As an avid anglophile and a theater enthusiast, the chance to see BareStage’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” was not an opportunity I wanted to turn down.
BareStage, the oldest student-run theater group on the Berkeley campus, puts on a play and a musical each semester, and has an improve group and a show choir. As a student, it is incredibly exciting to go out an see my peers showcase their talents, and it becomes more exciting when some of my friends are involved, as was the case with this show.
“The Importance of Being Earnest” centers around two brothers, Algernon Moncrieff and Jack Worthing, who ply after the woman of their dreams, but both under the name Ernest. This doubling provides for much dramatic irony and laughter for the audience, and the cast delivery of the Oscar Wilde adages was quite superb.
The show took place in the Choral Rehearsal Hall, a small, blackbox-style theater below the Student Learning Center on campus, making it an incredible accessible location for students. The cast and the crew transformed the hall into a gazebo-style set, and worked hard for 6 weeks prior to opening night to make the show fantastic.
Especially this year, as a graduating senior, I am striving to take advantage of all of the phenomenal arts community events that Berkeley and its diversity offers to the student body. Berkeley showcases dozens of theater, music, and dance groups on campus, and oftentimes even just strolling through Sproul Plaza gives students and the community a taste of the vibrant Berkeley arts community. This brilliant performance did not disappoint.
