A trio of homegrown talent bring Oscar Wilde’s most infamous play to Trinity Theatre for a one-night show in March.
The Pantaloons, a theatre group formed when the three founder members met at Kent University, will be playing The Importance of Being Earnest on Thursday, March 17.
Artistic director Stephen Purcell has directed many shows for the Pantaloons, including Shakespeare’s Macbeth and The Canterbury Tales, and he says this production will draw on their usual energetic concoction of classicism and wackiness.
He says: “Everybody loves Ernest. The only trouble is, he doesn’t exist. Or does he? We will be giving Oscar Wilde’s comic masterpiece The Pantaloons treatment in our anarchic take on the classic comedy of manners.
“This energetic show features all the usual Wildean wit, plus a few Pantaloony surprises, including singing butlers, travel by means of musical montage and a post-interval Hollywood-style recap.”
Stephen is now professor of Shakespeare and performance studies at Warwick University, and as well as performing he has written a number of works on Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He is joined by producers Mark Haywood and Caitlin Storey.
He says: “The Pantaloons draw from a wide variety of popular theatre traditions, from commedia dell’arte and pantomime to stand-up comedy and silent movies, to bring what we consider to be a vital sense of ‘play’ back to classical performance.
“We aim to recapture an aspect of drama which the modern naturalistic theatre has lost: The riotous energy of the clown. Your imagination is just as important as ours. We ask you to become co-creators of the play world with us.”
To buy tickets for the play at Trinity Theatre go to: www.trinitytheatre.net or call the box office on 01892 678 678
