For Sir Peter Hall, who directs Oscar Wilde’s
"The Importance of Being Earnest" – starring Lynn Redgrave
– at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theatre this month,
shepherding a new production of a century-old play – even a masterpiece
like Wilde’s – is difficult.
"I think a director’s function, when working on a classic
play from the past, is roughly this: to try to understand as
much as possible of the society which supported the play originally
and which bred its author," Sir Peter observes via e-mail
from London. "The author’s intentions have, to the director’s
best ability, to be found out and observed."
But director Hall also knows the realities of live theater: embalming
classic plays as mere museum pieces does a disservice to both
playwright and audience.
"No play speaks for itself and no play can be done as an
antique," he explains. "It has to become a living thing
where the director tries to express the author’s original intentions
in terms which are modern enough for a contemporary audience
to understand. But to make it ’fresh’ and ’new’ by distorting
it is no help either."
When it comes to Wilde’s wonderfully witty play – which centers
on two young men who have invented, respectively, a brother and
a pseudonym both named Ernest to help spice up their rather boring
lives – a first-rate production with superb actors will by itself
keep the play fresh and new, with no further spicing up needed.
Sir Peter already knows, having staged Wilde before, that his
scripts are constantly reinvigorated because they belie their
clever surfaces.
"Years ago, I directed Wilde’s play ’An Ideal Husband’ and
discovered something absolutely basic," he says. "All
Wilde’s characters are extravagantly emotional and are naturally
egocentric. But they do not show their feelings: that would be
fundamentally un-English, so they utter witticisms instead.
"The more emotional they become, the more they cover their
feelings with extravagant wit. It is a type of English stiff-upper-lip,
and it informs all of Wilde’s theatre. Beneath the wit, there
is always an intense emotional reality. And if the actor doesn’t
create it every night, then the play may look unserious, even
facetious."
That’s definitely not the case in Hall’s "Earnest"
production, which features British theater stalwarts like Miriam
Margolyes, Terence Rigby, James Waterston, Bianca Amato and Charlotte
Parry, in addition to Redgrave.
"The reason why Miss Redgrave is my ideal choice is because
she has such strength and clarity," he says. "She knows
what a very serious business comedy is and she understands the
power of Lady Bracknell’s obsessions. It is the marriage market
which obsesses her: she wants to have her daughter married well
and that means money."
That, to be sure, is an underlying theme of the play.
"There is a very serious social purpose underneath the high
comedy," says Hall. "These are people who have little
to do except to assert their position in society, maintain their
capital, and don’t soil their hands with any work. [Wilde’s]
original audience must indeed have been made to look at itself."
The playwright subtitled his immortal work as "a trivial
comedy for serious people," which the director finds vintage
Wilde. "[It is], in my view, Wilde throwing down a challenge
to his audience," Hall explains. "I’m perfectly sure
he didn’t regard his comedy as ’trivial.’ I’m equally sure he
didn’t think of the audience as ’serious.’"
Hall’s production of Wilde’s classic comes to the BAM Harvey
Theater, April 18 through May 14, on the heels of his staging
of Shakespeare’s "As You Like It," starring daughter
Rebecca Hall, which played in the fall of 2004.
"I love the Harvey Theatre," Hall gushes. "It
has a large auditorium, and yet, it retains its intimacy – the
energy therefore that the actors receive from the audience is
very strong. I shall also look forward again to having the cushion
seats [on the floor] in the front of the auditorium as I did
when I brought ’As You Like It.’"
Even though Wilde is infamous for his epigrams and witticism
– whether uttered by himself or the characters in his plays –
Hall sees him as part of a lineage connecting several great English-language
dramatists.
"[Playwrights like Wilde, Harold Pinter, Peter Schaffer
and Noel Coward, all of whom Hall has staged] have very individual
voices expressing very different styles," he explains. "Wilde
said famously, ’Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth.’
All these great dramatists have masks, which has to do with the
rhythm of their sentences, and they are all completely their
own.
"In Wilde, if you say the line as a whole – going all the
way to the full-stop, you get the laugh. But if you break it
up or chop it up in the interests of ’realism,’ the laugh doesn’t
come," he continues. "All these dramatists live in
words, and they have vocabularies and rhythms which are as particular
as Shakespeare’s."
That’s the highest praise a playwright can receive.
"The Importance of Being Earnest,"
directed by Peter Hall, will be performed at the BAM Harvey Theater,
651 Fulton St. at Rockwell Place in Fort Greene, April 18 through
May 14. Tickets are $85, $75, $50 and $30. For more information,
call (718) 636-4100 or visit www.bam.org.
