Review: The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another work I enjoyed in Audiobook form, this one from LibriVox — Oscar Wilde comfortably belongs to the public domain, after all. Most of the voice actors were quite good, especially given the fact that most, if not all, of them were amateurs. As always, however, no measure of generalisation can capture the full spectrum of reality; some of the actors were bored with the text and were yawn-inspiring and others were very much into their role. By the end it was impossible for me to disconnect those actors’ voices from their respective characters!

So, what about The Importance of Being Earnest as a script, as a work by the great Oscar Wilde? It’s a fairly standard play. I mean that in the sense that everything falls into place by the end, it has a first, second and third act, all clearly defined. The characters are as delightfully unrealistic as they perfectly working symbols of late 19th century upper-class England. Even the surprises of the plot are carefully measured, predictably unpredictable. That said, it’s excellent insofar as standard, classic plays go. It’s rather a lot like anything perfect, be it a book, a film, a person or a work of culinary art: ultimately forgettable. The little quirks so common in contemporary, postmodern art add much-needed flavour to things. Some would say that lack of such quirks in any given work, especially by Oscar Wilde and others of his time and prestige, could count as proof of its timeless quality. I wouldn’t have any qualms with that opinion, even though for me the quirks are the soul of any piece of art.

Note: I still enjoyed it, laughed a lot with it and would attend a performance of it in a heartbeat.

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