Friday, August 10, 2018

9 Days: Play Review: An Ideal Husband

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde. At the Playhouse. Melbourne Theatre Company until 25 August

As a Melbourne Theatre Company Subscriber for many years, I have the knowledge of what  a normal season will hold. Of the eleven plays to which I subscribe there will be:

  • Two which are brilliant
  • A couple which are really enjoyable
  • One or two on which Jay (theatre buddy) and I will disagree on
  • A couple which you will wonder why they were chosen for the season but you'll find some redeeming features.
And one which you will walk out on at the interval.

Unfortunately, for this revival of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, we decided to walk out at interval.

We spent most of the first act poking each other awake, both of us missing major plot points because we slept through them.

I will admit, I woke at 4 am - no idea why and I was a bit on the tired side. Jay wasn't.

Walking into the Playhouse auditorium, it was stiflingly hot - I'm not sure this helped things either.

The sets are gorgeous. Fine. The cast who included William McInnes, Gina Riley and the phenomenal Christy Whelan Brown looked great on paper, but on the whole, it felt dated and a bit jaded. 

It would help if I wasn't asleep through the important bits.

At the end of the act Jay and I turned to each other.

"I really wanted to love this."
"Me too."
"The Chinese girl is annoying."
"She's supposed to be."
"They're being a bit PC."
"I'm okay with that. You get that. Her inclusion is fine."
"I have to be at the airport at 7 am tomorrow."
"I have a busy weekend."
"Home?"
"Yep."
"Bugger."
"Bugger."

It could be that it was too hot in the theatre. It could be that I'm overtired. This production - well what I saw of it, was a bit stilted and jaded - which is a pity, because there is a lot of relevant themes in this play - but they all fell flat.

On the good side of things, I'll be getting an extra hour of sleep.




Today's Song:


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