Thursday, June 28, 2007
Comic masterpiece at New Harmony Theatre
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The New Harmony Theatre, a professional theatre produced by USI, continues its 20th anniversary season with The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde’s brilliant comedy of manners. It runs July 6 – 22 at Murphy Auditorium in New Harmony. According to Lenny Leibowitz, artistic director of The New Harmony Theatre, it is the greatest of all comedies. He said, “The play creates a glittering fairy tale ambiance in which fantasy triumphs over reality, the beautifully-expressed lie trumps the mundane truth, and catastrophe and cucumber sandwiches are borne with equal savoir faire.” The Importance of Being Earnest premiered in London on Valentine’s Day in 1895. Oscar Wilde was already a well-known wit and popular playwright, and the hilarious satire of Victorian manners in the play met with great success. The play’s popularity has continued unabated; it has been revived on stage and film many times since its debut. The play centers on the plight of Jack Worthing, an English gentleman with a country home and responsibilities as guardian to a wealthy young ward named Cecily. He pretends to be his own non-existent brother Ernest so he can escape to London for some fun with his good friend, Algernon. He falls in love with Algernon’s cousin, Gwendolen, who insists she can only marry a man named Ernest. Unbeknownst to Jack, Algernon, also pretending to be Jack’s brother Ernest, goes to Jack’s country home to meet Cecily. They immediately fall in love, and like Gwendolen, Cecily insists that she could only marry a man named Ernest. Add to this combustible comic mixture Gwendolen’s formidable mother, Lady Bracknell; Cecily’s dreamy governess, Miss Prism; and Miss Prism’s love interest, the Reverend Dr. Chasuble, and the result, according to The New York Times, is “rib-tickling text, sparkling language…[and] audacious comic predicaments.” The cast of The Importance of Being Earnest features Chris Kipiniak and Susan Derry as Jack and Gwendolen. Both are Broadway veterans; Kipiniak was in the original Broadway production of Metamorphoses and Derry was in Wonderful Town. According to Kipiniak, he was delighted to have the opportunity to play Jack. He said, `The Importance of Being Earnest is an incredibly funny play. The characters just leap off the page. When I began re-reading ‘Earnest,’ I found myself laughing out loud.” Joseph Bowen, fresh from his run as Orsini-Rosenberg in The New Harmony Theatre production of Amadeus, plays Reverend Chasuble. Other members of the cast include Diane Ciesla as Lady Bracknell, Getchie Argetsinger as Miss Prism, Loren Dunn as Algernon, Kensington Blaylock as Cecily, and Elliot Wasserman as Lane and Merriman. Kipiniak, Derry, Bowen, Ciesla, and Argetsinger are members of Actors Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States. Dunn will become a member during the run of The Importance of Being Earnest. Wasserman is the director of theatre at University of Southern Indiana, and Blaylock is a student in the theatre program at USI. The artistic team for The Importance of Being Earnest includes Lenny Leibowitz, director; Tijana Bjelajac, scenic designer; Shan Jensen, costume designer; Craig A. Young, lighting designer; Laura Gnagey, sound designer; and Sherrie Dee Brewer, production stage manager. Tickets for The Importance of Being Earnest are $22 for adults, $20 for seniors, $10 for anyone 25 or younger, and $5 for Posey County high school students. Group discounts are available for groups of 20 or more. For more information about The New Harmony Theatre’s 20th anniversary, contact the box office at 812/682-3115 or toll free at 1-877-NHT-SHOW (648-7469), or visit the theatre’s new Web site at www.newharmonytheatre.com. |
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