THE THEATER MIRROR, New England’s LIVE Theater Guide
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MARQUEE | USHER | SEATS |
INTERMISSION | CURTAIN |
note: entire contents copyright 2007 by Carl A. Rossi
Algernon Moncrieff … Tom Giordano
Lane, Manservant … Stephen A. Turner
John Worthing, J. P. … Andrew Winson
Lady Bracknell … Ann Carpenter
Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax … Sarah Jones
Miss Prism, Governess … Gwen Sweet
Cecily Cardew … Anna Waldron
Rev. Canon Chasuble, D. D. … Stephen A. Turner
Merriman, Butler … Michael Wood
Mr. Grisby, Solicitor … Charles Hughes
The Longwood Players’ THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is delightful, and I’ll be brief so that you may order your tickets all the faster for there are only a few performances, left. Suffice it to say that Kaitlyn Chantry has caught Mr. Wilde’s deceptively trivial, urbanely anarchic style and channeled it through a near-golden ensemble who deftly keep their audience a-bubble than drown everything in guffaws; the Lady Bracknell may be a tamed dragon and the Miss Prism, a robot, but here is grand entertainment, nevertheless, especially when Tom Giordano and the marvelously solemn Andrew Winson spar as Algernon and Jack or whenever Sarah Jones’ Gwendolen, a dainty Valkyrie, invades the stage, and it is nicely dressed by Sandy Chantry (surely Mr. Giordano must be on a carb-high at curtain call from all of the baked goods he consumes, throughout). If some of the text seems new and the evening seems long, that is because Ms. Chantry incorporates dialogue, scenes and an unexpected character from various manuscripts; she would have been wise to have left Wilde enough alone.