Marin Shakespeare Goes Wilde Three Sisters Blow Into Town

Prolific Irish writer Oscar Wilde was really out there and didn’t care who knew it. In late Victorian England, he cultivated a languid, long-haired flamboyance that was recognized and criticized as effeminate. And in spite of being married, he also pursued male romances, one of which got him imprisoned for two years.

Wilde’s last and most successful play, The Importance of Being Earnest, premiered in London on Valentine’s Day, 1895, but it only ran for eighty-three performances. By then, Wilde’s notoriety about his love affair with the Marquess of Queensberry’s son shut it down.

Earnest’s fast-paced satire about British society and its manners is now making a stylish return engagement at the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre at Dominican University in San Rafael. Marin Shakespeare Company’s all-star production offers a witty and gleeful visit to Oscar Wilde’s imagination.

Its story concerns two young bachelors, Algernon and Jack, who find themselves pursuing two young ladies, each of whom desires to marry a man named Earnest. To bring about the comedy’s necessary happy ending, its plot employs a London residence and a country home, an ironclad dowager, an attractive female ward, questionable ancestry, deceit, a misplaced manuscript and a possible re-baptism. The whole thing crackles with Wildean one-liners: Aunt Augusta says her widowed friend’s hair “has turned quite gold from grief.” The governess, Miss Prism, hearing that Jack’s wicked brother is dead, comments, “What a lesson for him! I hope that he will profit from it.” Algy defends his own costume with, “If I’m occasionally overdressed, I make up for it by being overeducated.”

Algernon, the first Earnest in this production, is played by Marin Shakespeares’ perennial bad boy, Darren Bridgett. (Bridgett always obliges fans in the amphitheatre by venturing into the audience and filching their snacks.) William Elsman, recently Don Quixote in the Mountain Play, is the second Earnest, and a good counterpoint to Bridgett.

George Maguire is cleverly cast as the formidable Aunt Augusta, Lady Bracknell. However, when Aunt Augusta first appears onstage, having rung the doorbell “in a Wagnerian manner,” Maguire gestures with gloved hands, smooths his skirts neatly, but delivers her lines in his own voice, not falsetto. It’s disappointing.

The young ladies, Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew, are played by Cat Thompson and Alexandra Matthew. These two at first perceive themselves as rivals. Watch for a lovely tea-fight.

Joan Mankin is the novelist/governess, Miss Prism, and also the affectionate object of the Reverend Dr. Chasuble, played with patient dignity by Jack Powell. Lane and Merriman, city and country house servants, are portrayed with two different accents by Lucas McClure.

Director Robert Currier has added some fine directorial touches to the script. Listen for the young ladies’ pronunciation of the men’s real names and for Aunt Augusta’s enunciation of the loaded word “handbag.” Enjoy the choreography of the “housemaids” rearranging Mark Robinson’s revolving set.

Patricia Polen’s costumes are lushly Victorian and topped with lavish wigs. The Importance of Being Earnest is a full, flamboyant, outdoor presentation of a Victorian play. Wilde would have loved it.

The Importance of Being Earnest will be at the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, 1475 Grand Avenue in San Rafael, through August 20. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays. Ticket prices run from $15 to $30.

Seating is on benches outdoors, but cushions may be rented. Picnics are welcome.
The weather cools rapidly after the sun goes down, so lap robes and jackets are recommended. For additional information, see www.marinshakespeare.org or call the box office, 499-4488.

On opening night of Porchlight Theatre’s new production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters brought wind that had been building all afternoon. By 7:00, when the play began, it was a full gale. The windows on Steve Decker’s ingenious cantilevered set swung like they were motorized. A prop flower vase blew over. (The old family retainer, played by Candace Brown, stepped in and swept it up.) Actors shouted to be heard over the redwoods’ heavy rustle. And when one of the characters forecast “a wild, elemental storm coming,” he got an unscripted laugh. Nevertheless, in the best theatrical tradition, the show went on, as players and playgoers coped with the conditions.

This is the 8th season for Porchlight, who call themselves “the Merchant-Ivory of Marin” and who stage their works in the amphitheatre behind The Barn in Ross. They are a seasoned group. Of the eleven Core Members, seven performed tonight, four of them Equity, and all struggled along in “the simple magnificence of our natural surroundings.”

Anton Chekhov’s plays are suited to undisciplined nature. His characters are also buffeted about, but don’t really go anywhere, rooted in their own idealism or fecklessness. Yet Three Sisters, which made its debut in 1901, seems surprisingly modern. These people make bad marriages, gamble recklessly, hate their jobs, long for an idealized past, get fat, get old.

The Prozorov sisters in the title share the inherited family home with their brother, Andrey. He’s assigned to be the family intellectual, and the sisters have hopes that he’ll become a professor. The youngest sister, Irina, is celebrating her 20th birthday as the play opens. Irina is excited about the future, longing to start work. The oldest sister, Olga, is still single, worries that she’s getting old, and blames her teaching job. Masha, the one in the middle, sits, reads and smokes. She quietly detests her husband, the high school teacher Kulygin, but comes to life when an army officer, Vershinin, is transferred to this small garrison town. Vershinin is from Moscow, a magic name in the Prozorov home. He has a glowing vision of the beautiful future that awaits them all in another 200 years. He also has a wife and two daughters.

Two years go by, and much is the same, except Olga and Irina are now forced to share a bedroom. Andrey has married a dragon of a young woman, who has installed little Bobik in Irina’s room. Another baby will be along soon, then job changes, followed by failed courtships, dashed hopes, and the recurring theme of exhaustion, of being worn out, alternating with manic visions of the future.

But through all this Russian suffering, Chekhov inserts some bitterly funny lines: “When a man just wants to talk, it’s good to have a deaf person to talk to.” Or many variations on, “I love my wife, but . . .” Director Susannah Martin has chosen this play’s Paul Schmidt translation, which is, she says, “less poetic, more conversational.” And she has used the amphitheatre’s surroundings as part of the set.

Chekhov gives the large cast some excellent speeches to work with: Olga’s (Julia McNeal) declarations of patient despair; Masha’s (Tara Blau) silent contempt for her husband and delight with Vershinin (Nick Sholley;) Irina’s (Thais Harris) gradual collapse of hope; Andrey’s (Jon Wesley Burnett) frozen acceptance of his domestic life; Tuzenbach’s (Craig Neibaur) retreats into clownishness; Kulygin’s (Ryan O’Donnell) exaggerated pride.

The action in Three Sisters is advanced by the villains. Andrey’s grasping wife, Natalya (Rebecca Castelli,) is steadily acquiring both the family home and a lover. Solyony (Michael Barr) determines to be noticed by Irina any way he can. Romanich (John Mercer) dissolves his medical skills in alcohol.

Jarrod Quon and Don Wood share multiple roles throughout the play.

Three Sisters will continue at the amphitheater in the Marin Art & Garden Center through July 11, with no performance July 4 and a special performance on July 6. Ticket prices range from $15 to $25. To order in advance, see www.porchlight.net.

Note: The amphitheater is not easily handicap-accessible. Also, on opening night, besides the high wind, there was only one Porta-Potty in service. Audience members are advised to plan accordingly.