Word: gwendolyne
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...Saturday reunion cookout featured hamburgers, barbecued chicken and potato salad--but co-op residents also prepared homemade bread, home-brewed beer, grilled tofu, and curried tofu with apples and raisins. At least one of the co-op's four dogs had a name tag reading, "Hello, My Name Is Gwendolyn" stuck on her head...
Paolo Carozza's Ernest, by contrast, lacks some of the necessary dash. Whether this is inherent in the part or not, he is, unfortunately, upstaged by Algernon. As Jack's beloved Gwendolyn, Anne Higgins is marvelously coy, delivering her studied and empty superlatives with necessary aplomb...
Wauck has also devised simple and effective sets which suggest the fragility of the superficial English society. Although most of the costumes are nattily effective, Gwendolyn's wig makes her look more like a Muppet then a bombshell, and Algernon's disguise as Jack's devilish brother Ernest looks more like a recent arrival from Palm Beach...
...farce reaches unbelievable extremes when Lady Bracknell terrorizes the obsequious John Worthing, who had hoped to marry her stylish daughter, Gwendolyn Fairfax (Jacqueline Riggs). As she grills him on his eligibility with questions like "Do you smoke?" his meager replies sound more and more unrealistic--"I'm afraid I do," he squeaks, and she answers dictatorially, "Good--a man should always have an occupation." Worthing says he has no parents and Bracknell responds, "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose both is carelessness." In order to be considered for Miss Fairfax's husband he "must...
...play hits rock bottom in Act H, the rest can only improve. In the more professional third act, the actors seemed to internalize their characters. Cecily and Gwendolyn, for example, argue seriously over trifles--lumps of sugar for their tea and cake--for the first time. Algernon declares with true earnestness about food, "One has to be serious about something in life to be amused." As the intricate plot unravels and the couples happily unite, the laughter subsides and Finnegan declares, "We have now realized the vital importance of being earnest." Maybe he has, but it would have helped...