The Importance of Being Earnest

We’ve been missing a lot of concerts and theater shows in Manila that when I told Manuel about Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is being shown at the Youth World Theatre, he agreed instantly. Would you believe the last show he watched was Rama at Sita in our college days in the university? That one starred Ariel Rivera and Lani Misalucha who was still a novice then.

So last night on a Thursday, together with Rina and Ria, we trooped to the Youth World Theatre. We all came from work and tried to squeeze in some dinner before the 6:30 PM show because we were told that the whole play would be for 2.5 hours! Whoa!

Ria arrived early and got our tickets so it was a breeze finding our seats. However, they said we reserved the tickets for Friday’s show and not Thursday’s! Good thing that the theatre didn’t fill up so they just changed our seating arrangement.

The Youth World Theatre is fairly small and can probably seat 150 to 200 people comfortably. It doesn’t matter where you seat because you can see the stage from any vantage point UNLESS some huge person sits right in front of you. Now, if you’re short like me, best to get aisle seats so it wouldn’t matter if some giant blocks your front view!

Anyway, at 6:30 PM, on the dot, the show began and we were treated to a full 2.5 hours of roarin’ good fun! How good was it? It was so good that the four of us couldn’t stop talking about it all the way home!

If you haven’t read any Oscar Wilde, it doesn’t matter. You’ll surely enjoy this one!

John/Jack/Earnest Worthing (Philippe Kechichian) and Algernon Moncrieff (Aaron Toronto)

We loved all the cast and but we were especially taken by Nguyen Lan Phuong’s portrayal of the heroine, Gwendolen Fairfax. She reminded me of a thinner version of Charice Pempengco. 😀 Lady Bracknell played her part so wonderfully and she was just some lady straight from the classics!

Gwendolen Fairfax (Nguyen Lan Phuong) and Lady Bracknell (Belinda Shorland)

She and Philippe did a terrific job and they really looked good together on stage.

According to Ria, the next pair are a real couple in real life and they really did the “absolute personification of perfection”! 😀 Oh and Aaron (below) reminded me so much of a fair-headed version of Johnny Depp — in Depp’s portrayal of Captain Black Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Cecily Cardew (Nguyen Ha Tu Trinh) and Algernon Moncrieff (Aaron Toronto)

Here’s one of our favorite scenes when the men whipped out a guitar and serenaded the girls to the tune of Jason Mraz’ I’m Yours. Will post the short video once uploaded! Too bad I wasn’t able to catch it from the very start because I couldn’t find the video dial on the camera in the dark theatre!All’s well that ends well.