{"id":35502,"date":"2013-03-01T16:35:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T08:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/?p=35502"},"modified":"2021-06-03T16:37:36","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T08:37:36","slug":"being-earnest-in-singapore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/being-earnest-in-singapore\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Earnest in Singapore"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In just over a month\u2019s time, our production of The Importance Of Being Earnest <\/em>is due to go live. How \u2013 you might ask \u2013 is the play still relevant now, almost 120 years after it premiered in London in 1895? Can Singaporeans today find themselves in this very Victorian comedy of class and courtship? Our artistic director and star Ivan Heng has a few thoughts to share about how we\u2019re all Earnest in our own ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much in Earnest<\/em> that we\u2019ll recognise today,\u201d says Ivan, who will be reprising his role as the caustic Lady Bracknell from the 2009 production. For one thing, it\u2019s a \u201cgenuinely funny comedy about love, marriage and the importance of being true to oneself. Everyone can relate to those themes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there\u2019s a great deal more in Earnest<\/em> that resonates even now. \u201cIt would be easy to dismiss it as shallow,\u201d Ivan agrees. \u201cBut dig deeper and you\u2019ll find that Wilde was writing about the conservatism, superficiality and prejudice of the moralistic Victorian society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, in order to find happiness for themselves, two of Wilde\u2019s main characters in the play \u2013 Jack and Algernon \u2013 had to assume alter egos to escape the very \u2018earnest\u2019 hell of a society obsessed with appearance and propriety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard not to see a little of Victorian-era England in Singapore. \u201cJokes aside, we are a rather \u2018earnest\u2019 society ourselves,\u201d Ivan observes. \u201cWe take everything so seriously \u2013 we\u2019re dutiful, sober, solemn, self-righteous, complacent and\u2026 well, just plain dull! So I can\u2019t help thinking that Oscar Wilde wrote this play for Singapore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"earnest\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Maybe that\u2019s one of the reasons Singaporeans can\u2019t seem to find much to laugh about. According to a Gallup poll released in December 2012, Singapore resides unhappily at the top of the world\u2019s Unhappiness Index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI believe Singapore could be a far happier place to live in if we all could be a little less judgmental,\u201d Ivan points out. \u201cTo borrow from Mr. Wilde, we could be happier indeed if we treated all the trivial things in life (like having high tea with your friends) seriously, and all the serious things in life (like watching property prices plunge) with sincere and studied triviality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Way back in 1895, Wilde wrote his \u201cdelicate bubble of fancy\u201d to get his contemporaries to loosen up a bit, to see themselves onstage and laugh about it. \u201cI think that\u2019s part of the fun of Earnest<\/em>,\u201d Ivan says, \u201cIt allows us to laugh not just at the characters, but at ourselves \u2013 we watch what happens with a sense of recognition and knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In just over a month\u2019s time, our production of The Importance Of Being Earnest is due to go live. How \u2013 you might ask \u2013 is the play still relevant now, almost 120 years after it premiered in London in 1895? Can Singaporeans today find themselves in this very Victorian comedy of class and courtship? Our artistic …<\/p>\n

Being Earnest in Singapore<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":35503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[141],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/www.wildrice.com.sg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}