Timothy Johnson
Lantern Staff
There are comedies aplenty in this world that we all love, but on Thursday, April 11 through Saturday, April 13 in the 700 building, audiences can see “The Importance of Being Earnest,” one of the most influential plays in all of comedy performed by the Butler theater department. “The Importance of Being Earnest” is a play that is reliant on its wit, implementing no physical comedy.
“The dialogue is where the comedy is,” Professor of Theatre and Speech Samuel Sparks said. “It’s not physical comedy; it’s all in the language.”
This play takes place during the late 1800’s, so there are differences in the culture of those two times that require the actors to understand references unfamiliar to many people today so as to deliver the joke properly.
“It’s been a lot of fun to help the students discover where the jokes are,” Sparks said, commenting on the highlights of the process. “It is a period comedy; the characters speak differently than we do today a little bit. Some of the humor is veiled; it’s hidden in the language. On first read you may not get it, but the audience will because of the way it is delivered.”
The students involved in the play seem to be in agreement with Sparks, for they voiced much of the same praise.
“There’s a lot of comedy in it if you listen to what they are saying,” Sophomore Sophie Watkins, a biology major and who is acting in the play, said. “It’s very fast paced.”
With all of the fine details of delivering the jokes properly and perfecting the British accents, comes a lot of work. It is a long process from the beginning of memorizing lines and building props to finalize the performance.
“This rehearsal process is about five weeks,” Sparks said, referring to the time commitment the students have to pledge to make the show happen. “We rehearse about 18 to 20 hours a week.”
“[The most difficult part is] definitely focusing on specific words and how to pronounce them because we do have to talk in a very British accent,” Austyn White, a sophomore theater performance major, commenting on the more difficult aspects of the process, said.
“The Importance of Being Earnest” is considered to be one of the great, classic comedies by critics, supplying audiences over the years with plenty of laughs that you can join with on Thursday, April 11 through Saturday, April 13 at 7:30 pm in the 700 building, and a matinee showing on Saturday at 2 p.m.
“I think a lot of people look at an older play as just older theater, and will sit there and be bored,” Dakota Alvord, a sophomore theater major, said. “But I think the audience will be pleasantly surprised by how relevant the show stays with the jokes and the story that’s binding it.”
