This overtaxed delivery seems to spring from very noble intentions. The metaphor that is recapitulated throughout the production is one of falseness, particularly the duplicity that comes from living in such a willfully vapid society as Victorian England. The best expression of the theme is the casting of College junior Greg Kordsmeier as the matronly Lady Bracknell, a harpish old dame who noses her way into all the lives on stage. This offbeat casting could have been a lovely, silent realization of Director Rick Marson's vision. Compounded with the constant breaking of the fourth wall, however, it only serves to frustrate the intentions of the script.
Characters only deserve satirical treatment if they never realize how ridiculous they are.
By allowing them to wink at the audience for two full hours, the SAP production lets its characters in on the joke and thereby dismisses one of Wilde's salient points. The play is left without a focus for its wit because everyone realizes they are witty. The exception to this rule is College senior Alastair Gamble, who, as Jack, seems alone in his ability for understatement. Though he is allowed too many trips to the front of the Union Jack-shaped stage, Gamble, a former Wheel photography editor, undercuts this grandstanding with subtlety in movement. At times, he tells the entire story of a line in the frantic way he puts on a top hat.