Ridiculusmus have been here before; in the 2004 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, they performed their wonderfully weird piece, Ideas Men, in which the actors swapped parts and genders and wore their clothes backwards. This seems to be something of a trademark, because in their production of Oscar Wilde’s classic, they also do all those things. They have to, because they play all the parts. That is at least part of the point of the show, although Jon Haynes (the other half of the duo being David Woods) says they’ve always done multiple-role pieces, mainly out of “economic necessity, not out of a desire to show off”. Well, maybe. Here, an important source of the comedy is not just Wilde’s sublime but almost too-well-known script, but also the mechanics of keeping the characters on stage. In the end, it’s as though they’ve nearly given up – the effort of switching costumes and personae reduces them to holding dresses in front of their torsos, or sitting around in their underwear. In the interim, they resort to hand puppets and a talking butler’s head on a platter. The division of the characters has Haynes as Algernon, his sedulously neat cousin, Gwendolen, and Miss Prism, governess with a past. Woods is Jack Worthing, Lane, Algernon’s manservant, Chasuble the vicar and, quite wonderfully, the smouldering, adolescent Cecily, Worthing’s ward. They take turns as the formidable Lady Bracknell.

Ridiculusmus’ The Importance of Being Earnest is as funny and stylish as Oscar could have wanted, while giving audiences another way of experiencing it. There are some slightly out-of-era props; a CD player, and a tapestry-covered fridge (for the cucumber sarnies). There’s a hilarious melange of musical and dance styles. The costumes become characters in their own right; Zoe Atkinson’s design is marvellous. If there is a star among the millinery, it has to be Lady Bracknell’s daunting, poultry-crowned number. Jude Kelly has directed wittily and subtly, and Woods and Haynes are excellent. Some will prefer them in pieces of their own devising, but this is an intelligent and funny entertainment.

Comedy Festival Review

Ridiculusmus (Jon Haynes and David Woods) began in 1992 with a series of comic theatrical adaptations, and from 1996 produced solely devised work. With this two-man production of Oscar Wilde’s classic play they return to adaptation and what the program describes, completely accurately, as a virtuoso display of multi-role-playing.
This time they have a script that defies mucking around with, and even a director. Sure enough, we are rewarded with an accurate rendition of the famous Wildean lines that express both a sense of the ridiculous, and a cynicism contradicted by the sheer enjoyment the characters seem to have in uttering them.

To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, might be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Lines like these require utter clarity of diction and a relatively slow pace of delivery, both of which are expertly achieved by Haynes and Woods. There are many things to amuse in their version of the play, but they do not travesty its comic perfection. So we have all the enjoyment offered by Wilde, as well as the crazy hilarity induced by two men playing all the roles.

Costume changes, which begin with a show of dignity and gravitas, gradually become more frantic and ingenious as the later scenes become more complicated. Set designer Zoe Atkinson devised a mid-Victorian clutter of chintz and faux-tapestry that cleverly belies the characters’ pretensions to good taste. The music, ranging from the Wagnerian pomposity that accompanies Lady Bracknell’s entrances, to the Teddy Bears’ Picnic that signals the two young women’s false friendship, adds another satirical layer.

The pair of actors also slyly embellish the plays erotic sub-text with all manner of comic double entendre.

What is remarkable is that there is a coherent, original reading of Wilde’s comic masterpiece that remains intact despite the hilarious add-ons provided by Haynes and Wood, who will please both their traditional fans and serious theatre-goers with this show.

The English theatre company Ridiculusmus’ twisting of The Importance of Being Earnest’s lesser known subtitle from ‘A Trivial Comedy for Serious People’ to ‘A Trivial Comedy Performed by Two Serious People’, is Wildean wordplay at its best and the method behind duo David Woods’ and Jon Haynes’ riotious madness. Performing nine roles between them, the two-handers are far from poker-faced, with tongue firmly in cheek, hair-piece askew and petticoats dishabille. Part comedy sketch, part puppet show and part physical theatre, Ridiculusmus concoct an uproarious mess of nonsense.

Now in its 111th year The Importance of Earnest is set in Victorian England, when Australia is seen not in this world or the next. A comedy of manners and comic misunderstandings, Jack Worthing (David Woods) and friend Algernon Moncrieff (Jon Haynes) assume identities both posing as Jack’s ficitious brother Ernest in order to woo their respective beloveds, Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew. Marking the first time Haynes and Wood have performed someone else’s work and their first time after thirteen years with a director, Jude Kelly – Wilde’s ricochet of aphorisms are a gift for Ridiculusmus’ brand of unsettling and highly energised theatre.

Self-confessed rule breakers, Wood and Haynes have indulged flights of fancy ripe for Little Britain, Tommy Cooper, Morecambe and Wise and Wilde enthusiasts alike. Zoe Atkinson’s pattern-profuse set design of a bazaar of Persian carpets and a clash of Victorian floral wallpaper prepares the audience for the on-stage mayhem of hasty costume and scene changes. A character may be a wig, a butler may pop up from nowhere and a ‘Bunburyist’ is the Smiths’ This Charming Man fan.

Further soundtrack blasts of Wagner’s ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ and Patrick Swayze’s ‘She Like The Wind’ from a seen modern cd-player epitomise this stripped down version of the play. Lady Bracknell dons a black chicken on her head while Reverend Canon Chasuble appears to have some difficulty with his surplice. The strong sexual element and the constant cross-dressing literally bring ‘out of the closet’ an ambiguity of which Wilde would applaud. Ridiculusmus praise “the vital Importance of Being Earnest.”