王尔德: 不可儿戏 / 约翰吉尔: 古德诗选/WILDE: Importance of Being Earnest (The) (1952) / GIELGUD, John: Selected Poetry Readings

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- 王尔德: 不可儿戏 / 约翰吉尔: 古德诗选
  WILDE: Importance of Being Earnest (The) (1952) / GIELGUD, John: Selected Poetry Readings
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王尔德: 不可儿戏 / 约翰吉尔: 古德诗选 / WILDE: Importance of Being Earnest (The) (1952) / GIELGUD, John: Selected Poetry Readings
[ 读物介绍 ]
Oscar WildeThe Importance of Being EarnestIt is generally agreed that The Importance ofBeing Earnest is the most perfect andsublimely funny play in the English language.Wilde began to write his Trivial Comedy forSerious People in the autumn of 1894, whileon holiday with his family at Worthing. Theplay was originally in four acts, but GeorgeAlexander, the actor–manager of theSt. James’s Theatre, thought it too long, soacts two and three were amalgamated, anda scene in act two, in which a solicitor arrivesat the country house, was cut completely.The play opened on 14 February 1895 andwas a huge and instant success. Alexander,as was his wont, had cast the play brilliantly,and Max Beerbohm immediately recognisedit as a masterpiece. Exactly a fortnight afterthe triumphant first night, the Marquess ofQueensbury left his famous message at theAlbemarle Club, and Wilde’s glittering careerwas essentially and inexorably cast into theruins from which it never recovered in hislifetime.Meanwhile, the play ran with greatsuccess, and it was not until Wilde’s firstarrest that his name was deleted from thebills outside the theatre, as it was from thefacade of the Theatre Royal, Haymarketwhere Wilde’s An Ideal Husband was alsorunning successfully. Even when the playwas published later that year Wilde’s namewas omitted, and the title page read ‘By theauthor of Lady Windermere’s Fan’.John Gielgud’s long association with theplay began when he was only seventeen,before he had even begun his training atRADA. On 5 January 1922 he directedand played John Worthing for a singleperformance at the King George’s Hall ofthe YMCA near Tottenham Court Road.Surprisingly, he and his amateur friendsraised £30 4s 7d for the Old Vic Fund.On 7 July 1930 at the Lyric Hammersmith,he played the part again, directed by NigelPlayfair, in the gap between his twotriumphant seasons at the Old Vic. The playwas produced in black and white in thestyle of Aubrey Beardsley, and its 104performances were only brought to anabrupt end by the necessity for him to returnto the Vic.On 31 January 1939, while he wasplaying in the long-running Dear Octopus atthe Globe Theatre, he directed and playedJohn Worthing for eight special matinées,with Ronald Ward as Algernon (as on thisrecording), Joyce Carey and Angela Baddeleyas Gwendolen and Cecily, MargaretRutherford as Miss Prism, and, mostessentially, Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell.Gielgud always considered Edith Evans tobe the greatest English actress of her time,and so perfect was their partnership in thesetwo roles that he never played it in Londonwithout her – only for his New Yorkproduction in 1947 did Margaret Rutherfordmove up from Miss Prism to Lady Bracknell.When he and Evans first read the‘handbag’ scene together, he rememberedher saying immediately, ‘I know that kind ofwoman, she rings the bell and asks you toput another lump of coal on.’ In a brilliantessay on the play, he analysed the character,‘Lady Bracknell is not called Augusta fornothing. She is never put out or surprised.She is never angry. But she is frequentlydisapproving and almost always annihilating.She moves slowly and seldom. She isbeautifully dressed and carries herselfsuperbly. Her every accessory – veil, gloves,parasol, chatelaine, bag and shoes – must beworn with a perfection of detail that hasbecome second nature to her. It is impossibleto conceive her (or her daughter either)except en grande tenue.’ This exactlydescribes Evans’s Lady Bracknell, and if youadd to that the most authoritative comictiming, you can, perhaps, get an inkling ofthe definitive nature of her lustrousperformance.Gielgud’s John Worthing was its match inperfection of detail. In contrast to Algernon’sdebonair manner and easy charm, hischaracter was extremely reserved andinsecure (except in his scenes withGwendolen), as though he had always towatch every word that he spoke in case hegave himself away, though, at the sametime, trying to give the impression of a mantotally at ease with himself. The high moraltone he adopts towards his friend’s frivolitycomes, of course, from the insecurity bredby his acute embarrassment about hisorigins. Though he has so far managed toconceal his secret from the world, he knowsthat he has to disclose it to Lady Bracknell,as he is fully aware of the dire consequencesthat would ensue if he were ever found tohave deliberately concealed it from her.This complicated subtext was completelyintegrated into his performance – neverinsisted upon, but there all the same. Theeffect was almost Chekhovian in its depth,and, for that reason, was quite exquisitelyfunny – a perfect illustration of the truth ofDavid Garrick’s celebrated remark that‘Comedy is a serious business’.I had the greatest possible luck in havingthe opportunity to see the last performanceof the part he gave in London. On 11 April1946 he revived the production for a specialRoyal matinée in aid of the King George’sPension Fund for Actors at the TheatreRoyal, Haymarket, which was attended byKing George V and Queen Mary. It hardlyneeds to be said that I was notdisappointed!Only seven years later, I was rehearsing aradio play directed by John Gielgud’s brother,Val Gielgud. The cast was given the morningof 27 October 1954 off, as Val was due torecord the world premiere of the ‘lost’ scenefrom ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ in ahalf-hour programme to be broadcast thatsame night. It was introduced by the Wildeexpert, H. Montgomery Hyde, and the sceneconcerned the arrival of a solicitor who hadcome to arrest Ernest Worthing for nonpaymentof his supper bills at the Savoy. Theroles of the two young men were to beplayed by brother John and Rex Harrison.At eleven, I was telephoned by Val whocommanded my immediate attendance atthe BBC because Rex Harrison hadn’t turnedup, and he wanted me to play Algernon inhis stead. I arrived just fifteen minutes beforethe recording was due to begin, had amarked script thrust into my hands, and dida quick rehearsal without having read asingle word of it. I then had just threeminutes to read my lines through again tofind out what they meant, and the recordingwas made without fault. Val and John wereso delighted that they took me out to lunch.There I learnt that, as the recording wasabout to begin, Rex Harrison finally arrived,but Val had posted his secretary outside thestudio and he was sent away in disgrace.Unfortunately the recording was neverrepeated after its initial transmission and wasnot preserved in the BBC Sound Archive, soit is presumed to be forever lost.The version of the play presented herewas produced by the BBC in 1952, andwas almost certainly taken from a livetransmission, as almost all radio plays werebroadcast live in those days. The result isthat you have a performance that is vastlysuperior to a complete version that Gielgudand Evans made for Columbia LPs whichwas ‘rehearse-recorded’ – that is to say, eachscene was rehearsed separately and thentaped, thus losing the momentum and theoverall shape of a live performance. I canassure you that the Columbia set onlyreflects very poorly the brilliance of what Ihad seen at the Haymarket matinée,whereas the broadcast performance exactlymirrors it. Tyrone Guthrie once wrote aboutGielgud’s production, ‘It established thehigh-water mark in the production ofartificial comedy in our epoch.’Notes by Richard Bebb