Style over substance

Adam Gardiner, Lisa Chappell and Elizabeth Hawthorne. Photo / Supplied

Three years ago, Ash Jones sat in the audience as an Auckland Theatre Company ambassador - a select group of young people who see shows for free, participate in workshops and discussion forums and promote the plays among their peers.

Now the former Maclean's College student has a lead role in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, his biggest role to date and the first time he has performed with ATC.

Jones, 20, plays the raffish Algernon Moncrieff alongside a skilled cast that includes Elizabeth Hawthorne as Lady Bracknell, Lisa Chappell as Gwendolen Fairfax and Adam Gardiner as Jack Worthing.

As one would expect, the young Jones describes it as a privilege to work with such an experienced cast and director Colin McColl, which prompts a dramatic snort of mock derision from actor Cameron Rhodes.

Fresh from directing contemporary comedy I Heart Camping, Rhodes plays the Rev Canon Chasuble D.D, but 20 years ago he played Algernon at Wellington's Downstage.

"Colin was directing. He was so tough on me that I ended up locking myself in the toilet. Robyn Malcolm [now famous as TV's Cheryl West] had to come and get me out."

No, says Jones, nothing similar has happened to him and it's all been a valuable and important theatre education, particularly discussing Wilde's satire and the social mores and morality of his day.

Not that McColl is setting the story in London in 1895, when Earnest premiered at the St James Theatre.

"Instead he has drawn on a diverse range of sources, from Lady Gaga to the Beatles, to create a contemporary world where the aristocracy behave badly.

The story and Wilde's script - punctuated with puns, witticisms and cutting comments - remains the same. Jack Worthing wants to marry Gwendolen Fairfax, daughter of the redoubtable Lady Bracknell and cousin of his feckless friend Algernon.

But marriage is out of the question until Lady Bracknell determines Worthing comes from the "right stock". Considering he was found as a baby in a handbag at Victoria Station, his prospects are not looking hopeful.

Worthing's battle for Gwendolen's hand is further complicated by Algernon's growing attraction to his pretty young ward Cecily (Laurel Devenie) and by the fact that secrets and lies have a powerful hold over both men.

Wilde may have scoffed at a society he believed prized the superficial over the profound, but McColl firmly believes it is a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Aristocrats and the moneyed classes behave just as outrageously as ever, he says. You only have to pick up weekly gossip magazines, flick on TV or, more likely, switch on your computer to see the evidence.

"We're talking about the type of people who really don't have to worry about morality or money - just look at young royals like Prince Harry falling drunk out of nightclubs or Lord Freddie Windsor, and then there's Paris."

Yet McColl sees a childlike sense of naivety and entitlement among the characters so he's emphasising these traits by, for example, having them eat only nursery food.

Elements of the characters alluded to by Wilde are also explored. For instance, the idea that Lady Bracknell is a "born again aristocrat" who has clawed her way into the upper classes and intends to stay there at all costs.

"Oh yes, that's true," says Hawthorne, who makes her 83rd stage appearance in this production, but her first work in a play by Oscar Wilde. "Her daughter is her greatest trump card, her entire career, and how she 'pitches her up' and sets up the next round, if you like, is her greatest concern."

Chappell describes Gwendolen as a "little rebel.

She's got the single-mindedness of her mother and the privilege of her father. It's a dangerous combination and while she thinks mummy and daddy might get a bit hissy with her wanting to marry Ernest, she never for one moment thinks she can't and won't."

It was important that Algernon be an innocent whose fast talk is pure front. McColl auditioned dozens of actors but experienced problems finding a young man who could master Wilde's turn of phrase yet be unworldly and sophisticated.

Lynne Cardy, who manages ATC's education unit, suggested Ash Jones for the role. Cardy tutored Jones in drama and had seen his performances with Massive Company and in the comedy Green Room.

Jones completed a diploma in multimedia, intending to work as a designer even though acting was his preference. "But I decided sitting in front of a computer wasn't for me."

If he's nervous, he knows he is not alone. Hawthorne admits she still experiences confidence crises. "I leave after the first day thinking, 'Why did you say yes to something you can't do? My ego has got the better of me yet again and I'll never get the hang of this', but eventually I do. I love working with Colin because he sees all these things in a script I would never consider."

Performance

What: The Importance of Being Earnest

Where and when: Maidment Theatre, March 11-April 3