The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, a Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde, the last of his four drawing-room plays, following Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy depicting the tangled affairs of two young men about town who lead double lives to evade unwanted social obligations, both assuming the name Ernest while wooing the two young women of their affections.
The play, celebrated for its wit and repartee, parodies contemporary dramatic norms, gently satirises late Victorian manners, and introduces – in addition to the two pairs of young lovers – the formidable Lady Bracknell, the fussy governess Miss Prism and the benign and scholarly Canon Chasuble. Contemporary reviews in Britain and overseas praised the play's humour, although some critics had reservations about its lack of social messages.
The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde's career but was followed within weeks by his downfall. The Marquess of Queensberry, whose son Lord Alfred Douglas was Wilde's lover, unsuccessfully schemed to throw a bouquet of rotten vegetables at the playwright at the end of the performance. This feud led to a series of legal trials from March to May 1895 which resulted in Wilde's conviction and imprisonment for homosexual acts. Despite the play's early success, Wilde's disgrace caused it to be closed in May after 86 performances. After his release from prison in 1897 he published the play from exile in Paris, but he wrote no more comic or dramatic works.
From the early 20th century onwards the play has been revived frequently in English-speaking countries and elsewhere. After the first production, which featured George Alexander, Allan Aynesworth and Irene Vanbrugh among others, many actors have been associated with the play, including Mabel Terry-Lewis, John Gielgud, Edith Evans, Margaret Rutherford, Martin Jarvis, Nigel Havers and Judi Dench. The role of the redoubtable Lady Bracknell has sometimes been played by men. The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted for radio from the 1920s onwards and for television since the 1930s, filmed for the cinema on three occasions and turned into operas and musicals.
Synopsis
The play is set in "The Present".Act I
Algernon Moncrieff's flat in Half Moon StreetFile:Importance-Act-1-Jack-Gwendolen-Algernon.png|Jack tells Gwendolen the address of his country house, while Algernon secretly overhears.|thumb|alt=young white male and female couple in Victorian costume conversing; she writes in a small notebook, left, while a young white male, right, listens to them, secretly, and writes in his notebook
Algernon Moncrieff, a young man about town, is visited by a friend whom he knows by the name of Ernest Worthing. The latter has come from the country to propose to Algernon's cousin, Gwendolen Fairfax. Algernon refuses to consent until Ernest explains why his cigarette case bears the inscription, "From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack". Worthing is forced to admit to living a double life. In the country, he assumes a serious attitude for the benefit of his young ward, the heiress Cecily Cardew, and goes by the name of John or Jack, while pretending that he must worry about a wastrel younger brother in London, named Ernest. Meanwhile, he assumes the identity of the profligate Ernest when in town. Algernon confesses a similar deception: he pretends to have a sickly friend named Bunbury in the country, whom he can "visit" whenever he wishes to avoid an unwelcome social obligation. Jack refuses to tell Algernon the location of his country estate.
Gwendolen and her formidable mother, Lady Bracknell, now call on Algernon, who distracts Lady Bracknell in another room while Jack proposes to Gwendolen. She accepts but says she could not love him if his name were not Ernest. He resolves secretly to be rechristened. Discovering the two in this intimate exchange, Lady Bracknell interviews Jack as a prospective suitor for her daughter. Horrified to learn that he was adopted – having been found as a baby in a handbag deposited at Victoria Station in London – she refuses him and forbids further contact with her daughter. Gwendolen manages to covertly promise to him her undying love. As Jack gives her his address in the country, Algernon surreptitiously notes it on the cuff of his sleeve: Jack's revelation of his pretty young ward has motivated his friend to meet her.
Act II
The Garden of the Manor House, WooltonCecily is studying with her governess, Miss Prism, in the village of Woolton, Hertfordshire. Algernon arrives, pretending to be Ernest Worthing, and soon charms Cecily. Long fascinated by her uncle Jack's hitherto-absent dissolute brother, she is predisposed to fall for Algernon in his role of Ernest. Algernon plans for the rector, Dr Chasuble, to rechristen him "Ernest". Jack has decided to abandon his double life. He arrives in full mourning and announces his brother's death in Paris, from a severe chill, a story undermined by Algernon's presence in the guise of Ernest. Gwendolen now enters, having left the Bracknells' London house without her mother's knowledge. During the temporary absence of the two men she meets Cecily. They get along well at first, but when they learn of the other's engagement each indignantly declares that she is the one engaged to Ernest. When Jack and Algernon reappear together, Gwendolen and Cecily realise they have been deceived; they leave the men in the garden and withdraw to the house.
Act III
Morning-room at the Manor House, WooltonGwendolen and Cecily forgive the men's trickery. Arriving in pursuit of her daughter, Lady Bracknell is astonished to be told that Algernon and Cecily are engaged. The revelation of Cecily's wealth soon dispels Lady Bracknell's initial doubts over the young lady's suitability, but any engagement is forbidden by her guardian, Jack: he will consent only if Lady Bracknell agrees to his own union with Gwendolen – something she declines to do.
The impasse is resolved by the return of Miss Prism, whom Lady Bracknell recognises as the person who, 28 years earlier as a family nursemaid, had taken a baby boy out in a perambulator from Lord Bracknell's house and never returned. Challenged, Miss Prism explains that she had absent-mindedly put into the perambulator the manuscript of a novel she was writing, and put the baby in a handbag, which she later left at Victoria Station. Jack produces the same handbag, showing that he is the lost baby, the eldest son of Lady Bracknell's late sister, Mrs Moncrieff, and thus Algernon's elder brother. Having acquired such respectable relations, he is acceptable as Gwendolen's suitor.
Gwendolen continues to insist that she can love only a man named Ernest. Lady Bracknell tells Jack that, as the firstborn, he would have been named after his father, General Moncrieff. Jack examines the Army Lists and discovers that his father's name – and hence his own original christening name – was, in fact, Ernest. As the happy couples embrace – Ernest and Gwendolen, Algernon and Cecily, and even Dr Chasuble and Miss Prism – Lady Bracknell complains to her newfound relative: "My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality". He replies, "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta: I've now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest".
Composition
The Importance of Being Earnest followed the success of Wilde's earlier drawing room plays, Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband.He spent the summer of 1894 with his family at Worthing, on the Sussex coast, where he began work on the new play.
Wilde scholars generally agree that the most important influence on the play was W. S. Gilbert's 1877 farce Engaged, from which Wilde borrowed not only several incidents but also, in the words of Russell Jackson in his 1980 introduction to Wilde's play, "the gravity of tone demanded by Gilbert of his actors". Wilde's first draft was so long that it filled four exercise books, and over the summer he continually revised and refined it, as he had done with his earlier plays. Among his many changes he altered the subtitle from "a Serious Comedy for Trivial People" to "a Trivial Comedy for Serious People", and renamed the characters Lady Brancaster and Algernon Montford as Lady Bracknell and Algernon Moncrieff.
Wilde wrote the part of John Worthing with the actor-manager Charles Wyndham in mind. Wilde shared Bernard Shaw's view that Wyndham was the ideal comedy actor and based the character on his stage persona. Wyndham accepted the play for production at his theatre, but before rehearsals began, he changed his plans in order to help a beleaguered colleague, the actor-manager George Alexander of the St James's Theatre. In early 1895 Alexander's production of Henry James's Guy Domville failed, and closed after 31 performances, leaving Alexander in urgent need of a new play to follow it. Wyndham waived his contractual rights and allowed Alexander to stage Wilde's play.
After working with Wilde on stage movements, using a model theatre, Alexander asked the author to shorten the play from four acts to three. Wilde complied and combined elements of the second and third acts. The largest cut was the removal of the character of Mr Gribsby, a solicitor who comes from London to serve a writ on the profligate "Ernest" Worthing for unpaid dining bills at the Savoy Hotel. Wilde was not entirely happy with alterations made at Alexander's behest. He said, "Yes, it is quite a good play. I remember I wrote one very like it myself, but it was even more brilliant than this", but the three-act version usually performed is widely considered more effective than Wilde's four-act original.