The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

Enjoy

Related Photos

  • Globe/T. Rob Brown Tom Steere, as Algernon Moncrief, rests at a steam-powered piano Wednesday during a rehearsal for "The Importance of Being Earnest." Crew rescued an old piano and equipped it with steampunk-themed elements for use on the set. Globe/T. Rob Brown

    Earnest

Discussion

June 11, 2010

Victorian play given modern look

By Joe Hadsall Globe Features Editor

CARTHAGE, Mo. — A well-known play will be mixed with a not-so-well known genre of science fiction.

In its production of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Stone’s Throw Dinner Theatre will present the play in a steampunk-style era.

“In three short words, it’s Victorian science fiction,” said producer Bill Welsh. “In this case, it’s not meant to indicate a culture, but a time period and aesthetic.”

The Victorian era is significant, Welsh said, because it saw the development of many key aspects of the modern world, including manufacturing, office life and mass transit. Steampunk takes that trend further, and imagines that style of early technology in a more advanced era -- picture steam-powered computers and antique re-creations of common devices.

The genre mixes quite easily with Wilde’s play, which satires some of the Victorian age’s foibles. Welsh said Wilde’s words will be presented as is during the play, and that the steampunk elements are being used for set design.

Welsh said the style is the vision of director Becki Gooch, who is also the casting director for the Raycliff Manor haunted house. Part of the set design includes a piano that has been outfitted with smoke generators to create a steam-powered instrument.

“I was a little skeptical in the beginning, to be honest,” Welsh said. “But it’s going very well É Several of our actors are good with comedy. When coupled with the extreme costuming, it makes them even more amusing.”

“Earnest” is Wilde’s final, and perhaps his most well-known, play. Although its original run was cut short because of the controversies in Wilde’s life, it has been shown worldwide and adapted into movies, most recently in 2002 starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Dame Judi Dench and Reese Witherspoon.

The steampunk style is an attempt to bridge generational gaps between younger people unfamiliar with Wilde’s work and older patrons who can enjoy a more modern styling of a traditional play, Welsh said.

Loaded with satire and witticisms, the play features the best of Wilde’s writing. Welsh said the cast has had a lot of fun rehearsing the play’s Victorian dialogue.

"We just completed (Shakespeare’s) ‘Othello,’ and what a difference 300 years makes,” Welsh said. “Though it’s posed some challenges, the actors are having fun with the dialogue.”

The main characters create double lives for themselves, so that they can escape assorted social obligations. The cast includes John Peck and Tom Steere, who portray the play’s two leading men, John Worthing and Algernon Moncrief. Betsy Berueda and Lucretia Baker play Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew, the two men’s love interests.

The story revolves around Worthing, who is known to Algernon as Ernest, Welsh said. When Algernon discovers Jack’s deception, he reveals he has a similar one of his own.

Other cast members include Shanti Navarre, Kitty Dixon, Korey Hand, Cheyla Navarre, Whitney Dodson, Tom Brown and Jim Day.



Want to go?

Stone’s Throw Dinner Theatre will present “The Importance of Being Earnest” beginning next week.

The play will be shown June 17-19 and 25-27. Doors open at 6 p.m., dinner begins at 6:30 and showtime is 7:30. For the Sunday matinee on June 27, doors open at 12:30 p.m., dinner starts at 1 and the show starts at 2.

Tickets are $22, $19 for seniors, students and youth, $10 for children ages 6 to 12.

Details: 417-358-9665.

Text Only
Enjoy
  • 052512_amp-5fdp2.jpg Fayetteville venue brings more big-name concerts to area

    Staff members at the Arkansas Music Pavilion are under no illusion. They know that those three and all the other thousands of people turned out to see the band that would take the stage, not the venue itself. (Carlton said she would go to hell to see the right band.)

    May 25, 2012 1 Photo

  • psrobber2.jpg Broadway, bluegrass fused in ‘Bridegroom’

    Ann Lile loves bluegrass music and fun stories. She plans to turn back the clock at the Joplin Little Theatre to 18th-century Mississippi and fill the air with live bluegrass music and a tale of theives and lovers with her direction of “The Robber Bridegroom.”

    May 25, 2012 1 Photo

  • jeremycamp.jpg Second Restore Fest to feature Jeremy Camp, Mandisa

    Jeff Roman, partner relations director at Convoy of Hope, worked with Cox to return Christian recording artists to the stage in the second Restore Fest, which will take place Saturday in Landreth Park.

    May 25, 2012 1 Photo

  • Joe Hadsall Joe Hadsall: Sherlock Holmes enjoying a renaissance

    I was in the first grade when I read my first “Sherlock Holmes” book. It was a young readers edition of “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Each left-hand page had 14- or 16-point text set in New Century Schoolbook; each right-hand page had a line illustration. One of those was a big, scary-looking dog.

    May 25, 2012 1 Photo

  • images_sizedimage_094173528 'Battleship' shows need for list of summer movie warnings

    I like to think that writing these columns does more than just allow me a chance to offer up senseless opinions that are easy to skip over when trying to find the next show time for the latest “Madagascar.”

    May 25, 2012 1 Photo

  • Jermiah-Tucker-020812.jpg Jeremiah Tucker: New charting methods help alternative music

    Now the Hot 100 is using digital data such as iTunes downloads and plays on streaming sites such as Spotify, in addition to radio play, to determine a song’s ranking. This is likely a big reason why a song like “Somebody That I Used to Know,” which has benefited from high-profile exposure on TV, can be the No. 1 song in the country.

    May 25, 2012 1 Photo

  • Lee-Duran-033010.jpg Lee Duran: Aspiring authors must ‘be tough or be gone’

    According to Chila Woychick, most readers will close a book and walk away at page 18. Could anything be more depressing?

    May 25, 2012 1 Photo

  • images_sizedimage_033103148 Dave Woods: Branson attractions welcome Memorial Day visitors

    People ask me the same question time and time again: How are folks in Branson?

    May 25, 2012 1 Photo

  • Dave Woods: Branson attractions welcome Memorial Day visitors

    On Feb. 29, an EF-1 storm bounced its way through the Midwest’s Music City. It ripped roofs off of theaters and motels, damaged dozens of glitzy showbiz signs, collapsed the walls of retail outlets and dampened the spirits of a community ready to kick off the spring travel season.

    May 25, 2012

  • Lee-Duran-033010.jpg Lee Duran: Self-publishing brings success to twenty-something

    I doubt there’s any to top that of Amanda Hocking. Considering that she’s only in her mid-20s, she’s come a long way from the days of rejection by agents and publishing houses and go-nowhere jobs.

    May 18, 2012 1 Photo