Datasets:
Gargaz
/
Test

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
Community
1
text
stringlengths
8
3.87k
52.802330017089844 130 WikiText2
4250 The Importance of Being Earnest has been revived many times since its premiere . It has been adapted for the cinema on three occasions . In The Importance of Being Earnest ( 1952 ) , Dame Edith Evans reprised her celebrated interpretation of Lady Bracknell ; The Importance of Being Earnest ( 1992 ) by Kurt Baker used an all @-@ black cast ; and Oliver Parker 's The Importance of Being Earnest ( 2002 ) incorporated some of Wilde 's original material cut during the preparation of the original stage production .
41.344566345214844 95 WikiText2
4251 = = Composition = =
572.2939453125 5 WikiText2
4252 After the success of Wilde 's plays Lady Windermere 's Fan and A Woman of No Importance , Wilde 's producers urged him to write further plays . In July 1894 he mooted his idea for The Importance of Being Earnest to George Alexander , the actor @-@ manager of the St James 's Theatre . Wilde spent the summer with his family at Worthing , where he wrote the play quickly in August . His fame now at its peak , he used the working title Lady Lancing to avoid pre @-@ emptive speculation of its content . Many names and ideas in the play were borrowed from people or places the author had known ; Lady Queensberry , Lord Alfred Douglas 's mother , for example , lived at Bracknell . There is widespread agreement among Wilde scholars that the most important influence on the play was W. S. Gilbert 's 1877 farce Engaged ; Wilde borrowed from Gilbert not only several incidents but , in Russell Jackson 's phrase " the gravity of tone demanded by Gilbert of his actors " .
73.7595443725586 189 WikiText2
4253 Wilde continually revised the text over the next months : no line was left untouched , and " in a play so economical with its language and effects , [ the revisions ] had serious consequences " . Sos Eltis describes Wilde 's revisions as a refined art at work : the earliest , longest handwritten drafts of the play labour over farcical incidents , broad puns , nonsense dialogue and conventional comic turns . In revising as he did , " Wilde transformed standard nonsense into the more systemic and disconcerting illogicality which characterises Earnest 's dialogue " . Richard Ellmann argues that Wilde had reached his artistic maturity and wrote this work more surely and rapidly than before .
152.4014129638672 121 WikiText2
4254 Wilde hesitated about submitting the script to Alexander , worrying that it might be unsuitable for the St James 's Theatre , whose typical repertoire was relatively serious , and explaining that it had been written in response to a request for a play " with no real serious interest " . When Henry James 's Guy Domville failed , Alexander turned to Wilde and agreed to put on his play . Alexander began his usual meticulous preparations , interrogating the author on each line and planning stage movements with a toy theatre . In the course of these rehearsals Alexander asked Wilde to shorten the play from four acts to three . Wilde agreed and combined elements of the second and third acts . The largest cut was the removal of the character of Mr. Gribsby , a solicitor who comes from London to arrest the profligate " Ernest " ( i.e. , Jack ) for his unpaid dining bills . Algernon , who is posing as " Ernest " , will be led away to Holloway Jail unless he settles his accounts immediately . Jack finally agrees to pay for Ernest , everyone thinking that it is Algernon 's bill when in fact it is his own . The four @-@ act version was first played on the radio in a BBC production and is still sometimes performed . Peter Raby argues that the three @-@ act structure is more effective , and that the shorter original text is more theatrically resonant than the expanded published edition .
57.88944625854492 265 WikiText2
4255 = = Productions = =
968.430908203125 5 WikiText2
4256 = = = Premiere = = =
326.0238952636719 7 WikiText2
4257 The play was first produced at the St James 's Theatre on Valentine 's Day 1895 . It was freezing cold but Wilde arrived dressed in " florid sobriety " , wearing a green carnation . The audience , according to one report , " included many members of the great and good , former cabinet ministers and privy councillors , as well as actors , writers , academics , and enthusiasts " . Allan Aynesworth , who played Algernon Moncrieff , recalled to Hesketh Pearson that " In my fifty @-@ three years of acting , I never remember a greater triumph than [ that ] first night " . Aynesworth was himself " debonair and stylish " , and Alexander , who played Jack Worthing , " demure " .
68.3421630859375 134 WikiText2
4258 The cast was :
1346.954833984375 4 WikiText2
4259 John Worthing , J.P. — George Alexander
358.4970397949219 7 WikiText2
4260 Algernon Moncrieff — Allan Aynesworth
153.76722717285156 5 WikiText2
4261 Rev. Canon Chasuble , D.D. — H. H. Vincent
156.8297882080078 11 WikiText2
4262 Merriman — Frank Dyall
1160.8326416015625 4 WikiText2
4263 Lane — F. Kinsey Peile
830.53955078125 5 WikiText2
4264 Lady Bracknell — Rose Leclercq
473.7353210449219 5 WikiText2
4265 Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax — Irene Vanbrugh
365.6536865234375 7 WikiText2
4266 Cecily Cardew — Evelyn Millard
831.4826049804688 5 WikiText2
4267 Miss Prism — Mrs. George Canninge
957.2144775390625 6 WikiText2
4268 The Marquess of Queensberry , the father of Wilde 's lover Lord Alfred Douglas ( who was on holiday in Algiers at the time ) , had planned to disrupt the play by throwing a bouquet of rotten vegetables at the playwright when he took his bow at the end of the show . Wilde and Alexander learned of the plan , and the latter cancelled Queensberry 's ticket and arranged for policemen to bar his entrance . Nevertheless , he continued harassing Wilde , who eventually launched a private prosecution against the peer for criminal libel , triggering a series of trials ending in Wilde 's imprisonment for gross indecency . Alexander tried , unsuccessfully , to save the production by removing Wilde 's name from the billing , but the play had to close after only 86 performances .
45.23794937133789 141 WikiText2
4269 The play 's original Broadway production opened at the Empire Theatre on 22 April 1895 , but closed after sixteen performances . Its cast included William Faversham as Algy , Henry Miller as Jack , Viola Allen as Gwendolen , and Ida Vernon as Lady Bracknell . The Australian premiere was in Melbourne on 10 August 1895 , presented by Dion Boucicault , Jr. and Robert Brough , and the play was an immediate success . Wilde 's downfall in England did not affect the popularity of his plays in Australia .
65.66841125488281 92 WikiText2
4270 = = = Critical reception = = =
377.9084167480469 8 WikiText2
4271 In contrast to much theatre of the time , The Importance of Being Earnest 's light plot does not tackle serious social and political issues , something of which contemporary reviewers were wary . Though unsure of Wilde 's seriousness as a dramatist , they recognised the play 's cleverness , humour and popularity with audiences . George Bernard Shaw , for example , reviewed the play in the Saturday Review , arguing that comedy should touch as well as amuse , " I go to the theatre to be moved to laughter . " Later in a letter he said , the play , though " extremely funny " , was Wilde 's " first really heartless [ one ] " . In The World , William Archer wrote that he had enjoyed watching the play but found it to be empty of meaning , " What can a poor critic do with a play which raises no principle , whether of art or morals , creates its own canons and conventions , and is nothing but an absolutely wilful expression of an irrepressibly witty personality ? "
53.466941833496094 189 WikiText2
4272 In The Speaker , A. B. Walkley admired the play and was one of few to see it as the culmination of Wilde 's dramatic career . He denied the term " farce " was derogatory , or even lacking in seriousness , and said " It is of nonsense all compact , and better nonsense , I think , our stage has not seen . " H. G. Wells , in an unsigned review for the Pall Mall Gazette , called Earnest one of the freshest comedies of the year , saying " More humorous dealing with theatrical conventions it would be difficult to imagine . " He also questioned whether people would fully see its message , " ... how Serious People will take this Trivial Comedy intended for their learning remains to be seen . No doubt seriously . " The play was so light @-@ hearted that many reviewers compared it to comic opera rather than drama . W. H. Auden later called it " a pure verbal opera " , and The Times commented , " The story is almost too preposterous to go without music . " Mary McCarthy , in Sights and Spectacles ( 1959 ) , however , and despite thinking the play extremely funny , would call it " a ferocious idyll " ; " depravity is the hero and the only character . "
76.05335998535156 237 WikiText2
4273 The Importance of Being Earnest is Wilde 's most popular work and is continually revived . Max Beerbohm called the play Wilde 's " finest , most undeniably his own " , saying that in his other comedies — Lady Windermere 's Fan , A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband — the plot , following the manner of Victorien Sardou , is unrelated to the theme of the work , while in Earnest the story is " dissolved " into the form of the play .
98.84119415283203 89 WikiText2
4274 = = = Revivals = = =
285.6981506347656 7 WikiText2
4275 Until after Wilde 's death in 1900 his name remained disgraced , and few discussed , let alone performed , his work in Britain . Alexander revived The Importance in a small theatre in Notting Hill , outside the West End , in 1901 ; in the same year he presented the piece on tour , playing Jack Worthing with a cast including the young Lilian Braithwaite as Cecily . The play returned to the West End when Alexander presented a revival at the St James 's in 1902 . Broadway revivals were mounted in 1902 and again in 1910 , each production running for six weeks .
72.06815338134766 108 WikiText2
4276 A collected edition of Wilde 's works , published in 1908 and edited by Robert Ross , helped to restore his reputation as an author . Alexander presented another revival of The Importance at the St James 's in 1909 , when he and Aynesworth reprised their original roles ; the revival ran for 316 performances . Max Beerbohm said that the play was sure to become a classic of the English repertory , and that its humour was as fresh then as when it had been written , adding that the actors had " worn as well as the play " .
64.8368148803711 103 WikiText2
4277 For a 1913 revival at the same theatre the young actors Gerald Ames and A. E. Matthews succeeded the creators as Jack and Algy . John Deverell as Jack and Margaret Scudamore as Lady Bracknell headed the cast in a 1923 production at the Haymarket Theatre . Many revivals in the first decades of the 20th century treated " the present " as the current year . It was not until the 1920s that the case for 1890s costumes was established ; as a critic in The Manchester Guardian put it , " Thirty years on , one begins to feel that Wilde should be done in the costume of his period — that his wit today needs the backing of the atmosphere that gave it life and truth . … Wilde 's glittering and complex verbal felicities go ill with the shingle and the short skirt . "
79.15768432617188 149 WikiText2
4278 In Sir Nigel Playfair 's 1930 production at the Lyric , Hammersmith , John Gielgud played Jack to the Lady Bracknell of his aunt , Mabel Terry @-@ Lewis . Gielgud produced and starred in a production at the Globe ( now the Gielgud ) Theatre in 1939 , in a cast that included Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell , Joyce Carey as Gwendolen , Angela Baddeley as Cecily and Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism . The Times considered the production the best since the original , and praised it for its fidelity to Wilde 's conception , its " airy , responsive ball @-@ playing quality . " Later in the same year Gielgud presented the work again , with Jack Hawkins as Algy , Gwen Ffrangcon @-@ Davies as Gwendolen and Peggy Ashcroft as Cecily , with Evans and Rutherford in their previous roles . The production was presented in several seasons during and after the Second World War , with mostly the same main players . During a 1946 season at the Haymarket the King and Queen attended a performance , which , as the journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft put it , gave the play " a final accolade of respectability . " The production toured North America , and was successfully staged on Broadway in 1947 .
63.81511688232422 226 WikiText2
4279 As Wilde 's work came to be read and performed again , it was The Importance of Being Earnest that received the most productions . By the time of its centenary the journalist Mark Lawson described it as " the second most known and quoted play in English after Hamlet . "
66.21896362304688 52 WikiText2
4280 For Sir Peter Hall 's 1982 production at the National Theatre the cast included Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell , Martin Jarvis as Jack , Nigel Havers as Algy , Zoë Wanamaker as Gwendolen and Anna Massey as Miss Prism . Nicholas Hytner 's 1993 production at the Aldwych Theatre , starring Maggie Smith , had occasional references to the supposed gay subtext .
78.10552978515625 64 WikiText2
4281 In 2005 the Abbey Theatre , Dublin , produced the play with an all @-@ male cast ; it also featured Wilde as a character — the play opens with him drinking in a Parisian café , dreaming of his play . The Melbourne Theatre Company staged a production in December 2011 with Geoffrey Rush as Lady Bracknell .
125.16014862060547 61 WikiText2
4282 In 2011 the Roundabout Theatre Company produced a Broadway revival based on the 2009 Stratford Shakespeare Festival production featuring Brian Bedford as director and as Lady Bracknell . It opened at the American Airlines Theatre on 13 January and ran until 3 July 2011 . The cast also included Dana Ivey as Miss Prism , Paxton Whitehead as Canon Chasuble , Santino Fontana as Algernon , Paul O 'Brien as Lane , Charlotte Parry as Cecily , David Furr as Jack and Sara Topham as Gwendolen . It was nominated for three Tony Awards .
64.53069305419922 95 WikiText2
4283 The play was also presented internationally , in Singapore , in October 2004 , by the British Theatre Playhouse , and the same company brought it to London 's Greenwich Theatre in April 2005 .
47.05033493041992 35 WikiText2
4284 = = Synopsis = =
385.5443115234375 5 WikiText2
4285 The play is set in " The Present " ( i.e. 1895 ) .
91.47145080566406 15 WikiText2
4286 = = = Act I = = =
102.07463836669922 8 WikiText2
4287 Algernon Moncrieff 's flat in Half Moon Street , W
232.31216430664062 10 WikiText2
4288 The play opens with Algernon Moncrieff , an idle young gentleman , receiving his best friend , John Worthing , whom he knows as Ernest . Ernest has come from the country to propose to Algernon 's cousin , Gwendolen Fairfax . Algernon , however , refuses his consent until Ernest explains why his cigarette case bears the inscription , " From little Cecily , with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack . " ' Ernest ' is forced to admit to living a double life . In the country , he assumes a serious attitude for the benefit of his young ward , the heiress Cecily Cardew , and goes by the name of John ( or , as a nickname , Jack ) , while pretending that he must worry about a wastrel younger brother named Ernest in London . In the city , meanwhile , he assumes the identity of the libertine Ernest . Algernon confesses a similar deception : he pretends to have an invalid friend named Bunbury in the country , whom he can " visit " whenever he wishes to avoid an unwelcome social obligation . Jack refuses to tell Algernon the location of his country estate .
46.2639045715332 206 WikiText2
4289 Gwendolen and her formidable mother Lady Bracknell now call on Algernon who distracts Lady Bracknell in another room while Jack proposes to Gwendolen . She accepts , but seems to love him very largely for his professed name of Ernest . Jack accordingly resolves to himself to be rechristened " Ernest " . Discovering them in this intimate exchange , Lady Bracknell interviews Jack as a prospective suitor . Horrified to learn that he was adopted after being discovered as a baby in a handbag at Victoria Station , she refuses him and forbids further contact with her daughter . Gwendolen , though , manages covertly to promise to him her undying love . As Jack gives her his address in the country , Algernon surreptitiously notes it on the cuff of his sleeve : Jack 's revelation of his pretty and wealthy young ward has motivated his friend to meet her .
63.4174919128418 153 WikiText2
4290 = = = Act II = = =
119.89728546142578 8 WikiText2
4291 The Garden of the Manor House , Woolton
1265.98681640625 8 WikiText2
4292 Cecily is studying with her governess , Miss Prism . Algernon arrives , pretending to be Ernest Worthing , and soon charms Cecily . Long fascinated by Uncle Jack 's hitherto absent black sheep brother , she is predisposed to fall for Algernon in his role of Ernest ( a name she , like Gwendolen , is apparently particularly fond of ) . Therefore , Algernon , too , plans for the rector , Dr. Chasuble , to rechristen him " Ernest " .
80.3236083984375 84 WikiText2
4293 Jack , meanwhile , has decided to abandon his double life . He arrives in full mourning and announces his brother 's death in Paris of a severe chill , a story undermined by Algernon 's presence in the guise of Ernest .
90.18326568603516 43 WikiText2
4294 Gwendolen now enters , having run away from home . During the temporary absence of the two men , she meets Cecily , each woman indignantly declaring that she is the one engaged to " Ernest " . When Jack and Algernon reappear , their deceptions are exposed .
101.8902359008789 49 WikiText2
4295 = = = Act III = = =
148.18687438964844 8 WikiText2
4296 Morning @-@ Room at the Manor House , Woolton
869.6507568359375 11 WikiText2
4297 Arriving in pursuit of her daughter , Lady Bracknell is astonished to be told that Algernon and Cecily are engaged . The revelation of Cecily 's trust fund soon dispels Lady Bracknell 's initial doubts over the young lady 's suitability , but any engagement is forbidden by her guardian Jack : he will consent only if Lady Bracknell agrees to his own union with Gwendolen — something she declines to do .
53.96604919433594 73 WikiText2
4298 The impasse is broken by the return of Miss Prism , whom Lady Bracknell recognises as the person who , twenty @-@ eight years earlier , as a family nursemaid , had taken a baby boy for a walk in a perambulator ( baby carriage ) and never returned . Challenged , Miss Prism explains that she had absentmindedly put the manuscript of a novel she was writing in the perambulator , and the baby in a handbag , which she had left at Victoria Station . Jack produces the very same handbag , showing that he is the lost baby , the elder son of Lady Bracknell 's late sister , and thus indeed Algernon 's elder brother . Having acquired such respectable relations , he is acceptable as a suitor for Gwendolen after all .
60.84747314453125 139 WikiText2
4299 Gwendolen , though , still insists that she can only love a man named Ernest . What is her fiancé 's real first name ? Lady Bracknell informs Jack that , as the first @-@ born , he would have been named after his father , General Moncrieff . Jack examines the army lists and discovers that his father 's name — and hence his own real name — was in fact Ernest . Pretence was reality all along . As the happy couples embrace — Jack and Gwendolen , Algernon and Cecily , and even Dr. Chasuble and Miss Prism — Lady Bracknell complains to her newfound relative : " My nephew , you seem to be displaying signs of triviality . " " On the contrary , Aunt Augusta " , he replies , " I 've now realised for the first time in my life the vital importance of being Earnest . "