Wilde’s Importance of Being Earnest
presented by Laredo Little Theatre

By Terence P. and Norma S. Hannigan

Is there any event that celebrates St Patrick's Day here in Laredo?
Being relative newcomers to the border, it was a question that we asked when we first arrived here several years ago. Being of Irish American background, we have always turned out for a parade in the cities where we have lived, or enjoyed traditional Irish music at a concert, or gone to a play by an Irish playwright on or around March 17th. America is painted green this time of year, but one has to look a bit farther here in Laredo in order to be able to celebrate. Some years back we had contact with the Laredo Little Theatre regarding the possibility of presenting a play with an Irish theme or connection. We offered a number of possible dramas that would meet this criterion, and suggested that the Theatre produce a play around St. Patrick's Day. Initially the idea was not accepted, the reason being that many of the titles were obscure and the Theatre was looking for plays that had broader appeal and would draw a larger audience.
Last year in conversations with several Laredo Little Theatre representatives, we hit upon a solution: The Importance of Being Earnest. This play is a comedy that is well known and is the work of Oscar Wilde. It is readily identifiable because of a movie rendition of the play that was in theaters about two years ago starring Judy Dench and Reese Witherspoon, among others. This is the second time the play was made into a movie (Wilde must have been doing something right!). There is also a recent movie production of Oscar Wilde's biography, aptly entitled Wilde, starring Stephen Fry.
Oscar was born in 1856 in Dublin, Ireland into a wealthy family; his father was an eye doctor and surgeon and his mother was also a writer and quite involved with the artistic circles of Dublin and London in the later part of the I 9th century. He was educated at Trinity College in Dublin and at Oxford, in England, where he began his writing career. Wilde was well traveled, visiting Greece, Italy, and even spending several months on a speaking tour in the United States. Although he never got as far as Laredo, he did speak in Colorado, on drama, his writings, and Ireland's struggle with England for Home Rule, the vestiges of which still are an irritant between the Irish people and the British government until this day.
A true measure of Oscar's greatness was that he was a leader and well respected in London although he was an Irishman. In those times, a popular misconception was that the Irish were childlike, excitable, and unable to manage their own affairs, similar to the stereotypes that the English held about Africans and other peoples who populated the colonies (Ireland being one of the colonies).
Indeed, Oscar was wild, certainly by the Victorian standards of his day. His demise came when the father of one of his lovers hauled him into court on several occasions, and he was eventually convicted and subsequently imprisoned for homosexual activity. Upon his release, he went to live in France, where he died in 1900.
As regards the play, Oscar Wilde does in this comedy what he did best in his own life, poking fun at the stuffy upper class of London in such a way that he became well-renowned and respected by the very people who attended his productions while being, at the same time, the butt of his jokes. In listening to the dialogue between two playboys and their attempt to win over two beautiful, young English ladies, the audience is challenged to listen carefully and keep in mind that this is a farce in which Wilde has these characters saying the silliest of things.
The Importance of Being Earnest will be performed here in Laredo on Friday and Saturday, March 14 and 15 at 8 p.m., and on Sunday, March 16, at 3 p.m. Since we are all Irish on St. Patrick's Day, que está en la frontera o en Irlanda, we invite you to join us for this fun production. For more information, please contact the Laredo Little Theatre at 723-1342. ¡Viva Wilde!

(Terence P. and Norma S. Hannigan are co-directors of The Importance of Being Earnest.)