ABSTRACT
The most obvious thing suggested by The Importance of Being Earnest is the advantage of being frivolous, which, in a pecuniary sense, is likely to accrue to an author who caters for the less intelligent section of the public. Mr. Oscar Wilde has the courage of his convictions. He has recognised that the majority of playgoers are prepared to accept him atthe value he has set upon himself, and accordingly he exhibits perfect readiness to fool them to the top of their bent. The question remains, how long is the vogue likely to last? But that, after all, is a problem of secondary consequence, for chameleon-like Mr. Wilde is always ready to change his colours. Tragedy or comedy, laughter or tears-it is all one to him. He is governed by the showman’s principle-‘You pays your money and you takes your choice.’ His new trivial comedy is a bid for popularity in the direction of farce. Stripped of its ‘Oscarisms’—regarded purely as a dramatic exercise —it is not even a good specimen of its class. The story is clumsily handled, the treatment unequal, the construction indifferent, while the elements of farce, comedy, and burlesque are jumbled together with a fine disregard for consistency. But the piece throughout bears the unmistakable impress of the author’s handiwork, and that, it would appear, is sufficient for an audience unable or unwilling to distinguish between the tinsel glitter of sham epigram and the authentic sheen of true wit. Of the success of the new comedy there can be no doubt, inasmuch as its audacity-we had almost said impertinence-will not fail to attract votaries of a society which enjoys nothing more keenly than an exhibition on the stage of its own weaknesses. To criticise the work seriously would be a measure that the author himself would probably be the first to deride. So little respect, indeed, does he show for his own piece, that in places he has not hesitated to ridicule the very creatures born of his fertile imagination; while, throughout its performance, one is constantly forced to the conclusion that his tongue must have found refuge in his cheek more frequently than not as the labour of writing progressed….
