Classics for Your Collection: goo.gl/U80LCr --------- The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious person� to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the ...
Read More
Classics for Your Collection: goo.gl/U80LCr --------- The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious person� to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. The story is about Ernest. Ernest is a number of people: John Worthing, John Worthing's imaginary brother, and Algernon Montcrieff... in short, Ernest does not exist but is rather the creation of John's and Algernon's overactive and untruthful minds. As the pair create a web of lies in order to impress the women in their lives who absolutely adore the name Ernest, they become more and more tangled in their mess. When the two meet whilst playing their imaginary characters to different people, their lies start to unravel. After the success of Wilde's plays Lady Windermere's Fan and A Woman of No Importance, Wilde's producers urged him to write further plays. In July 1894 he mooted his idea for The Importance of Being Earnest to George Alexander, the actor-manager of the St James's Theatre. Wilde spent the summer with his family at Worthing, where he wrote the play quickly in August. Wilde continually revised the text over the next months: no line was left untouched, and "in a play so economical with its language and effects, [the revisions] had serious consequences".Sos Eltis describes Wilde's revisions as a refined art at work: the earliest, longest handwritten drafts of the play labour over farcical incidents, broad puns, nonsense dialogue and conventional comic turns. In revising as he did, "Wilde transformed standard nonsense into the more systemic and disconcerting illogicality which characterises Earnest's dialogue". The play was first produced at the St James's Theatre on Valentine's Day 1895.It was freezing cold but Wilde arrived dressed in "florid sobriety", wearing a green carnation.The audience, according to one report, "included many members of the great and good, former cabinet ministers and privy councillors, as well as actors, writers, academics, and enthusiasts".[15] Allan Aynesworth, who played Algernon Moncrieff, recalled to Hesketh Pearson that "In my fifty-three years of acting, I never remember a greater triumph than [that] first night". Scroll Up and Get Your Copy! The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde Available at Amazon's Createspace Bookstore: https: //...
Read Less
Add this copy of The Importance of Being Earnest to cart. $8.24, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2016 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
Add this copy of The Importance of Being Earnest (Great Classics) to cart. $27.34, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by CreateSpace Independent Publis.
This is one of those all-important plays that depart a good message, but also make you laugh in the process. The characters and themes in this play are wonderful and colorful. The biting wit of the dialog makes this play a winner in my mind. I love everything about this play, and while I haven't seen the movie at all, I hope that it would be something like this when I actually do see it.
canadianchicklitlover
Apr 19, 2007
Excellent Play - A MUST READ!
In my 10+ years of live theater exploration, no play has stuck in my mind as much as Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. I'll admit to having seen a movie version prior to reading the play, and even that the movie was the REASON I later picked up the play, since then, I have re-read it several times. Even after seeing one interpretation of it, I was very able to establish my own ideas on the play, both in regards to meaning, and in production ideas. The Importance of Being Earnest was my first Wilde play, and while I have read others since then, and would call myself an avid Oscar Wilde fan, The Importance of Being Earnest is my absolute favourite. The rich setting can be imagined, the wittyness of the dialogue, and in fact of entire plays, and Wilde's inherant social comedy are important factors of all Wilde plays, and this one is no different. People of all ages can appreciate the humour and wit present in the play - in fact, I would say anyone from ages 10-100 can appreciate this play for the wonderful work of literature it is!
