Not Earnest, The Other One

We got a nice twopher this week. Last night in SFO, we saw ACT’s fine production of Tom Stoppard’s Travesties. But that is only a onepher. Recall that Travesties is a riff on Oscar Wild’s Importance of Being Earnest. The twopher is that last week at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, we saw Earnest.

I don’t know, somebody must have done this before, although I wasn’t informed. But these plays just cry out to be played as we saw them, back to back. Stoppard is dense with allusion anyway, and when he builds a whole play on just one such, then you know you’ve got to do your homework or you’ll wind up like poor Henry Carr, who never gets anything right.

Yes, but maybe no. Another wonderful thing about Stoppard is that he is like one of those children’s books (Gulliver’s Travels, say) where children can enjoy it on one level and adults on another at the same time. Or like The Simpsons: with The Simpsons, I always know I am missing at least half the allusions (especially the music) but there is enough there to keep me happy anyway.

Stopppard works that way but trust me, what is funny unencumbered is even funnier with the overlay of the one playwright in the last hundred years who might be even funnier than he (I exclude Shaw who is admirable but too tendentious). On its own, it is a great parlor trick: in context, it is like juggling 24 plates with a fiery sword.

I see that Travesties runs until October 14, and Earnest, through the end of October. Yes, I know it is a bit over the top to plan for this sort of thing, but some lucky viewers, by luck or by planning, will still wind up seeing them both. I envy them; they’ve got something to look forward to.