THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST

A review by Anisha from Fashion and Frappes

The Two Gents and Tara Arts production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest has the feeling of a happy musical. The audience is involved and excited, its a fun vibe and the laughter is loud and often, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Now when you read about the production you feel it might go one of two ways – extremely confusing and not very good or extremely funny and fantastic. This uncertainty is because the play has 2 actors playing about 11 characters. This means the 2 actors play about 4 or 5 characters each through the course of the play.

Luckily this production of The Importance of Being Ernest falls into the latter camp – extremely funny and fantastic. It is also easy to follow thanks to the variety of accents, expressions and mannerism the two actors employ to showcase 11 different characters.

Now I have no idea how well Kudzanayi and Ayesha (the two British-African women who play all the characters) know each other but the chemistry between them is unbelievable. This is what I imagine (or rather hope) my best friend and I would be like if we were in a play together. The exchanges between them are so natural it is impossible to confirm which are actually a part of the screenplay and which are impromptu. All the jokes and quips have the ease and cheek of being impromptu as well as the confidence and delivery of being well rehearsed.

In one part, an audience member has his walking stick knocked about by the entry of Kudzanayi and Ayesha makes a dry funny observation about it. I am sure that was in the moment – there is no way they planned it right? But how did she come up with the line on the spot? There were also times where the actors state aloud something which you assume actors would be thinking when on the stage. This is so expected and was a great way of involving the audience.

Needless to state, if it wasn’t obvious from the above, I cannot recommend it enough.