Interview with Sir Peter Hall, director of The Importance of Being Earnest

Q: Is there anything about the present time, the world situation, or our understanding of Oscar Wilde himself that makes mounting a production of The Importance of Being Earnest particularly appropriate now?

A: This is the second time I’ve done the play, and I believe it’s an absolutely unique and original object. I don’t think that you can write it off as a farce or a farcical comedy; I think it’s as original as Waiting for Godot and heaven knows what Wilde would’ve done if he had been spared, if we hadn’t murdered him, because it is absolutely original. In that sense, it’s a masterpiece, and in that sense, it’s always timely. It’s not easy to do, but I think the important thing about Wilde — I’ve done Ideal Husband several times, and Earnest twice — the important thing is to understand what his wit is about. It’s not about standing on the stage and having like a tennis match of facetiousness of who can win. If you look at Wilde’s plays carefully, the wit always covers over something which is very painful, or very extraordinary, something that can’t be actually understood or said, for whatever reason. Wilde said ‘give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth’ and Wilde’s mask, for his characters, is always wit. It’s like the English stiff upper lip of the nineteenth century. So you’ve got to look at The Importance of Being Earnest as a deeply serious play about the double life , about sexual desire, about the marriage market, and if you play it very seriously, it’s excruciatingly funny. If you don’t play it seriously, I think the comedy wears off.

But, why do it now? Well, I think it’s always time to do it, in a sense. I don’t think there’s a deeply contemporary need to do it or anything. Masterpieces need revaluing for each generation.

Q: The original production of The Importance of Being Earnest, at George Alexander's St. James Theatre, in London in 1895, featured a three-act play text, cut down — probably mostly by Alexander himself — from the four-act play originally written by Wilde. Earlier, the author had written to Alexander offering him the play and telling him that the two men's parts of Jack and Algy were of equal prominence. In cutting the play to three acts Alexander seems to have made sure that his own part, Jack Worthing, outshone the part of Algy. That choice was memorialized in the first edition of the play. What text do you plan to use for the production? The standard choice is the first edition text, based on Alexander's three-act play but have you considered using at least some material from the original four-act text? If you chose to do that, would you try to restore more of a balance between the two roles of Jack and Algy, or do you like the greater centrality of Jack as the three-act text presents it? Do you have some other comments about the balancing of pairs of contrasting characters in the play — for example, Gwendolen and Cecily, Miss Prism and Canon Chasuble?

A: We’re using the third act text. When we did the play before, I looked into the fourth act very carefully and actually rehearsed some of it and did some it, but not in performance. Whoever edited it to the three act version, whether it was George Alexander or Wilde himself or a collaboration, I personally think they did well. There’s something prolix and a little self-indulgent about the four act. Of course it’s got some good things in it, but I don’t think they finally help.

I don’t understand the comment about an imbalance between the two roles. Algy is a superb part, he gets all the laughs. Ernest is the center of the play in the sense that Ernest is the man who has not yet come to terms with who he is, not come to terms with his own sexuality, among other things, and therefore needs to lead a double life. I think that’s a wonderfully rich and extraordinary part. I don’t think that Algy is a supporting role at all.

I think classically, from Plautus onward and certainly Shakespeare, comedy is about couples. Couples who find out they’re now mature enough to get married, or relate to each other in terms of love. I think the balancing of the characters is classic comedy.

Q: Is the play essentially a comedy, or essentially a farce? Or is it a mixed breed?

A: I never understand why people need to put some kind of label on things. It’s like saying, are Shakespeare’s late plays romances or comedies, or comedy/romances, or what are they? They’re plays, and they’re very original, and as I said, I think The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the most original plays in the English language. I certainly don’t think it can be dismissed as a farce anymore than I think that it can be just looked at as a serious play. It’s the most extraordinary combination of critical comedy which illuminates what the people are about, and what their quest is, and what their pains are, and what their anguishes are. It’s very serious, but it’s excruciatingly funny. I don’t know of any label for that; it’s why I think Oscar Wilde is so original.

Q: Is the author in the play?

A: Well, the author’s in the play. The author’s in the play all the while. He’s partly Algy always wanting to go off on some secret mission, for some nefarious, probably sexual, purpose. He’s also Ernest trying to be a pillar of the community but actually leading a double life. Of course. Ideal Husband is another case in point. The first great play in the English language about bisexuality, if you actually look at it. And I don’t think any writer leaves himself outside when he sits down to write his play. I think that looking at The Importance of Being Earnest as autobiography is altogether too crude. Certainly Wilde is there all the time.

Q: Lady Bracknell is a notorious blocking character — standing in the way, for over two acts, of Jack and Gwendolen's happiness. And yet hers is one of the most delicious roles in all of British comedy — or farce! How do these two aspects of the character factor into your direction of Lynn Redgrave in the role? Will there be some pressure for her to differentiate her approach to the role from such famous portrayers as Edith Evans or Judi Dench?

A: I was fortunate enough to do my other Importance of Being Earnest with Judi Dench, so perhaps I’m uniquely qualified to answer the question. I simply don’t understand it, actually. I think what’s wonderful about Lady Bracknell is that she’s such a materialist, such a total exponent of the marriage market. She’s out to sell her daughter to the highest bidder. She reveals that had absolutely no money herself, but her marriage enabled her to become rich. She is, in many respects, a monster. But like other monsters, like Fagin, we like the enormity of their desires; we get a charge out of seeing someone behave quite so absolutely… I don’t think at all that Lady Bracknell wrecks the play, blocks the play, distorts the play. I think if she’s played as a comic turn she wrecks the play; I’ve seen that happen. But if you understand what a rapacious lady she is, she really makes the serious heart of the play very evident. It’s a curious thing, comedy — it has to be highly serious, and that’s certainly true of Lady Bracknell.