Williamstown Theater Festival, Williamstown, MA
through July 14, 2012
by Jarice Hanson
The Williamstown Theater Festival is off to a great start
this season with a delightful twist on not only one, but two old chestnuts,
re-envisioned through the eyes of director David Hyde Pierce, who has combined
Oscar Wilde’s wonderful comedy with the stylized voices of Damon Runyon’s
"Guys and Dolls." The send up of high-society satire and gangster
mannerisms sounds far-fetched, but the cast embraces the challenge, and Pierce
has effectively created a counterpoint of language, comedy and pacing that is
loaded with surprises and wit.
Tyne Daly plays Lady Bracknell as a tough, no-nonsense dame,
and finds the nuances of Wilde’s language and Runyon’s delivery beautifully.
Her relationship with Gwendolyn, played by Amy Spanger, powerfully sporting an
“Adelaide-like” delivery, draws out the mother-daughter relationship as well as
the reference to social class. Invoking the strongest sense of Victorian
manners and music-hall mannerisms are Miss Prism (Marylouise Burke) and
Reverend Chasuble (Henry Stram), both audience favorites who invoked an
over-the-top (but highly effective) balance to the gangsters who leave the city
to come to the country for love and finding true identity.
Director Pierce has also found a way to move the multi-scene
Act I quickly through imaginative designs and staging enhanced by Scenic
Designer Allen Moyer’s linear sets—moving from left to right as the actors walk
from scene to scene while allowing the exposition necessary to set up the
laughs in Act I and III. But what really stands out is the language, unchanged
from Wilde’s pen, spoken through Runyon’s dialect, and interpreted with
intelligence and wit. The result is a delightful way of looking at a pastiche
of 120 years of popular culture, mannerisms and morals. "The Importance of
Being Earnest" is a theatre gem, and this production, a shining example of
artistic creativity.
