The writing is earnest, with hints of pulp: Grinstead, who was thirty years old, white, and a former Miss Georgia contestant, is described as a "former beauty queen" and a "gorgeous brunette with a striking smile".
Theater productions include Ms. Blanchett, left, in Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" with the Sydney Theater Company, from Australia, and Oscar Wilde's "Importance of Being Earnest" with Theater Royal Bath, directed by Sir Peter Hall and featuring Lynn Redgrave.
Another highlight in the festival's season, which runs through Nov. 1, is "The Importance of Being Earnest," with Brian Bedford as Lady Bracknell, a role that in many productions is awarded to a brave and funny male actor.
Opening tonight at the NY Phil Biennial is Gerald Barry's helter-skelter adaptation of "The Importance of Being Earnest," with the visionary young conductor Ilan Volkov on the podium.
That last West End show was an incoming Chichester festival revival in 1999 of The Importance of Being Earnest, with Patricia Routledge in full, untouchable sail – and imperial purple – as Lady Bracknell.
SINGAPORE — Presenting Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" with an all-male cast dressed as men has raised a few eyebrows in conservative Singapore, leading the media regulator to request the company to prominently display an age advisory of "16 years and above" on all its publicity material, with the notice, "Re-interpretation, all-male cast".
"Garp felt most people confused being profound with being sober, being earnest with being deep," Irving writes.
The Broadhursts have no idea what to do with her, and there are earnest conferences with her sisters (now working in art galleries or married to accountants) over possible careers.
Indeed, Fox claims that there is an unspoken English rule that she calls "the importance of not being earnest", along with a peculiarly English injunction to say, "Oh, come off it!" to those who don't understand the national importance of self-deprecation and understatement.
