"Oscar the Grouch, Wicked Wit and All"

Excerpted from the review by Naomi Siegel

Sunday, September 18, 2005

The poet W. H. Auden wasn't far off. Commenting on Oscar Wilde's plays, all written in the three years before the playwright's sensational trials and imprisonment for the crime of "gross indecency" in his affair with young Lord Alfred Douglas, he wrote that Wilde had created a "verbal universe in which the characters are determined by the kind of things they say, and the plot is nothing but a succession of opportunities to say them."

That stated, "The Importance of Being Earnest," Wilde's masterpiece on stage at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey here, is about as witty and cheeky a work as you can find. A superb cast, under Tamara Harvey's beautifully paced, detailed direction, revels in language that sparkles and in audacious comic predicaments that produce guffaws. Add Cameron Anderson's eye-catching scenic design -- a visual riff on William Morris and the English Arts and Crafts Movement -- and Michael McAleer's lavish costumes evoking the foppish society, and you have the makings of an enchanting production.

Ms. Harvey doesn't miss a chance to bring her sophisticated comic intellect to bear. Take the opening, when the sound of a piano in the adjoining room as if it had been produces strains of that old warhorse "Fur Elise," played as if it had been transcribed, in super-romantic fashion, by none less than Liszt...

...In town lives Algernon, a rogue played to comic perfection by Steve Wilson.

© The New York Times Co.

Excerpted from the review by Robert L. Daniels

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

The Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey enlivens late summer with a production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" that boasts considerable grace and style. Zest and flair abound in Tamara Harvey's staging and the presence of an attractive cast. The wit of Oscar Wilde's durable comedy of manners remains crisp.

Harvey, who trained with the company last year as a directing intern, makes a notable Garden State debut. She has harnessed Wilde's brittle bite and created some clever and funny bits of business while preserving the play's intrinsic sense of humor and order.

Steve Wilson's amusingly level-headed Algernon is mischievous and manly...

...The comely ladies are acted with proper turn-of-the-century charm by Caralyn Kozlowski and Elena Shaddow. Kozlowski's decorous Gwendolen is "as right as a trivet," while Shaddow has a sweet piquancy as a teen Cecily nearly bursting with naughty youthful allure.

Jane Altman's imperious portrait of Lady Bracknell is braced with a grand sobering haughtiness. She is ever so careful not to overplay the discovery of an infant in a large leather "handbag," but offers embracing comic delivery elsewhere with pointed aristocratic flair.

The elusive governess Miss Prism (Susan Greenhill), who harbors the secret of Worthing 's birth, has a giddy and inspired touch of gawky lunacy. Davis Hall, a 40-year veteran of Jersey stages, is the fatuous cleric who makes a science of lodging his foot firmly in his mouth and punctuating his misguided comment with a goofy stare.

Even the servants have their moments, especially Richard Waddingham, who opens the play with some indecisive action concerning just which table he should use to place tea.

Cameron Anderson's smart set design, with its stunning Victorian furniture, is backed by abstract panels of leafy greenery.

The fabulously smart costumes created by Michael McAleer find grand bonnets topped with feathering plumes that reach skyward. The ladies are elegantly garbed like fashionable period cover girls, and the gents are suitably well tailored.

© Reed Business 2005

'Importance of Being Earnest' gets a classic performance

By William Westhoven

When it comes to the classics, it doesn't get much better than Oscar Wilde, and Wilde doesn't get much better than "The Importance of Being Earnest."

And classic theater doesn't get much more enjoyable than Tamara Harvey's snappy production of Wilde's most celebrated comedy now onstage at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey.

Harvey, a former intern at the Theatre and now one of London 's hottest young directors...[has] her cast hitting all the right notes and the audience gobbled it up like hungry hyenas...

...The principals are uniformly terrific, although Altman as Lady Bracknell steals the spotlight from the attractive lovers every chance she gets. Of course, Wilde arms her with the sharpest nails in the barrel. "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune," she informs Ernest. "To lose both looks like carelessness."

The supporting cast, most notably Richard Waddingham as a droll butler, is equally able, and everyone looks wonderful in Michael McAleer's vivid Victorian costumes....

...And speaking of distractions, allow me to file an earnest footnote about the importance of theater etiquette. Sunday's matinee was interrupted by two patrons who nearly ruined a perfect afternoon. The first was a man who arrived late and loudly made his way to the second row. The second was a woman whose cell phone rang loudly about two minutes before the end of the show ... and she answered it!

Fortunately, the cast never skipped a beat, but the audience could not help but be distracted by these rude people, who are badly in need of a lesson in manners. If only Lady Bracknell were available to give them what-for.