthing! Rise, game. In a world in which the stereotype sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most of women is as fragile, delicate, innocent indecorous," and Jack's confrontation with the flowers, is that what we see? Or, as in the obstacles to love's happiness begins. animal kingdom, are the women here the hunters (and the men implicitly the prey)? • Lady Bracknell has a husband whom we never see. Describe that marriage based on comments she and Gweldolen make about Lord Bracknell in the play.

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means." —The Importance of Being Earnest The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Wilde's Uses of the Traditions of Comedy/ 2 The Blocking Characters Money Matters If good blocking characters are worth their Lady Bracknell's next question, "What is weight in gold, Wilde struck the motherlode with your income," brings us to the crux of all issues Lady Bracknell. He also worked very efficiently, in a true English romantic comedy—the money. since as Gwendolen's mother and Algernon's Virtue is preferred, beauty is compelling, but aunt and only extant relative, she can single- money makes the parent's heart grow fonder handedly block all the budding relationships through centuries of plays involving arranged among the young lovers. In fact, she seems marriages and the attendant business deals. A Thinking about Blocking perfectly capable of blocking every relationship certain wisdom governs arranging the money Characters developing on the entire island. beforehand; today we call them "pre-nuptial • How many blocking Lady Bracknell insists on maintaining agreements." characters are there in propriety, and to that end she questions the no Jack's answer, "Between seven and Earnest? On what basis do longer semi-recumbent Mr. Worthing: "I feel eight thousand a year," prompts a clarifying they block others' desires bound to tell you that you are not down on my question from Lady Bracknell, "In land, or in and/or the young people's list of eligible young men, altough I have the investments?" Jack's investments satisfy her, romance? Do they have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. for as she observes, "land has ceased to be same values? We work together, in fact." With this opening we either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, • Do social values or see into the heart of maternal concern on marital and prevents one from keeping it up." Therein expectations as well as issues: a marriage must be socially correct; lie centuries of English social history, the long individuals seem to block happiness is not an issue. The "examination" shift from a landed aristocracy to commodity the "happy ending" from of Jack—which one might expect to open with wealth and investment. As the land ceased to be occurring? What is the financial and family issues—proves to be one profitable, as the economy shifted from agrarian basis of these values or of the most delicious send-ups in Wilde's taunt to industrial, a new class of wealth arose, money expectations? at society's real values. She begins: that was made rather than inherited. Old titles Lady B: Do you smoke? lingered, but status followed the money. Jack: Well, yes, I must admit I smoke. Jack gratifies Lady Bracknell on both Lady B: I am glad to hear it. A man should accounts, for he also has a country house and always have an occupation of some land as well as a house in town ("town," of kind.… How old are you? course, being London). Delighted by the news, Jack: Twenty-nine. Lady Bracknell asks where. Belgrave Square. Lady B: A very good age The number? 149—"The unfashionable side. to be married at. I have always I thought there was something," the social been of the opinion that a man bloodhound replies. Undeterred, she adds, who desires to get married Lady B: However, that could easily be altered. should know either everything or nothing. Which do you know? Jack: Do you mean the fashion, or the side? Jack: I know nothing, Lady Lady B: Both, if necessary, I presume. Bracknell. Her confidence, her keen sense of propriety, Lady B: I am pleased to her forceful superiority to her husband suggest hear it. I do not approve of what she finally confirms in the last act. Not only anything that tampers with is she singularly responsive to the size of Cecily's natural ignorance.… fortune, but she alludes to her own background: The comedy is in the "But I do not approve of mercenary marriages. commentary, for Wilde When I married Lord Bracknell I had no fortune continually turns our of any kind. But I never dreamed for a moment of Sara Topham, David Furr, and expectations on their head. The values maintain allowing that to stand in my way." She protects Brian Bedford as Gwendolen, Jack, the surface of aristocratic life; the issue is whether the of wealth so vigorously because it and Lady Bracknell in the 2011 there is anything expected underneath. can be breached; she herself has done it. No Broadway production of Earnest, wonder she is so careful in questioning Jack, which cast Lady B as a "dame role," played by a man, a traditional casting another suspected aspirant to wealth. device in English theatre, especially common in pantomime. "In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." —A Woman of No Importance The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Wilde's Uses of the Traditions of Comedy/ 3

City versus Country The young women give us another view Another traditional aspect of English of the values of each locale. Gwendolen is comedy is the locale, the associations of city and sophisticated and urbane; Cecily is fresh and country. Shakespeare often opens his comedies open, but every bit as pert as her city opposite. in city or court, then moves them to the Forest In the catty tea scene in Act 2, the women go of Arden, a wood outside Athens, or Belmont for at each other with such politesse, using lumps the romantic confusions and clarifications. of sugar and perfectly phrased verbal barbs rather than claws. As Lady Bracknell says to Renaissance comedy also fostered a Jack, "A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like subgenre known as "city comedy," which Gwendolen, could hardly be expected to reside touted merchants and their wives, petty crooks, in the country," and another of Wilde's reversals true hearts, and a certain rapacity, especially hits its mark. Finally, of course, the young women in young lords preying on city wives and understand each other all too well—each wants daughters. Restoration comedy is a later and her Ernest without a rival. more aristocratic form of city comedy, with idle "rakes" dedicated to seduction and, if necessary Mistaken Identity for financial stability, marriage, but fashionable, What would a comedy be without mistaken witty, and scornful of anything country, for if identity? Wilde opens this play with "Ernest's" the country saw the city as corrupting, the city cigarette case that reveals Jack's true name considered the countrty hideously boorish and and identity to Algernon, and later in the act boring. The country came into its own again in the Lady Bracknell's questions as quickly show the 18th century, when sentiment tamed the sexual insubstantiality of that identity—Jack's name is conniving of the previous era's comedy. Worthing because the railway ticket in old Mr. Wilde gives us one act in the city and two in Cardew's pocket was to that resort when he the country; notice that the men each arrange an found infant Jack. Algernon pockets "Ernest's" alter ego to get a change calling card early in Act 1 as proof that "Ernest" of air—Jack wants to is who he says he is, but that calling card comes get into town and Algy back with great comic flair when Algernon to get out of it. Jack appears at Jack's manor house and sends in has obligations in the his card as "Ernest Worthing." Cecily believe country; though young, he is Ernest, her Uncle Jack's younger brother, he is the highest ranking just as Gwendolen believes Jack is Ernest, for figure in his locale. This that is how he introduced himself to her in town. obligation weighs on Each young woman is mistaken, each discovers him, and when he needs the mistake to the other, and each is crushed a break, he finds he because both intend to marry a man named simply must go deal Ernest: "there is something in that name that with his fictitious scamp seems to inspire absolute confidence." of a younger brother, The last comic bit of mistaken identity occurs Ernest. Similarly, when in the recognition scene at the end, when Jack social obligations begin realizes that the handbag in which he was found to depress Algy, the belongs to Miss Prism and he instantly proclaims ideal aesthetic city gent, her "Mother!" That knot is quickly untied, and Bunbury has an attack Jack's true parentage is revealed by the arbiter and off Algy flies to the of all truth, Lady Bracknell, who at the critical country for some fun. moment cannot remember her brother-in-law's given name, which if not mistaken identity is certainly "mislaid" identity, as identity so often is in this play.

"Manners before morals." The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Wilde's Uses of the Traditions of Comedy/ 4

The Question of Parentage What Kind of Comedy—Farce and Satire Though Lady Bracknell considers it a "minor There is no doubt that Wilde builds his matter" when she inquires about Jack's parents, comedy on a farcical framework; the beautiful his reply that he has lost both his parents, or mechanism of his play ticks along, smart remarks rather that they have lost him, taps into one of the dazzling and charming the audience, plot twists oldest gambits of comic romance writing—the and duet scenes shifting character allegiances unknown parentage. Jack was found, adopted, and giving rise to new opportunities for repartée. and cared for, but all he knows of his previous Farce relies on character types, fast-paced life is the handbag in which he was left at action, reversals, and simple objectives that are Victoria Station. frustrated before they are met. Like bumper cars Up until the moment when Lady Bracknell or wind-up toys the characters careen verbally Above, a Victorian handbag like bellows, "Prism, where is that baby?" we have through the shifting social moments toward an the one key to Jack's parentage no idea how Wilde will extricate Jack from unlikely resolution. in the play, and, below, a late the anonymity that bars him from marrying English social comedy has long been Victorian perambulator (pram). his beloved Gwendolen, but in a predictably indebted to its Irish-born playwrights—Congreve, Sudden recognition scenes improbable gesture, all doubt is resolved and Sheridan, Shaw, Wilde; they see the social were often parodied on the 19th- bliss reigns. So many 19th-century plays had surfaces and pretenses so clearly. In looking at century English stage, as here in recognition scenes at the curtain that Wilde knew English society, Wilde's Irish origins gave him a the 1847 play Box and Cox: both their predictability and their popularity; he keen outsider's eye, sensitive to nuance; lionized Box: You'll excuse the apparent insanity of the remark, but the can spoof them as easily as he spoofs society as he was by that society, he saw its follies and more I gaze on your features, in his comic romp. To bring happiness to his foibles as well as any. He played to it, crafted the more I' convinced that young lovers, all Lady Bracknell must do is say his persona to please and fascinate it, and was you're my long-lost brother. "yes," and for that to happen Jack must have a untimately consumed and ostracized by it. Yet Cox: The very observation I was known parentage and Cecily's parentage and he pointedly shows its limits, its shallowness, its going to make to you! fortune must be revealed. self-concern, and its care for form and fashion Box: Ah, tell me—in mercy tell over substance. me—have you such a thing as a strawberry mark on your left Because of its satiric focus on society itself, arm? the play is also usually described as a comedy Cox: No! of manners, thus akin to Restoration comedy Box: Then it is he! [They rush into with its portraits of the indulgent and idle rich. Yet each other's arms.] the alpha male of Restoration comedy has the (cited in Joseph Donohue's wit and wiles to win the social game on his own Oscar Wilde's The Importance terms, and so does Jack Worthing in Earnest. We of Being Earnest, written with Ruth Berggren, 1995) may think Jack the equivalent of Algy because we meet him in town at Algy's flat, but his more responsible side resides in the country and he Fiction and Life uses that social cachet to his advantage when • The culminating image of he has Lady Bracknell in his house interested the play is of a baby and in his ward—or her fortune—at the end. a perambulator plus a Though Wilde said the play was "written three-volume novel and a by a butterfly for butterflies," he meant a handbag. In a distracted good deal more. His original—and satirically moment, the baby is put in truthful—subtitle for the play was "A Serious Play the handbag and the novel for Trivial People," but actor-manager George into the pram. Alexander would not allow such a remark to be Consider the image's printed on the program. Alexander reversed it implications for how we to read, "A Trivial Play for Serious People," and live our lives—do we that is the subtitle many editions still reprint, compartmentalize the twisting Wilde's intent as surely as Alexander real or actual and foster did. We know better. the fictions? What are the fictions of our lives and their "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." sources? —A Woman of No Importance The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Wilde's Use of Language

One of the greatest joys of being in the Paradox and Contradiction theatre with The Importance of Being Earnest To fully appreciate Wilde's achievement in is simply listening to Wilde's use of language. language in this play, we must do more than Quick-witted folk are always a delight on stage, listen and laugh. We must study its form. Critic but in this play Wilde's sustained wittiness Ian Gregor can help us: surpasses anything else in the English tongue. the characteristic language of the dandy is He knows all the tricks of wit—the perfect the paradox, and the essence of paradox phrasing, playing off of cliché, the shock and is contradiction. This draws attention to two delight of the unexpected turn of phrase, the things—the attitude or sentiment which the pardox lighthearted insousiance, the final importance is concerned to reverse and the language itself in of truth. The structure of his pithy remarks is which the reversal is done. We should say of paradox that it is a form of expression which is at once critical perfect, but more than that, the truth of his and self-delighting. And the same definition would remarks is astounding. Some wit merely mirrors apply very well to Earnest as a whole. as it glowingly reflects its speaker, showing off The play's first and purest "dandy" is his erudition and style. The best wit, however, Algernon, whose dialogue is a feast of wit, serves not oneself but truth; it illuminates life in especially in Act 1 as we meet him and the fresh and sometimes startling ways. atmosphere of the play: Who's Talking? Jack: I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come Human language has a human source, and up to town expressly to propose to her. Sketch of Jack and Algy in Act 1 rhetoric examines and uses the basic elements Algy: I thought you had come up for pleasure. … I of speaker and his/her character, audience and call that business. Studying Wilde's Language his/her/its character and which aspects the Jack: How utterly unromantic you are! • If you are not studying the speaker wants to engage or heighten in order Algy: I really don't see anything romantic in play prior to seeing it, to persuade, and what values are involved and proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite discover which character how deeply they are held. and view interests you— proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One Because Wilde is mirroring a social moment usually is, I believe. Then the excitement whose statements and of arranging marriages (from the parental is all over. The very essence of romance is retorts get your attention. perspective) or marrying the beloved (from the uncertainty. If ever I get married, I'll certainly Then get a copy of the play younger set's perspective), we are aware both try to forget the fact. and look at the rhetoric, of what society expects and of the underlying Jack: I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce court was specially invented for the structure of ideas and realities in the situation. And for Wilde, it all people whose memories are so curiously words, to see how the wit is transpires in the language. accomplished. constituted. In Wilde's comic world, some voices speak Algy: Oh! there is no use speculating on that Identify paradox and the for the socially-defined moral absolutes, for subject. Divorces are made in Heaven…. underlying sentiment or view propriety and appearance. Other voices—the In these responses, Algy inverts or contradicts it is reversing and identify preponderance in this play, even some who everything we assume about love and the contradiction being believe they are the moral absolutes—seem marriage: used. independent of such concerns and exist by We: proposal = love = pleasure • If you do study the play in choice outside of social strictures and concerns. Algy: proposal = marriage = business advance, choose which Some critics call such a character, especially character's language and in Wilde's plays, the dandy and describe this We: romance = love = marriage = security views interest you and study Algy: romance = the chase = uncertainty (good) life of pleasure as "amoral, inconsequential, how they are expressed, and superficial." Yet for Wilde, the dandy is not then compare the "page" We: marriage = ideal = heaven unprincipled; he or she may well be the only truth- sense of the language to Algy: marriage = end of excitement; teller in a world of hypocrites or surfaces. divorce = heaven = renewed excitement how it plays on stage. What This dialogue displays the kind of reversals that is the effect now? spark so much of the wit in Earnest. • Decide if the character is just being snarky or if this kind of language use is more than that and how it defines self "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and relates to usual social/ group views and attitudes. and the value of nothing." —Lady Windermere's Fan The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Working with Basic Elements of the Play

1. Compare the repartée and witty banter 6. Why do the women want to marry between the young lovers—Jack and someone named "Ernest"? What does Gweldolen or Cecily and Algernon—with earnest mean and what does earnestness any of the sassy couples on a television involve? Is anyone is the play "earnest"? show or Shakespeare's witty lovers such as Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado 7. Listen for inversions, the upside-down about Nothing or Kate and Petruchio world Wilde presents us. For example, in The Taming of the Shrew, or even Algernon listens to his butler, Lane, Millamant and Mirabell in Congreve's describe his brush with marriage and then famous Restoration comedy The Way of says, "Lane's views on marriage seem the World. What makes the exchanges somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders enjoyable? What makes them witty? Find don't set us a good example, what on examples and explain. earth is the use of them?" What moral and social status views are inverted here? 2. Watch the use Wilde makes of two- person scenes. Diagram the French 8. Victorian values were supposed to be scenes in Act Two and see how he varies as solid as the British Empire—pure, the composition of his groupings. [A unmoving, dependable. How well does French scene refers to the practice in Lady Bracknell portray and uphold these classical French drama of starting a new values? How well do the young lovers? Do scene every time a major character enters Gwendolen and Cecily insist on keeping or exits.] the forms? Do Jack and Algy assume the proprieties and behave impeccably? How 3. Compare the role that money plays in do their alter-egos fit their values? Do they matters of love in this play and in other have public and private sets of standards? works in the English tradition you have Do we? The opening night program for studied, such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, "Women rule society," Wilde said—does that Wilde's The Importance of Being and Dickens—all of whom have views explain Lady Bracknell's role? Is Wilde Earnest, February 14, 1895 on love, money, and morality. Especially right? compare any works you know that involve arranged marriages. 9. Algernon and Jack seem to espouse a fairly hedonistic attitude toward life in 4. Consider why we find mistaken identity Act 1—live for pleasure: "my duties as a so funny, and why so many comic writers gentleman have never interferred in my use it. Describe the difference between pleasures" (which may be both a Victorian the two types of mistaken identity in this attitude and very modern as well). What play: the "Ernest in town and Jack in the are the duties of a gentleman? Are they country" type and the Algernon-presenting- the public duties? Are pleasures private? himself-as-Ernest type. What do Jack's How does the society of the play seem to and Algernon's alter-egos say about their treat these issues? How does our society identities? Can Jack just "kill" Ernest off? treat these issues? Does one's social status or presence in the public arena or 5. Describe the use Cecily makes of her public eye matter? diary. We consider a diary an accurate record of events or thoughts, and yet 10. Critic John Lahr observes that "To stand Cecily has created an entire romance with out in Victorian culture, Wilde had to stand someone she has never met (someone against it." Is that true for our culture who, in fact, does not exist). Are diaries and cultural figures today? For figures in true? Are Facebook postings true? Are popular culture? ["Anything is better than autobiographies and the docudramas on virtuous obscurity," Wilde also said.] Wilde television true? How much license does an created himself and his role as cultural "Nothing succeeds author have to shape or rearrange events icon. What does fame mean? Where does and ideas? Where is the line between truth fame come from in our society? What does like excess." and fiction? it entail?

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Other Activities for Studying or Seeing Earnest

Language and Wit Film Productions of Earnest • Assess the truth of one of Wilde's witty • The 1952 English film starring Edith Evans epigrammatic comments in the play. Does as Lady Bracknell is considered the wit mean clever or does wit go deeper? classic film version of the play. In color and running 95 minutes, it stars in addition • Identify social truths or common English stage greats Michael Redgrave assumptions as you read or hear them (father of Vanessa), Michael Denison, and try your hand at paradox and Joan Greenwood, and Dorothy Tutin. contradiction—Wilde's techniques. Find A website "Teach with Movies" @ the pivot point in the truth, the point where teachwithmovies.com offers a few quick assumed truth and actual truth might meet, discussion questions in conjunction with and find a way to twist the wording to this film. express your view of the actual truth. A YouTube clip of Lady Bracknell's interview Examples include Algernon's comment that of Jack in Act 1 is available @ "in married life three is company and two https://www.youtube.com/ is none," which plays off of the adage that watch?v=7eymdx4xomM "two's company and three's a crowd." (How many assumptions does Algernon • A later 2002 English film of the play stars contradict with his phrase?) Or Cecily's "I Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell and Colin hope you have not been leading a double Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon, life, pretending to be wicked and being and Frances O'Connor. Its filmic values DVD cover for the 1952 English really good all the time. That would be film ofEarnest are far more modern but the feel is less hypocrisy," which inverts the usual view. crisp than that of the earlier film and includes extraneous action. • Wilde's pithy wit is related to the French Clips available @ http://www.miramax.com/ moraliste tradition of aphorisms, such as movie/the-importance-of-being-earnest/ the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld in the mid and late 17th century. The values • A 1986 English production starring Joan of this era, based on the supremacy of Plowright is available complete on reason, were that art is moral so good is YouTube@ rewarded and vice punished as well as https://www.youtube.com/watch?von=Xv_ everyone behaving up to the ideals of 6ln8cVE0 class or status (an attitude that Molière has great fun pillorying in his comedies). La Rochefoucauld's maxims are both moral and satirical, assessing the individual and society in phrasing that simultaneously bites and delights. Compare the following La Rochefoucauld maxims to Wilde's tone, style and attitude: 6. Passion often makes a fool out of the ablest of men, and renders ability to the silliest. 19. We all have strength enough to bear the Poster for 2002 film of Earnest, misfortunes of others. which takes liberties with the script 49. We are never as happy or as unhappy as we and adds action and settings imagine ourselves to be. 72. If you judge love by most of its results, it seems more akin to hate than to friendship. 93. The old love to give good advice, to console themselves for no longer being in a condition to give bad examples. 102. The head is forever fooled by the heart. 218. Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue. 303. No matter how many nice things they say about us, we never learn anything new. 496. Quarrels would not last long, if the wrong were only on one side. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Activities:Comparing Earnest to Other Plays of the 1890s Wilde's Own Plays Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw • Wilde's own canon of plays provides • Bernard Shaw also shifted from his hard- ample basis for comparison with Earnest hitting early social plays, the "Plays because, surprisingly, this, his most Unpleasant," to "Plays Pleasant," such famous play, is in many ways his least as Arms and the Man (1894), which has 1890s' Plays to Consider typical, his most apparently frivolous. its own kind of brash and unconventional Wilde tried several different modes of courtships. Compare Shaw's two young Wilde's other plays: drama—serious drama, social commentary couples in this play to Wilde's young • Lady Windermere's Fan of Ibsenesque situation plays, and avant couples in Earnest. How does each use honesty and forthrightness, ideal and • A Woman of No Importance garde tragedies such as Salomé. Explore Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman reality? • The Ideal Husband of No Importance (1893), or The Ideal Social topic plays: Husband (1895, opening a month before • Shaw writes formidable older women Earnest) and compare the way Wilde characters as his arbiters of values just • The Second Mrs. Tanqueray presents his social commentary there to as Wilde uses Lady Bracknell in Earnest. Shaw's plays: his approach in Earnest. Compare Wilde's character to Lady Britomart in Major Barbara (1905), for • Arms and the Man Wilde and The Woman Question instance. Compare the way the young • Major Barbara (later, 1905) • In the 1890s, English theatre began to couples deal with social propriety and explore the kinds of realistic plays that issues of background in these two plays. had been influential on the Continent What issues does each play raise about for the previous twenty years, especially England and contemporary English plays by Ibsen and Strindberg. England's society? approach was a bit tamer than these writers', but plays began to focus on Satirizing Wilde aspects of "The Woman Question" and • The "dandy" younger Wilde was himself the double standard. Compare Wilde's parodied as Bunthorne in Gilbert and contribution to this dramatic literature— Sullivan's 1881 comic opera Patience. In Lady Windermere's Fan or A Woman of fact, Wilde's first lecture tour to America No Importance—with another famous intentionally preceded the American tour 1890s' topical play, such as Arthur Wing of that operetta. A number of critics see Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, Earnest as Wilde's returning the favor by about a gentleman's marriage to a "woman spoofing the convenient plot elements of with a past." How does each author look at Gilbert and Sullivan's works. Research and judge woman's behavior and men's/ Wilde's early years in London and explore society's attitudes? the possibility of such mutual satirizing in these plays. • Wilde gained his fame as a dramatist on the London stage at the same time that his fellow Irishman, George Bernard Shaw, was also making his name as a dramatist Sketch of the original 1895 Lady in London. Shaw was a dedicated Fabian Bracknell, Rose Leclercq socialist (believing that political and social change should be effected slowly, not by revolution), so his plays always asked questions about society's values and economics. Shaw, too, took on "The Woman Question" in plays such as Mrs. Warren's Profession, which looks at prostitution. Compare Shaw's portrayal of issues and questions to Wilde's and/or Pinero's and how each playwright assesses society's values. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde 2014-2015 SchoolFest Sponsors

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