The Importance of Being Earnest at the Abbey Theatre
In July and August 2005, I spent two weeks in Ireland. Most of it was with a tour group via a public radio station, before I stayed at a Dublin hostel for three days.
Oddly, the Abbey doesn’t allow patrons into the auditorium until a quarter till eight (and the performance is scheduled for 8 pm). So I wandered around inside the building. You can look at paintings as you ascend the stairs to the balcony and bar, and the room upstairs has many paintings all around. Some are by John Yeats (W. B.’s dad), such as the portrait of Lady Gregory. (At the National Gallery today, I saw similar portraits, because I went to the Yeats gallery.)
I eventually sat down and continued reading the Dublin book Liz lent me, until it was just about time and I went downstairs, bought a program from a cute boy, and sat down: three rows back, dead centre. If I had been in the front row, I would have been at knee level, but I liked where I was, because I got a good look at detail. Costumes, costumes, costumes!
Scenery: a French café at the turn of the century, when Oscar Wilde has left prison and is living in poverty and experiencing writer’s block. It is a colorful, whimsical, Art Nouveau café, with floral stained glass windows in curving shapes, a stained glass double door with the naked male figure that’s also on the posters…