The Importance Of Being Earnest (Wendy Hiller) part 5 of 11
Shakespea... -
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a near duplicate upload of this video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =hL5SaEuTNfw
"The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde
link below to playlist of all 11 parts of this "The Importance Of Being Earnest":
http://www.youtube.com/view_pl ay_list?p=749CF199F94D9B7F
Ann Thornton ... Cecily Cardew
Rosamund Greenwood ... Miss Prism
Henry Moxon ... Rev Canon Chasuble
Sydney Arnold ... Merriman
Gary Bond ... John Worthing, JP
Jeremy Clyde ... Algernon Moncrieff
Directed by Michael Attenborough (stage) and Michael Lindsay-Hogg (TV)
This production was broadcasted on US television in 1985 (when I recorded in on this VHS tape), and that is the date given in several references, but it was originally produced in 1981.
On the opening night of this play the actor who created the role of Merriman recalled "My first speech, 'Mr. Ernest Worthing hs just driven over from the station. He has brought his luggage with him,' was recieved with the loudest and most sustained laugh that I have ever experienced, culminating in a round of applause; and as I came off Wilde said to me, 'I'm glad you got that laugh. It shows they have followed the plot.'"
This tightly constructed and intricately crafted play is of the sort that some commentators dismissively call a "pièce bien faite", but Wilde's doesn't suffer from any obvious or contrived formula. He plotting in very logical and convincing, but much of it moves with surprises--an example of such is the one described above, utilizing a very minor character to move the plot along, thus artfully concealing the necessary plot movement with a suprise and laugh.
The actor (and manager) Geroge Alexander first presented this play with a one act curtain raiser by Langdon Mitchell. Wilde had submitted a four-act play, and was told to cut it down to three acts. He complied and most of the cutting involved folding the second and third acts into one--the second act as exits today.
Wilde's son Vyvyan reconstructed the original 4-act version, (it survived in a German translation and from copies of Wilde's early drafts).
Some excellent stuff got cut! here's a bit:
Chausuble:
Reading Political Economy, Cecily? It is wonderful how girls are educated now-a-days. I suppose you know all about the relations between Capital and Labour. I wish I did. I am compelled, like most of my brother clergy, to treat scientific subjects from the point of view of sentiment. But that is more impressive I think. Accurate knowledge is out of place in a pulpit. It is secular.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =hL5SaEuTNfw
"The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde
link below to playlist of all 11 parts of this "The Importance Of Being Earnest":
http://www.youtube.com/view_pl ay_list?p=749CF199F94D9B7F
Ann Thornton ... Cecily Cardew
Rosamund Greenwood ... Miss Prism
Henry Moxon ... Rev Canon Chasuble
Sydney Arnold ... Merriman
Gary Bond ... John Worthing, JP
Jeremy Clyde ... Algernon Moncrieff
Directed by Michael Attenborough (stage) and Michael Lindsay-Hogg (TV)
This production was broadcasted on US television in 1985 (when I recorded in on this VHS tape), and that is the date given in several references, but it was originally produced in 1981.
On the opening night of this play the actor who created the role of Merriman recalled "My first speech, 'Mr. Ernest Worthing hs just driven over from the station. He has brought his luggage with him,' was recieved with the loudest and most sustained laugh that I have ever experienced, culminating in a round of applause; and as I came off Wilde said to me, 'I'm glad you got that laugh. It shows they have followed the plot.'"
This tightly constructed and intricately crafted play is of the sort that some commentators dismissively call a "pièce bien faite", but Wilde's doesn't suffer from any obvious or contrived formula. He plotting in very logical and convincing, but much of it moves with surprises--an example of such is the one described above, utilizing a very minor character to move the plot along, thus artfully concealing the necessary plot movement with a suprise and laugh.
The actor (and manager) Geroge Alexander first presented this play with a one act curtain raiser by Langdon Mitchell. Wilde had submitted a four-act play, and was told to cut it down to three acts. He complied and most of the cutting involved folding the second and third acts into one--the second act as exits today.
Wilde's son Vyvyan reconstructed the original 4-act version, (it survived in a German translation and from copies of Wilde's early drafts).
Some excellent stuff got cut! here's a bit:
Chausuble:
Reading Political Economy, Cecily? It is wonderful how girls are educated now-a-days. I suppose you know all about the relations between Capital and Labour. I wish I did. I am compelled, like most of my brother clergy, to treat scientific subjects from the point of view of sentiment. But that is more impressive I think. Accurate knowledge is out of place in a pulpit. It is secular.
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