Shaw on Earnest
Posted by Linden on June 12, 1998 at 01:06:04:
Here are some excerpts from a contemporary review of Earnest by George Bernard Shaw, a critic just then starting his own career as a dramatist.
(Appearing in "The Portable Bernard Shaw" Penguin)
He begins by doubting that Earnest is a recent play:
"The play has a plot - a gross anachronism; there is a scene between the two girls in the second act quite in the literary style of Mr Gilbert, and almost inhuman enough to have been conceived by him; the humor is adulterated by stock mechanical fun to an extent that absolutely scandalizes one in a play with such an author's name to it."
Shaw continues: "I cannot say that I greatly cared for The Importance of Being Earnest. It amused me, of course; but unless comedy touches me as well as amuses me, it leaves me with a sense of having wasted my evening."
- Comedy vs. Farce MB 12:02:43 6/12/98
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