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Clever Nonsense With a Hook: UT Employee Driving ’em Wilde at Rep |
| By
Cynthia Nowak |
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Apr 9, 2002 |
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| Algernon (Jim Norman, left) and Jack (Brad Allen Smith) in The Importance of Being Earnest |
Forget the first-night jitters, the difficulty of memorizing lengthy lines, the last-minute problems with costumes. For Jim Norman, athletic eligibility coordinator with UT’s Student Success Center and longtime Toledo actor, the most onerous aspect of his latest role has been — cucumber sandwiches and muffins.
“It’s true,” said Norman, who is playing the part of Algernon Moncrieff in Oscar Wilde’s brilliantly frothy social comedy, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” at the Toledo Repertoire Theatre. “Algy was the role I wanted as soon as I heard that the Rep was staging the play. After all, he’s the one who’s the voice of Wilde himself, and he gets many of the very best lines, like ‘Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches?’”
Which brings us back to the subject of those quintessentially English teatime delicacies. “I eat five of them in the first act, and I eat six muffins in the second act,” Norman said with a laugh, admitting that an extended run of the play might result in an extended waistline as well. “I asked if we could have the sandwiches made with light cream cheese. And during the first week’s performance, I had taken one muffin in my hand and took a breath — a stray crumb went straight down my throat. I was worried about what might happen if it went right back out on another line, but luckily it didn’t.”
The dangers of stage comestibles aside, Norman, who has been performing onstage since he was a sophomore in high school, is enjoying the role immensely. “Algernon has no goals in life except to have fun. [Director] Paul Causman and I discussed the character and decided that a very lighthearted approach was the right one. Algy’s playfulness fits right in with the way Wilde pokes fun at society and its rules.”
That’s not to say that the importance of being playful translates into a casual approach to his part — far from it. “Algy and his aunt, Lady Bracknell, have very long lines, which took some mastering,” Norman said, noting that “Wilde’s dialogue may have been harder for our women cast members in general because we’re doing it in period costume, and they have to deal with corsets.
“At first, when I marked all Algy’s lines and saw how many there were and how long some of them were, I wondered how I’d be able to say everything in one breath, or even get my tongue and mouth around the language, which is more elaborate than anything people use today. Then I began to hear the rhythm in Wilde’s dialogue. It’s much like music, really.”
Does Wilde’s social satire, first performed in 1895, still have something to say to the transformed society of 2002? Norman’s experience in both acting and directing, plus the teaching that he’s done with young actors, puts him in a good position to gauge audience reaction. He had no doubts: “Yes, it’s still a great play that audiences enjoy. Nowadays, everything tends to be in your face. Wilde, even though he was ‘out there’ in his day, is subtle. Today’s movies and TV shows don’t use the sort of quiet double entendres that are in ‘Earnest.’ But that said, we opened the play to an audience of all ages, and the younger people were having just as much fun as the older people.
“Society might have changed, but the relationships between men and women haven’t, and the play has a lot of fun with those as well. So it’s a wonderful evening for actors and for the audience,” concluded the performer whose Algernon marked his first Wildean role — “but not the last, I hope!”
“The Importance of Being Earnest” runs through Saturday, April 20. Call the Toledo Rep at 419.243.9277 for ticket information.
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