By Bill Hirschman, FloridaTheaterOnStage.com, for SouthFloridaReporter.com, Nov. 22, 2015 – The ever adventurous Thinking Cap Theatre founder Nicole Stodard had an intriguing idea for a spoofy mashup: Set Oscar Wilde’s sublimely witty The Importance of Being Earnest in a madcap lampoon of New York City’s disco era.
The urbane and farcical elements are irreconcilably at war with each other stylistically, so while there is considerable inventiveness on display, there is no synergy. But each facet – one of the funniest literate scripts ever written in the English language and a zany hoot of a production – is so strong on its own merits that the result is a mostly satisfying gigglefest worth the investment.
On top of the change in setting, three of the lovers are cross-gender cast with a straight face, Lady Bracknell and Gwendolen are African-Americans, Rev. Chasuble just walked out of a leather bar’s Village People tribute show and Miss Prism is a glam queen in what may be the highest drag seen on a mainstream stage.
And peeking out from under the non-stop visual hijinks orchestrated by the ingenious Stodard you can still hear, most of the time, Wilde’s brilliant script, perfectly constructed and containing more witticisms per minute than virtually any other comedy in Western literature.
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