Word: gwendolen
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...play’s main plot revolves around Tzara and Carr, who are forced to fake their names and hide their real artistic and political views in order to win the respective loves of the Joyce-admiring Cecily and the Leninist librarian Gwendolen. The themes are the role of art and politics: should one accept a Wildean view of art for art’s sake, a Socialist one of art as political tool, or a Dadaist conception of art as needing to destroy itself? Is war a matter of defending the innocent or of seizing oil wells...
...amusing running gag, and I hope intentional. Lenin (Daemon Pratt) and his wife Nadya (Lauren B. Brodsky ’06) make a well-balanced couple, with Lenin as a charismatic, harsh idealist and Nadya as an even harsher pragmatist. Cecily (Joanna N. Leeds ’04) and Gwendolen (Andrea V. Halpern ’07) are, despite their cheerfulness, among the most serious characters in the play, which they well display in a polite dialogue that turns into veiled viciousness, complete with slightly-too-hard friendly pats...
...When their deceptive schemes of John and Algy collide, a series of crises ensue, crises that threaten to spoil their romantic intentions-Jack for Gwendolen Fairfax and Algernon for his intended bride Cecily Cardew. Of the younger female interpretations, Lauren Waisbren gives the role of Cecily Cardew, Worthing's ward, a more ditzy than shrewd rendering, though her phrasing, timing and diction are all impeccable. As her mirrored comrade (and adversary, depending on the scene) Gwendolen, Jennifer Moxin puts her considerable comic vitality to fine work here in what is sometimes mildly bizarre exaggeration, sometimes farcical explosiveness. These two work...
David Murin's costumes and Rogers Meeker's lighting ably round out the rest of this production's design. Murin sticks mostly to standard Victorian fare but produces some remarkable effects with it, most notably Algernon's dressing gown and the sublime hats worn by Gwendolen and Lady Bracknell in the first act. Meerker's lighting is particularly notable in the second act, when the garden appears infused with sunshine...
Director Jacques Cartier uses the sets ably and has done a good job of staging the play--the tea scene between Gwendolen and Cecily is especially imaginative. But when such a good play is often dragged down by a plodding pace and often tepid performances it is usually the director's fault. While this production is still worth seeing (particularly for those who have never seen Earnest before and who won't know what they're missing) stronger direction might have shaken up the cast a bit more and made it a production worthy of wilde...