Lady Bracknell - So Important She Has Her Own Time Zone
Dear Cast of The Importance of Being Earnest,
I hope you're proud of yourselves.
I really do, because I TOTALLY AM! It's like you've solved the mystery of the pyramids! Only not, since this is only a 120-year-old play, and those have been around for millennia. But you did DISCOVER a mystery that no one else seems to have noticed in over a century! Although I guess it's not really that mysterious. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME AND YOU BROKE MY BRAIN.
(But I'm fine now.)
So the first question I got from y'all was about that weird little timeline issue in the first act where Lady Bracknell gets all up in Jack's bid'ness (does anybody still say that anymore? No? OK then) and then storms out with a frosty 'Good morning!' even though it's actually somewhere between 5:30 and 'nearly seven' in the evening. I was pretty excited - these nit-picky little research questions are MY bread and butter (bless you, Gwendolyn). I started combing the Internet. Earnest has been around 122 years, with productions running somewhere in the world nearly all of those years, so it seemed reasonable that a play that popular would have been picked completely to pieces and those sorts of pieces do seem to end up (with considerable regularity) on the Web. "Just why does Lady B, say 'Good morning!', scholars and theatre aficionados? Is it a misplaced scene? Some bit of really obscure, deeply clever wordplay? Oscar Wilde setting up a well-buried joke? WHAT?"
Yeah, so it turns out apparently NO ONE has ever asked this question before. It never came up in any article, review, phrase search, or literary analysis I could find. Then things got a little weird: I started asking people. Playwrights, university theatre professors, scholarly forums - I even started checking in with actors I knew had done the play before. And... zilch. (One actor friend had done the play twice, and he reported that neither cast had even acknowledged, let alone discussed, the timeline glitch.) A retired professor suggested that Oscar Wilde was just messing with all of us, and... that seemed like as good a reason as any.
Then today, in a last-ditch effort, I cold-emailed Robert Nelson, Head of Theatre Studies up at the U. In a hugely surprising turn of events, Bob messaged me back within a couple of hours, and not only was he delighted to be asked (we're so nerdy) he also had some quite reasonable suggestions (he'd never thought about it before either). He said:
My best guess is that it’s Lady Bracknell who’s messing with everybody. Wilde and his characters have clearly established the time of day, and continue the act consistently in that regard. Lady Bracknell's departing with a “Good morning” may suggest that she hasn’t been up long. Or perhaps it indicates that it is solely and unilaterally she who, God-like, determines all truth, including the particular time of day. Jack’s similar response confirms that it is Aunt Augusta who runs the universe. (“Pick your battles,” right? Risk a battle with her only in the most important matter, not some triviality like this.) Jack might indicate in some brief, unobtrusive way that he knows she’s wrong; or he might simply respond automatically, with no such indication, since it’s become his habit since forever.
Historical context: During what was known as 'the Season', or a few months each year (roughly February - June) when Parliament was in session in London, the aristocratic class would all gather to throw parties and balls, try to marry off their children for money, land, and influence, and occasionally make some laws. It was very normal for people to stay up dancing and/or gambling until 4 or 5 in the morning, and then sleep until noon or later. 'Morning calls', when friends could visit and spread gossip, and men could go spend a little time with a girl they might be interested in courting (and her mother, and aunt, and most of her friends) would normally happen somewhere after 2:00 p.m. If Lady Bracknell and Gwendolyn had been at some event (or several; one would accept as many invitations as possible for a single evening) until very late the night before and hadn't arisen until 1 or 2 (also normal) it is a valid option that 5:00 teatime would be their first meal of the day and could feel very much like 'morning'.
Of course, it could be even more in character to assume that Aunt Augusta, in a Shakespearean and Petruchio-like manner, would expect any pronouncement made (no matter how ridiculous) to be answered in the affirmative, and that 'Good morning!' was one last test as part of Jack's interrogation.
So, there's no definitive answer to the 'Lady Bracknell timeline' question, but Bob Nelson's suggestions make the most sense to me. It's entirely possible that no one in the audience will notice; but it also seems that once a question arises people start to instinctively pick up on it. There could be a whole new flood of interest in Oscar Wilde and his works, and it's all because Y'ALL THOUGHT TO ASK THE QUESTION. KUDOS TO YOU.
Hey, why not?
Cheers,
Charisse
I hope you're proud of yourselves.
I really do, because I TOTALLY AM! It's like you've solved the mystery of the pyramids! Only not, since this is only a 120-year-old play, and those have been around for millennia. But you did DISCOVER a mystery that no one else seems to have noticed in over a century! Although I guess it's not really that mysterious. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME AND YOU BROKE MY BRAIN.
(But I'm fine now.)
So the first question I got from y'all was about that weird little timeline issue in the first act where Lady Bracknell gets all up in Jack's bid'ness (does anybody still say that anymore? No? OK then) and then storms out with a frosty 'Good morning!' even though it's actually somewhere between 5:30 and 'nearly seven' in the evening. I was pretty excited - these nit-picky little research questions are MY bread and butter (bless you, Gwendolyn). I started combing the Internet. Earnest has been around 122 years, with productions running somewhere in the world nearly all of those years, so it seemed reasonable that a play that popular would have been picked completely to pieces and those sorts of pieces do seem to end up (with considerable regularity) on the Web. "Just why does Lady B, say 'Good morning!', scholars and theatre aficionados? Is it a misplaced scene? Some bit of really obscure, deeply clever wordplay? Oscar Wilde setting up a well-buried joke? WHAT?"
Yeah, so it turns out apparently NO ONE has ever asked this question before. It never came up in any article, review, phrase search, or literary analysis I could find. Then things got a little weird: I started asking people. Playwrights, university theatre professors, scholarly forums - I even started checking in with actors I knew had done the play before. And... zilch. (One actor friend had done the play twice, and he reported that neither cast had even acknowledged, let alone discussed, the timeline glitch.) A retired professor suggested that Oscar Wilde was just messing with all of us, and... that seemed like as good a reason as any.
Then today, in a last-ditch effort, I cold-emailed Robert Nelson, Head of Theatre Studies up at the U. In a hugely surprising turn of events, Bob messaged me back within a couple of hours, and not only was he delighted to be asked (we're so nerdy) he also had some quite reasonable suggestions (he'd never thought about it before either). He said:
My best guess is that it’s Lady Bracknell who’s messing with everybody. Wilde and his characters have clearly established the time of day, and continue the act consistently in that regard. Lady Bracknell's departing with a “Good morning” may suggest that she hasn’t been up long. Or perhaps it indicates that it is solely and unilaterally she who, God-like, determines all truth, including the particular time of day. Jack’s similar response confirms that it is Aunt Augusta who runs the universe. (“Pick your battles,” right? Risk a battle with her only in the most important matter, not some triviality like this.) Jack might indicate in some brief, unobtrusive way that he knows she’s wrong; or he might simply respond automatically, with no such indication, since it’s become his habit since forever.
Historical context: During what was known as 'the Season', or a few months each year (roughly February - June) when Parliament was in session in London, the aristocratic class would all gather to throw parties and balls, try to marry off their children for money, land, and influence, and occasionally make some laws. It was very normal for people to stay up dancing and/or gambling until 4 or 5 in the morning, and then sleep until noon or later. 'Morning calls', when friends could visit and spread gossip, and men could go spend a little time with a girl they might be interested in courting (and her mother, and aunt, and most of her friends) would normally happen somewhere after 2:00 p.m. If Lady Bracknell and Gwendolyn had been at some event (or several; one would accept as many invitations as possible for a single evening) until very late the night before and hadn't arisen until 1 or 2 (also normal) it is a valid option that 5:00 teatime would be their first meal of the day and could feel very much like 'morning'.
Of course, it could be even more in character to assume that Aunt Augusta, in a Shakespearean and Petruchio-like manner, would expect any pronouncement made (no matter how ridiculous) to be answered in the affirmative, and that 'Good morning!' was one last test as part of Jack's interrogation.
So, there's no definitive answer to the 'Lady Bracknell timeline' question, but Bob Nelson's suggestions make the most sense to me. It's entirely possible that no one in the audience will notice; but it also seems that once a question arises people start to instinctively pick up on it. There could be a whole new flood of interest in Oscar Wilde and his works, and it's all because Y'ALL THOUGHT TO ASK THE QUESTION. KUDOS TO YOU.
Hey, why not?
Cheers,
Charisse
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