The Importance of Being Earnest

11/12/23, 10:59 PM The Importance of Being Earnest - Wikipedia
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for

Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 The Importance of Being
February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical Earnest
comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae to
escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social
conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are
the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as
marriage and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Some
contemporary reviews praised the play's humour and the
culmination of Wilde's artistic career, while others were cautious
about its lack of social messages. Its high farce and witty dialogue
have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest an
enduringly popular play.
The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde's career

but also heralded his downfall. The Marquess of Queensberry,
whose son Lord Alfred Douglas was Wilde's lover, planned to
present the writer with a bouquet of rotten vegetables and disrupt
the show. Wilde was tipped off, and Queensberry was refused
admission. Their feud came to a climax in court when Wilde sued
Original production, 1895
for libel. The proceedings provided enough evidence for his arrest,
trial, and conviction on charges of gross indecency. Wilde's Allan Aynesworth as Algernon (left)
homosexuality was revealed to the Victorian public, and he was and George Alexander as Jack
sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour. Despite Written by Oscar Wilde
the play's early success, Wilde's notoriety caused the play to be
Date premiered 1895
closed after 86 performances. After his release from prison, he
published the play from exile in Paris, but he wrote no more Place premiered St James's
comic or dramatic works. Theatre,
London,
The Importance of Being Earnest has been revived many times England
since its premiere. It has been adapted for the cinema on three
occasions. In a 1952 film Edith Evans reprised her stage Original language English
interpretation of Lady Bracknell; a 1992 version directed by Kurt Genre Comedy, farce
Baker featured an all-black cast; and Oliver Parker's 2002 film Setting London and an
incorporated some of Wilde's original material cut during the
estate in
preparation of the first stage production.
Hertfordshire
Composition
The play was written following the success of Wilde's earlier plays Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal
Husband and A Woman of No Importance.[1] He spent the summer of 1894 with his family at
Worthing, where he began work on the new play.[2] His fame now at its peak, he used the working title
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest 1/24
Lady Lancing to avoid preemptive speculation about its

content.[3] Many names and ideas in the play were borrowed from
people or places the author had known; Lady Queensberry, Lord
Alfred Douglas's mother, for example, lived at Bracknell.[4][a]
Wilde scholars agree the most important influence on the play was
W. S. Gilbert's 1877 farce Engaged,[7][8] from which Wilde
borrowed not only several incidents but also "the gravity of tone
demanded by Gilbert of his actors".[9]
Wilde continually revised the text over the next months. No line
was left untouched, and the revision had significant
consequences.[10] Sos Eltis describes Wilde's revisions as a refined
art at work. The earliest and longest handwritten drafts of the play
labour over farcical incidents, broad puns, nonsense dialogue, and
conventional comic turns. In revising, "Wilde transformed
standard nonsense into the more systemic and disconcerting
illogicality which characterises Earnest's dialogue".[11] Richard
Ellmann argues Wilde had reached his artistic maturity and wrote
more surely and rapidly.[12] Oscar Wilde in 1889
Wilde wrote the part of Jack 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.[1] Wyndham accepted the play for production at
his theatre, but before rehearsals began, he changed his plans to help a colleague in a crisis. In early
1895, at the St James's Theatre, the actor-manager George 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.[13][14] Wyndham waived his contractual rights and allowed Alexander to stage Wilde's
play.[14][15]
After working with Wilde on stage movements with a toy theatre, Alexander asked the author to
shorten the play from four acts to three. Wilde agreed and combined elements of the second and third
acts.[16] The largest cut was the removal of the character of Mr. Gribsby, a solicitor who comes from
London to arrest the profligate "Ernest" (i.e., Jack) for unpaid dining bills.[10] The four-act version
was first played on a BBC radio production and is still sometimes performed. Some consider the
three-act structure more effective and theatrically resonant than the expanded published edition.[17]
Productions
Premiere
The play was first produced at the St James's Theatre on Valentine's Day 1895.[18] It was freezing cold,
but Wilde arrived dressed in "florid sobriety", wearing a green carnation.[16] The audience, according
to one report, "included many members of the great and good, former cabinet ministers and privy
councillors, as well as actors, writers, academics, and enthusiasts".[19] Allan Aynesworth, who played
Algernon Moncrieff, recalled to Hesketh Pearson that "In my fifty-three years of acting, I never
remember a greater triumph than [that] first night".[20] Aynesworth was himself "debonair and
stylish", and Alexander, who played Jack Worthing, "demure".[21]
The cast was:
John Worthing, J.P. – George Alexander Lady Bracknell – Rose Leclercq

Algernon Moncrieff – Allan Aynesworth Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax – Irene Vanbrugh
Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D. – H. H. Vincent Cecily Cardew – Evelyn Millard
Merriman – Frank Dyall Miss Prism – Mrs. George Canninge
Lane – F. Kinsey Peile
Allan Aynesworth, Evelyn Millard, Irene Mrs George Canninge as Miss Rose Leclercq as Lady Bracknell,
Vanbrugh and George Alexander in the Prism and Evelyn Millard as Cecily from a sketch of the first production
1895 premiere Cardew in the premiere
The Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Wilde's lover Lord Alfred Douglas (who was on holiday in
Algiers at the time), had planned to disrupt the play by throwing a bouquet of rotten vegetables at the
playwright when he took his bow at the end of the show. Wilde and Alexander learned of the plan, and
the latter cancelled Queensberry's ticket and arranged for policemen to bar his entrance.
Nevertheless, he continued harassing Wilde, who eventually launched a private prosecution against
the peer for criminal libel, triggering a series of trials ending in Wilde's imprisonment for gross
indecency. Alexander tried, unsuccessfully, to save the production by removing Wilde's name from the
billing,[b] but the play had to close after only 86 performances.[23]
The play's original Broadway production opened at the Empire Theatre on 22 April 1895 but closed
after sixteen performances. Its cast included William Faversham as Algernon, Henry Miller as Jack,
Viola Allen as Gwendolen, and Ida Vernon as Lady Bracknell.[24] The Australian premiere was in
Melbourne on 10 August 1895, presented by Dion Boucicault Jr. and Robert Brough, and the play was
an immediate success.[25] Wilde's downfall in England did not affect the popularity of his plays in
Australia.[c]
Critical reception
In contrast to much theatre of the time, the light plot of The Importance of Being Earnest does not
seem to tackle serious social and political issues, something contemporary reviewers were wary of.
Though unsure of Wilde's seriousness as a dramatist, they recognised the play's cleverness, humour,
and popularity with audiences.[26] Shaw, for example, reviewed the play in the Saturday Review,
arguing that comedy should touch as well as amuse, "I go to the

theatre to be moved to laughter."[27] Later in a letter, he said the
play, though "extremely funny", was Wilde's "first really heartless
[one]".[28] In The World, William Archer wrote that he had
enjoyed watching the play but found it to be empty of meaning:
"What can a poor critic do with a play which raises no principle,
whether of art or morals, creates its own canons and conventions,
and is nothing but an absolutely wilful expression of an
irrepressibly witty personality?"[29]
In The Speaker, A. B. Walkley admired the play and was one of few
to see it as the culmination of Wilde's dramatic career. He denied
the term "farce" was derogatory or even lacking in seriousness and Reviewers of the premiere:
said, "It is of nonsense all compact, and better nonsense, I think, clockwise from top left: William
our stage has not seen." [30]
H. G. Wells, in an unsigned review for Archer, A. B. Walkley, H. G. Wells
The Pall Mall Gazette, called Earnest one of the freshest comedies and Bernard Shaw
of the year, saying, "More humorous dealing with theatrical
conventions it would be difficult to imagine."[31] He also
questioned whether people would fully see its message, "... how Serious People will take this Trivial
Comedy intended for their learning remains to be seen. No doubt seriously."[31] The play was so light-
hearted that many reviewers compared it to comic opera rather than drama. W. H. Auden later (1963)
called it "a pure verbal opera", and The Times commented, "The story is almost too preposterous to go
without music."[21] Mary McCarthy, in Sights and Spectacles (1959), however, and despite thinking
the play extremely funny, called it "a ferocious idyll"; "depravity is the hero and the only
character."[32]
The Importance of Being Earnest is Wilde's most popular work and is continually revived.[33] Max
Beerbohm called the play Wilde's "finest, most undeniably his own", saying that in his other comedies
– Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband – the plot, following
the manner of Victorien Sardou, is unrelated to the theme of the work, while in Earnest the story is
"dissolved" into the form of the play.[34][d]
Revivals
The Importance of Being Earnest and Wilde's three other society plays were performed in Britain
during the author's imprisonment and exile, albeit by small touring companies. A. B. Tapping's
company toured Earnest between October 1895 and March 1899 (their performance at the Theatre
Royal, Limerick, in the last week of October 1895 was almost certainly the play's first production in
Ireland). Elsie Lanham's company also toured 'Earnest' between November 1899 and April 1900.[36]
Alexander revived Earnest in a small theatre in Notting Hill, outside the West End, in 1901;[37] in the
same year he presented the piece on tour, playing Jack Worthing with a cast including the young
Lilian Braithwaite as Cecily.[38] The play returned to the West End when Alexander presented a
revival at the St James's in 1902.[39] Broadway revivals were mounted in 1902[24] and again in
1910,[40] each production running for six weeks.[24]
A collected edition of Wilde's works, published in 1908 and edited by Robert Ross, helped to restore
his reputation as an author. Alexander presented another revival of Earnest at the St James's in 1909,
when he and Aynesworth reprised their original roles;[41] the revival ran for 316 performances.[22]
Max Beerbohm said that the play was sure to become a classic of the English repertory and that its
humour was as fresh then as when it had been written, adding that the actors had "worn as well as the
play".[42]
For a 1913 revival at the same theatre, the

young actors Gerald Ames and A. E.
Matthews succeeded the creators as Jack
and Algy.[43] Leslie Faber as Jack, John
Deverell as Algy and Margaret Scudamore
as Lady Bracknell headed the cast in a
1923 production at the Haymarket
Theatre.[44] Many revivals in the first
decades of the 20th century treated "the
present" as the current year. It was not
until the 1920s that the case for 1890s
costumes was established; as a critic in
The Manchester Guardian put it, "Thirty Leslie Faber (centre) as Jack, 1923 revival, with Louise Hampton
years on, one begins to feel that Wilde as Miss Prism and H. O. Nicholson as Dr. Chasuble
should be done in the costume of his
period – that his wit today needs the
backing of the atmosphere that gave it life and truth. … Wilde's glittering and complex verbal felicities
go ill with the shingle and the short skirt."[45]
In Sir Nigel Playfair's 1930 production at the Lyric, Hammersmith, John Gielgud played Jack to the
Lady Bracknell of his aunt, Mabel Terry-Lewis.[46] Gielgud produced and starred in a production at
the Globe (now the Gielgud) Theatre in 1939, in a cast that included Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell,
Joyce Carey as Gwendolen, Angela Baddeley as Cecily and Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism. The
Times considered the production the best since the original and praised it for its fidelity to Wilde's
conception and its "airy, responsive ball-playing quality."[47] Later in the same year, Gielgud
presented the work again, with Jack Hawkins as Algy, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies as Gwendolen and
Peggy Ashcroft as Cecily, with Evans and Rutherford in their previous roles.[48] The production was
presented in several seasons during and after the Second World War, with mostly the same main
players. During a 1946 season at the Haymarket, the King and Queen attended a performance,[49]
which, as the journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft put it, gave the play "a final accolade of
respectability."[50][e] The production toured North America and was successfully staged on Broadway
in 1947.[52][f]
As Wilde's work came to be read and performed again, it was The Importance of Being Earnest that
received the most productions.[55] By the time of its centenary, the journalist Mark Lawson described
it as "the second most known and quoted play in English after Hamlet."[56]
For Sir Peter Hall's 1982 production at the National Theatre, the cast included Judi Dench as Lady
Bracknell,[g] Martin Jarvis as Jack, Nigel Havers as Algy, Zoë Wanamaker as Gwendolen and Anna
Massey as Miss Prism.[58] Nicholas Hytner's 1993 production at the Aldwych Theatre, starring Maggie
Smith, had occasional references to the supposed gay subtext.[59]
In 2005 the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, produced the play with an all-male cast; it also featured Wilde as
a character – the play opens with him drinking in a Parisian café, dreaming of his play.[60] The
Melbourne Theatre Company staged production in December 2011 with Geoffrey Rush as Lady
Bracknell.[61]
In 2007 Theatre Royal, Bath produced the play with Peter Gill directing. Penelope Keith played Lady
Bracknell, Harry Hadden-Paton played Jack, William Ellis played Algernon, Gwendolen was played
by Daisy Haggard and Cecily was played by Rebecca Night. The production went on a short UK Tour
before playing in the West End of London at Vaudeville Theatre in 2008 and received positive
reviews.[62][63]
In 2011 the Roundabout Theatre Company produced a Broadway revival based on the 2009 Stratford
Shakespeare Festival production featuring Brian Bedford as director and as Lady Bracknell. It opened
at the American Airlines Theatre on 13 January and ran until 3 July 2011. The cast also included Dana
Ivey as Miss Prism, Paxton Whitehead as Canon Chasuble, Santino Fontana as Algernon, Paul O'Brien
as Lane, Charlotte Parry as Cecily, David Furr as Jack and Sara Topham as Gwendolen.[64] It was
nominated for three Tony Awards.[h]
The play was also presented internationally, in Singapore, in October 2004, by the British Theatre
Playhouse,[67] and the same company brought it to London's Greenwich Theatre in April 2005.
A 2018 revival was directed by Michael Fentiman for the Vaudeville Theatre, London, as part of a
season of four Wilde plays produced by Dominic Dromgoole. The production received largely negative
press reviews.[68]
In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of students from Newcastle University filmed a
production, including scenes with Wilde himself as a character, at the Sunderland Empire to raise
awareness of struggling theatres and artists who had suffered from negative implications of
lockdowns in the UK. The production received largely positive press for its message.[69]
Synopsis
The play is set in "The Present" (i.e., 1895).[70]
Act I: Algernon Moncrieff's flat in Half Moon Street, W
The play opens with Algernon Moncrieff, an idle young gentleman, receiving his best friend, Jack
Worthing ("Ernest"). Ernest 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." 'Ernest' 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 Jack while pretending that he must worry about a wastrel
younger brother named Ernest in London. Meanwhile, he assumes the identity of the libertine Ernest
in the city. Algernon confesses a similar deception: he pretends to have an invalid 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 seems to love him in
large part because of his name, Ernest. Jack accordingly resolves to himself to be rechristened
"Ernest". Discovering them in this intimate exchange, Lady Bracknell interviews Jack as a prospective
suitor. Horrified to learn that he was adopted after being discovered as a baby in a handbag at Victoria
Station, 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 and wealthy young ward
has motivated his friend to meet her.
Act II: The Garden of the Manor House, Woolton
Cecily is studying with her governess, Miss Prism. Algernon arrives,

pretending to be Ernest Worthing, and soon charms Cecily. Long fascinated
by Uncle Jack's hitherto absent black sheep brother, she is predisposed to
fall for Algernon in his role of Ernest (a name she is apparently particularly
fond of). Therefore, Algernon, too, 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 with a
severe chill, a story undermined by Algernon's presence in the guise of
Ernest. Gwendolen now enters, having run away from home. During the
temporary absence of the two men, she meets Cecily, each woman
indignantly declaring that she is the one engaged to "Ernest". When Jack
and Algernon reappear, their deceptions are exposed.
Act III: Morning-Room at the Manor House, Woolton
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
Alexander in Act II (1909 any engagement is forbidden by her guardian Jack: he will consent only if
revival) Lady Bracknell agrees to his own union with Gwendolen – something she
declines to do.
The impasse is broken 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 for a walk in a perambulator and
never returned. Challenged, Miss Prism explains that she had absent-mindedly put the manuscript of
a novel she was writing in the perambulator and the baby in a handbag, which she had left at Victoria
Station. Jack produces the same handbag, showing that he is the lost baby, the elder son of Lady
Bracknell's late sister, and thus Algernon's elder brother. Having acquired such respectable relations,
he is acceptable as Gwendolen's suitor.
Gwendolen, however, insists she can love only a man named Ernest. Lady Bracknell informs 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 real name – was, in fact,
Ernest. Pretence was reality all along. As the happy couples embrace – Jack 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." "On the contrary, Aunt Augusta",
he replies, "I've now realised for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Earnest."
Characters
Jack Worthing (Ernest), a young gentleman from the country, in love with Gwendolen Fairfax.
Algernon Moncrieff, a young gentleman from London, the nephew of Lady Bracknell, in love with
Cecily Cardew.
Gwendolen Fairfax, a young lady, loved by Jack Worthing.

Lady Augusta Bracknell, a society lady, Gwendolen's mother.
Cecily Cardew, a young lady, the ward of Jack Worthing.
Miss Laetitia Prism, Cecily's governess.
Dr. Frederick Chasuble, the priest of Jack's parish.
Lane, Algernon's manservant.
Merriman, the butler of Jack's country house.
Themes
Triviality
Arthur Ransome described The Importance... as the most trivial of Wilde's society plays and the only
one that produces "that peculiar exhilaration of the spirit by which we recognise the beautiful." "It is",
he wrote, "precisely because it is consistently trivial that it is not ugly."[71] Ellmann says that The
Importance of Being Earnest touched on many themes Wilde had been building since the 1880s – the
languor of aesthetic poses was well established, and Wilde takes it as a starting point for the two
protagonists.[12] While Salome, An Ideal Husband and The Picture of Dorian Gray had dwelt on
more serious wrongdoing, vice in Earnest is represented by Algy's craving for cucumber
sandwiches.[i] Wilde told Robert Ross that the play's theme was "That we should treat all trivial things
in life very seriously, and all serious things of life with a sincere and studied triviality."[12] The theme
is hinted at in the play's ironic title, and "earnestness" is repeatedly alluded to in the dialogue;
Algernon says in Act II, "one has to be serious about something if one is to have any amusement in
life", but goes on to reproach Jack for 'being serious about everything'".[73] Blackmail and corruption
had haunted the double lives of Dorian Gray and Sir Robert Chiltern (in An Ideal Husband), but in
Earnest the protagonists' duplicity (Algernon's "bunburying" and Worthing's double life as Jack and
Ernest) is undertaken for more innocent purposes – largely to avoid unwelcome social obligations.[12]
While much theatre of the time tackled serious social and political issues, Earnest is superficially
about nothing at all. It "refuses to play the game" of other period dramatists, for instance, Bernard
Shaw, who used their characters to draw audiences to grander ideals.[26]
As a satire of society
The play repeatedly mocks Victorian traditions and social customs, marriage and the pursuit of love in
particular.[74] In Victorian times earnestness was considered to be the overriding societal value;
originating in religious attempts to reform the lower classes, it spread to the upper ones too
throughout the century.[75] The play's very title, with its mocking paradox (serious people are so
because they do not see trivial comedies), introduces the theme; it continues in the drawing room
discussion, "Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is
so shallow of them," says Algernon in Act 1; allusions are quick and from multiple angles.[73]
The men follow traditional matrimonial rites, whereby suitors admit their weaknesses to their
prospective brides, but the foibles they excuse are ridiculous, and the farce is built on an absurd
confusion of a book and a baby.[76] When Jack apologises to Gwendolen during his marriage proposal,
it is for not being wicked:[77]
JACK: Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to

find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking
nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?
GWENDOLEN: I can. For I feel that you are sure to

change.
In turn, Gwendolen and Cecily have the idea of marrying a man

named Ernest, a popular and respected name at the time.
Gwendolen, quite unlike her mother's methodical analysis of Jack
Worthing's suitability as a husband, places her entire faith in a
Christian name, declaring in Act I, "The only really safe name is
Ernest".[78] This is an opinion shared by Cecily in Act II, "I pity
any poor married woman whose husband is not called Ernest".[79]
They indignantly declare that they have been deceived when they
Gwendolen (Irene Vanbrugh),
discover the men's real names.
Merriman (Frank Dyall) and Cecily
(Evelyn Millard), in the original
Wilde embodied society's rules and rituals artfully into Lady
production, Act II
Bracknell: minute attention to the details of her style created a
comic effect of assertion by restraint.[80] In contrast to her
encyclopaedic knowledge of the social distinctions of London's
street names, Jack's obscure parentage is subtly evoked. He defends himself against her, "A
handbag?" with the clarification, "The Brighton Line". At the time, Victoria Station consisted of two
separate but adjacent terminal stations sharing the same name. To the east was the ramshackle LC&D
Railway, on the west the up-market LB&SCR – the Brighton Line, which went to Worthing, the
fashionable, expensive town the gentleman who found baby Jack was travelling to at the time (and
after which Jack was named).[81]
Suggested homosexual subtext
Queer scholars have argued that the play's themes of duplicity and ambivalence are inextricably
bound up with Wilde's homosexuality and that the play exhibits a "flickering presence-absence of ...
homosexual desire".[82] On re-reading the play after his release from prison, Wilde said: "It was
extraordinary reading the play over. How I used to toy with that Tiger Life."[82]
It has been said that the use of the name Ernest may have been a homosexual in-joke.[83] In 1892,
three years before Wilde wrote the play, John Gambril Nicholson had published the book of
pederastic poetry Love in Earnest. The sonnet Of Boys' Names included the verse: "Though Frank
may ring like silver bell / And Cecil softer music claim / They cannot work the miracle / –'Tis Ernest
sets my heart a-flame."[84] The word "earnest" may also have been a code-word for homosexual, as in:
"Is he earnest?" in the same way that "Is he so?" and "Is he musical?" were employed.[83] Sir Donald
Sinden, an actor who had met two of the play's original cast (Irene Vanbrugh and Allan Aynesworth)
and Lord Alfred Douglas, wrote to The Times to dispute suggestions that "Earnest" held any sexual
connotations:[85]
Although they had ample opportunity, at no time did any of them even hint that "Earnest"
was a synonym for homosexual or that "bunburying" may have implied homosexual sex.
The first time I heard it mentioned was in the 1980s, and I immediately consulted Sir John
Gielgud, whose own performance of Jack Worthing in the same play was legendary and
whose knowledge of theatrical lore was encyclopaedic. He replied in his ringing tones:
"No-No! Nonsense, absolute nonsense: I would have known".[85]
Several theories have also been put forward to explain the derivation of Bunbury, and Bunburying,
which is used in the play to imply a secretive double life. It may have derived from Henry Shirley
Bunbury, a hypochondriacal acquaintance of Wilde's youth.[86] Another suggestion, put forward in
1913 by Aleister Crowley, who knew Wilde, was that Bunbury was a combination word: that Wilde had
once taken a train to Banbury, met a schoolboy there, and arranged a second secret meeting with him
at Sunbury.[87]
Bunburying
Bunburying is a stratagem used by people who need an excuse to avoid social obligations in their daily
lives. The word "bunburying" first appears in Act I when Algernon explains that he invented a fictional
friend, a chronic invalid named "Bunbury", to have an excuse for getting out of events he does not
wish to attend, particularly with his Aunt Augusta (Lady Bracknell). Algernon and Jack both use this
method to secretly visit their lovers, Cecily and Gwendolen.[88][89]
Dramatic analysis
Use of language
While Wilde had long been famous for dialogue and his use of language, Raby (1988) argues that he
achieved unity and mastery in Earnest that was unmatched in his other plays, except perhaps Salomé.
While his earlier comedies suffer from an unevenness resulting from the thematic clash between the
trivial and the serious, Earnest achieves a pitch-perfect style that allows these to dissolve.[90] There
are three different registers detectable in the play. The dandyish insouciance of Jack and Algernon –
established early with Algernon's exchange with his manservant – betrays an underlying unity despite
their differing attitudes. The formidable pronouncements of Lady Bracknell are as startling for her use
of hyperbole and rhetorical extravagance as for her disconcerting opinions. In contrast, the speech of
Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism is distinguished by "pedantic precept" and "idiosyncratic diversion".[90]
Furthermore, the play is full of epigrams and paradoxes. Max Beerbohm described it as littered with
"chiselled apophthegms – witticisms unrelated to action or character", of which he found half a dozen
to be of the highest order.[42]
Lady Bracknell's line, "A handbag?", has been called one of the most malleable in English drama,
lending itself to interpretations ranging from incredulous or scandalised to baffled. Edith Evans, both
on stage and in the 1952 film, delivered the line loudly in a mixture of horror, incredulity, and
condescension.[91] Stockard Channing, in the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin in 2010, hushed the line, in a
critic's words, "with a barely audible 'A handbag?', rapidly swallowed up with a sharp intake of breath.
An understated take, to be sure, but with such a well-known play, packed full of witticisms and
aphorisms with a life of their own, it's the little things that make a difference."[92]
Characterisation
Though Wilde deployed characters that were by now familiar – the dandy lord, the overbearing
matriarch, the woman with a past, the puritan young lady – his treatment is subtler than in his earlier
comedies. Lady Bracknell, for instance, embodies respectable, upper-class society, but Eltis notes how
her development "from the familiar overbearing duchess into a quirkier and more disturbing
character" can be traced through Wilde's revisions of the play.[11] For the two young men, Wilde
presents not stereotypical stage "dudes" but intelligent beings who, as Jackson puts it, "speak like
their creator in well-formed complete sentences and rarely use slang or vogue-words".[93] Dr.
Chasuble and Miss Prism are characterised by a few light touches of detail, their old-fashioned
enthusiasms, and the Canon's fastidious pedantry, pared down by Wilde during his many redrafts of
the text.[93]
Structure and genre
Ransome argues that Wilde freed himself by abandoning the melodrama, the basic structure which
underlies his earlier social comedies and basing the story entirely on the Earnest/Ernest verbal
conceit. Freed from "living up to any drama more serious than conversation, " Wilde could now amuse
himself to a fuller extent with quips, bons mots, epigrams, and repartee that really had little to do with
the business at hand.[94]
The genre of the Importance of Being Earnest has been intensely debated by scholars and critics
alike, who have placed the play within a wide variety of genres ranging from parody to satire. In his
critique of Wilde, Foster argues that the play creates a world where "real values are inverted [and],
reason and unreason are interchanged".[95] Similarly, Wilde's use of dialogue mocks the upper classes
of Victorian England lending the play a satirical tone.[96] Reinhart further stipulates that the use of
farcical humour to mock the upper classes "merits the play both as satire and as drama".[97]
Publication
First edition
Wilde's two final comedies, An Ideal Husband and The

Importance of Being Earnest, were still on stage in London at
the time of his prosecution, and they were soon closed as the
details of his case became public. After two years in prison with
hard labour, Wilde went into exile in Paris, sick and depressed,
his reputation destroyed in England. In 1898, when no one else
would, Leonard Smithers agreed with Wilde to publish the two
final plays. Wilde proved to be a diligent reviser, sending
detailed instructions on stage directions, character listings, and
the book's presentation and insisting that a playbill from the
first performance be reproduced inside. Ellmann argues that
the proofs show a man "very much in command of himself and
of the play".[98] Wilde's name did not appear on the cover, it Title pages of the first edition, 1899,
was "By the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan".[99] His return with Wilde's name omitted from the first
to work was brief though, as he refused to write anything else, "I page, and the dedication to Robbie
can write, but have lost the joy of writing".[98] On 19 October Ross on the second
2007, a first edition (number 349 of 1,000) was discovered inside a handbag in an Oxfam shop in
Nantwich, Cheshire. The staff was unable to trace the donor. It was sold for £650.[100]
In translation
The Importance of Being Earnest 's popularity has meant it has been translated into many languages,
though the homophonous pun in the title ("Ernest", a masculine proper name, and "earnest", the
virtue of steadfastness and seriousness) poses a special problem for translators. The easiest case of a
suitable translation of the pun, perpetuating its sense and meaning, may have been its translation into
German. Since English and German are closely related languages, German provides an equivalent
adjective ("ernst") and also a matching masculine proper name ("Ernst"). The meaning and tenor of
the wordplay are exactly the same. Yet there are many different possible titles in German, mostly
concerning sentence structure. The two most common ones are "Bunbury oder ernst / Ernst sein ist
alles" and "Bunbury oder wie wichtig es ist, ernst / Ernst zu sein".[75] In a study of Italian translations,
Adrian Pablé found thirteen different versions using eight titles. Since wordplay is often unique to the
language in question, translators are faced with a choice of either staying faithful to the original – in
this case, the English adjective and virtue earnest – or creating a similar pun in their own
language.[101]
Translators have used four main strategies. The first leaves all
characters' names unchanged and in their original spelling: thus,
the name is respected, and readers are reminded of the original
cultural setting, but the liveliness of the pun is lost.[102] Eva
Malagoli varied this source-oriented approach by using both the
English Christian names and the adjective earnest, thus preserving
the pun and the English character of the play, but possibly
straining an Italian reader.[103] A third group of translators
Wilde, drawn in 1896 by Henri de replaced Ernest with a name that also represents a virtue in the
Toulouse-Lautrec target language, favouring transparency for readers in translation
over fidelity to the original.[103] For instance, in Italian, these
versions variously call the play L'importanza di essere
Franco/Severo/Fedele, the given names being respectively the values of honesty, propriety, and
loyalty.[104] French offers a closer pun: "Constant" is both a first name and the quality of
steadfastness, so the play is commonly known as De l'importance d'être Constant, though Jean
Anouilh translated the play under the title: Il est important d'être Aimé ("Aimé" is a name which also
means "beloved").[105] These translators differ in their attitude to the original English honorific titles,
some change them all or none, but most leave a mix partially as a compensation for the added loss of
Englishness. Lastly, one translation gave the name an Italianate touch by rendering it as Ernesto; this
work liberally mixed proper nouns from both languages.[106]
Adaptations
Film
Apart from several "made-for-television" versions, The Importance of Being Earnest has been
adapted for the English-language cinema at least three times, first in 1952 by Anthony Asquith who
adapted the screenplay and directed it. Michael Denison (Algernon), Michael Redgrave (Jack), Edith
Evans (Lady Bracknell), Dorothy Tutin (Cecily), Joan Greenwood (Gwendolen), and Margaret
Rutherford (Miss Prism) and Miles Malleson (Canon Chasuble) were among the cast.[107] In 1992
Kurt Baker directed a version using an all-black cast with Daryl Keith Roach as Jack, Wren T. Brown
as Algernon, Ann Weldon as Lady Bracknell, Lanei Chapman as Cecily, Chris Calloway as Gwendolen,
CCH Pounder as Miss Prism, and Brock Peters as Doctor Chasuble, set in the United States.[108]
Oliver Parker, a director who had previously adapted An Ideal Husband by Wilde, made the 2002
film; it stars Colin Firth (Jack), Rupert Everett (Algy), Judi Dench (Lady Bracknell), Reese
Witherspoon (Cecily), Frances O'Connor (Gwendolen), Anna Massey (Miss Prism), and Tom
Wilkinson (Canon Chasuble).[109] Parker's adaptation includes the dunning solicitor Mr. Gribsby who
pursues "Ernest" to Hertfordshire (present in Wilde's original draft, but cut at the behest of the play's
first producer).[18] Algernon too is pursued by a group of creditors in the opening scene.
A 2008 Telugu language romantic comedy film, titled Ashta Chamma, is an adaptation of the
play.[110]
A 1957 Egyptian film titled "The Man of My Dreams" (Fata Ahlami/‫ )فتي احالمي‬is an adaptation of the
play starring Abdel Halim Hafez and Abdel Salam Al Nabulsy.
Operas and musicals
In 1960, Ernest in Love was staged Off-Broadway. The Japanese all-female musical theatre troupe
Takarazuka Revue staged this musical in 2005 in two productions, one by Moon Troupe and the other
one by Flower Troupe.
In 1963, Erik Chisholm composed an opera from the play, using Wilde's text as the libretto.[111]
In 1964, Gerd Natschinski composed the musical Mein Freund Bunbury based on the play, 1964
premiered at Metropol Theater Berlin.[112]
According to a study by Robert Tanitch, by 2002, there had been at least eight adaptations of the play
as a musical, though "never with conspicuous success".[59] The earliest such version was a 1927
American show entitled Oh Earnest. The journalist Mark Bostridge comments, "The libretto of a 1957
musical adaptation, Half in Earnest, deposited in the British Library, is scarcely more encouraging.
The curtain rises on Algy, strumming away at the piano, singing, 'I can play Chopsticks, Lane'. Other
songs include 'A Bunburying I Must Go'."[59][j]
Gerald Barry created the 2011 opera, The Importance of Being Earnest, commissioned by the Los
Angeles Philharmonic and the Barbican Centre in London. It premiered in Los Angeles in 2011. The
stage premiere was given by the Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy, France in 2013.[114]
In 2017, Odyssey Opera of Boston presented a fully staged production of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's
opera The Importance of Being Earnest as part of their Wilde Opera Nights series, which was a
season-long exploration of operatic works inspired by the writings and world of Oscar Wilde.[115] The
opera for two pianos, percussion, and singers was composed in 1961–2. It is filled with musical quotes
at every turn. The opera was never published, but it was performed twice: the premiere in Monte
Carlo (1972 in Italian) and La Guardia, NY (1975). Odyssey Opera was able to obtain the manuscript
from the Library of Congress with the permission of the composer's granddaughter.[116] After
Odyssey's production at the Wimberly Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts
on 17 and 18 March, being received with critical acclaim,[117] The Boston Globe stated "Odyssey Opera
recognizes 'The Importance of Being Earnest.'"[118]
Stage pastiche
In 2016 Irish actor/writers Helen Norton and Jonathan White wrote the comic play To Hell in a
Handbag which retells the story of Importance from the point of view of the characters Canon
Chasuble and Miss Prism, giving them their own back story and showing what happens to them when
they are not on stage in Wilde's play.[119]
Radio and television
There have been many radio versions of the play. In 1925 the BBC broadcast an adaptation with
Hesketh Pearson as Jack Worthing.[120] Further broadcasts of the play followed in 1927 and 1936.[121]
In 1977, BBC Radio 4 broadcast the four-act version of the play, with Fabia Drake as Lady Bracknell,
Richard Pasco as Jack, Jeremy Clyde as Algy, Maurice Denham as Canon Chasuble, Sylvia Coleridge
as Miss Prism, Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Gwendolen and Prunella Scales as Cecily. The production was
later released on CD.[122]
To commemorate the centenary of the first performance of the play, Radio 4 broadcast a new
adaptation on 13 February 1995; directed by Glyn Dearman, it featured Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell,
Michael Hordern as Lane, Michael Sheen as Jack Worthing, Martin Clunes as Algernon Moncrieff,
John Moffatt as Canon Chasuble, Miriam Margolyes as Miss Prism, Samantha Bond as Gwendolen
and Amanda Root as Cecily. The production was later issued on an audio cassette.[123]
On 13 December 2000, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a new adaptation directed by Howard Davies starring
Geraldine McEwan as Lady Bracknell, Simon Russell Beale as Jack Worthing, Julian Wadham as
Algernon Moncrieff, Geoffrey Palmer as Canon Chasuble, Celia Imrie as Miss Prism, Victoria
Hamilton as Gwendolen and Emma Fielding as Cecily, with music composed by Dominic Muldowney.
The production was released on an audio cassette.[124]
A 1964 commercial television adaptation starred Ian Carmichael, Patrick Macnee, Susannah York,
Fenella Fielding, Pamela Brown and Irene Handl.[125]
BBC television transmissions of the play have included a 1974 Play of the Month version starring
Coral Browne as Lady Bracknell with Michael Jayston, Julian Holloway, Gemma Jones and Celia
Bannerman.[126] Stuart Burge directed another adaptation in 1986 with a cast including Gemma
Jones, Alec McCowen, Paul McGann and Joan Plowright.[127]
It was adapted for Australian TV in 1957.
Commercial recordings
Gielgud's performance is preserved on an EMI audio recording dating from 1952, which also captures
Edith Evans' Lady Bracknell. The cast also includes Roland Culver (Algy), Jean Cadell (Miss Prism),
Pamela Brown (Gwendolen), and Celia Johnson (Cecily).[128]
Other audio recordings include a "Theatre Masterworks" version from 1953, directed and narrated by
Margaret Webster, with a cast including Maurice Evans, Lucile Watson and Mildred Natwick;[129] a
1989 version by California Artists Radio Theatre, featuring Dan O'Herlihy Jeanette Nolan, Les
Tremayne and Richard Erdman;[130] and one by L.A. Theatre Works issued in 2009, featuring Charles
Busch, James Marsters and Andrea Bowen.[131]
Notes
a. "Bunburying", which indicates a double life as an excuse for absence, is – according to a letter
from Aleister Crowley to R. H. Bruce Lockhart – an inside joke that came about after Wilde
boarded a train at Banbury on which he met a schoolboy. They got into conversation and
subsequently arranged to meet again at Sunbury.[5] Carolyn Williams, in a 2010 study, writes that
for the word "Bunburying", Wilde "braids the 'Belvawneying' evil eye from Gilbert's Engaged
(1877) with 'Bunthorne' from Patience".[6]
b. This caused a breach between the author and actor which lasted for some years; Alexander later
paid Wilde small monthly sums and bequeathed his rights in the play to the author's son Vyvian
Holland.[22]
c. In a 2003 study, Richard Fotheringham writes that in Australia, unlike Britain and the US, Wilde's
name was not excluded from billings, and the critics and public took a much more relaxed view of
Wilde's crimes. A command performance of the play was given by Boucicault's company in the
presence of the Governor of Victoria.[25]
d. Victorien Sardou was a French dramatist known for his careful but mechanical plotting.[35]
e. George VI was not the first British king who had attended a performance of the play: his
grandfather Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, was in the audience for the first production.[51]
f. Rutherford switched roles, from Miss Prism to Lady Bracknell for the North American production;
Jean Cadell played Miss Prism. Robert Flemyng played Algy.[53] The cast was given a special
Tony Award for "Outstanding Foreign Company".[54]
g. Twenty-three years earlier Dench had played Cecily to the Lady Bracknell of Fay Compton in a
1959 Old Vic production that included in the cast Alec McCowen, Barbara Jefford and Miles
Malleson.[57]
h. Best Revival of a Play, Best Costume Design of a Play and Best Leading Actor in a Play for
Bedford (winning for costumes).[65] The production was filmed live in March 2011 and was shown
in cinemas in June 2011.[66]
i. Wilde himself evidently took sandwiches with due seriousness. Max Beerbohm recounted in a
letter to Reggie Turner Wilde's difficulty in obtaining a satisfactory offering: "He ordered a
watercress sandwich: which in due course was brought to him: not a thin, diaphanous green thing
such as he had meant but a very stout satisfying article of food. This he ate with assumed disgust
(but evident relish), and when he paid the waiter, he said: 'Tell the cook of this restaurant with the
compliments of Mr. Oscar Wilde that these are the very worst sandwiches in the whole world and
that, when I ask for a watercress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.'"[72]
j. Since Bostridge wrote his article, at least one further musical version of the play had been staged.
A show with a book by Douglas Livingstone and score by Adam McGuinness and Zia Moranne
was staged in December 2011 at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith; the cast included Susie
Blake, Gyles Brandreth and Edward Petherbridge.[113]
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External links
The Importance of Being Earnest (https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/844) at Project Gutenberg

(Kindle, EPUB and txt files)
1947 Theatre Guild on the Air radio adaptation (https://archive.org/download/TheaterGuildontheAi
r/Tgoa_470413_ep071Importance_of_Being_Ernest.mp3) at Internet Archive
The Importance of Being Earnest (https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/oscar-wilde/the-importance-
of-being-earnest) at Standard Ebooks
The Importance of Being Earnest(https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-show/4660) at the Internet
Broadway Database: performance history, cast lists, awards received
Importance of being Earnest at Tech Rigid (https://techrigid.com/more/importance-of-being-earnes
t/) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20220824102951/https://techrigid.com/more/importance-
of-being-earnest/) 24 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine
Printable version in PDF format, A4 paper size (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impo
rtance_of_Being_Earnest_playscript_A4_pdf.pdf)
The Importance of Being Earnest (http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/manuscript-draft-of-the-import
ance-of-being-earnest-by-oscar-wilde#) early manuscript draft at the British Library
The Importance of Being Earnest (https://librivox.org/search?title=The+Importance+of+Being+E
arnest&author=WILDE&reader=&keywords=&genre_id=0&status=all&project_type=either&record
ed_language=&sort_order=catalog_date&search_page=1&search_form=advanced) public domain
audiobook at LibriVox
The Importance of Being Earnest (http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/t/the-importance-of-being-earnest/),
Victoria and Albert Museum
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11/12/23, 10:59 PM The Importance of Being Earnest - Wikipedia

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for

The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde's career

Lady Lancing to avoid preemptive speculation about its

Wilde wrote the part of Jack Worthing with the actor-manager

The cast was:

John Worthing, J.P. – George Alexander Lady Bracknell – Rose Leclercq

arguing that comedy should touch as well as amuse, "I go to the

For a 1913 revival at the same theatre, the

Act I: Algernon Moncrieff's flat in Half Moon Street, W

Act II: The Garden of the Manor House, Woolton

Cecily is studying with her governess, Miss Prism. Algernon arrives,

Act III: Morning-Room at the Manor House, Woolton

Arriving in pursuit of her daughter, Lady Bracknell is astonished to be told

Gwendolen Fairfax, a young lady, loved by Jack Worthing.

JACK: Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to

GWENDOLEN: I can. For I feel that you are sure to

In turn, Gwendolen and Cecily have the idea of marrying a man

Suggested homosexual subtext

Structure and genre

Wilde's two final comedies, An Ideal Husband and The

Operas and musicals

Radio and television

It was adapted for Australian TV in 1957.

27. Beckson (1970:195)

84. Nicholson (1892:61)

The Importance of Being Earnest (https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/844) at Project Gutenberg

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