Denzel Westley-Sanderson’s new staging of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest takes on an innovative perspective of queer presentation and satirical farce. Presenting with an all-black cast, Lady Bracknell in drag and a queer relationship between Miss Prism and a female Dr. Chasuble, Westley-Sanderson has not failed to recapture Wilde literature. The play remains in its era of high Victorian class giving these modernistic perspectives a great foundation to bounce from. This production really embodied what Wilde couldn’t do in his time: queer, satirical comedy and is, I have to say, my favourite adaption of this play I have seen.
I sat down with actor, Phoebe Campbell, playing Cecily Cardew, to talk about their experience working on this adaption and bringing Westley-Sanderson’s visions alight on stage.
You’re currently playing Cecily Cardew in this version of The Importance of Being Earnest, what would you say attracted you to this role?
"In my audition, it was actually meeting Denzel. It’s a great part as it is, and I’ve seen the play before, but Denzel had a such warm, amazing energy that I was just so excited to work with him. So, it was mainly that, to be honest."
There’s a lot of physicality in Wilde’s plays as a whole that bring out the comedic aspect of the script. Were there any challenges doing this on stage within your role as Cecily?
"Do you know what, being in a corset makes everything a lot harder! You can feel your ribs in your arsehole! But we had good movement directors. We had Tino (Tinovimbanashe Sibanda) and Tonye (Tonye Scott-Obene) and they were just phenomenal, allowing us to explore being relaxed in that and finding the relaxed nature of Victorians at the time. It wasn’t difficult because we were guided in such a strong way, but the costume definitely had an impact on how we all moved."
Our Game of Thrones fans will know you as Rhaena Targaryen in House of Dragon. What was it like going from such a big filming production to a role that is restricted to a stage?
"Because I have just graduated from drama school, I’m more used to doing plays. It’s a much more familiar territory. I mean there are huge differences between the two things because obviously you get to stop all the time with filming. So, the challenge of being on stage the whole time and keeping that energy up was great, I love it, it’s my background and its where I sit most comfortably. Every time you feel like you’re phasing out of it someone on stage will bring you out because, in this case, I am surrounded by such incredible actors. So, it’s such a nice atmosphere."
The Importance of Being Earnest is your first professional theatre debut. What would you say is your next dream role for the stage?
"The thing is I’m just waiting for some books to become plays. I can’t sing for shit, but I would love to be in the Lion King, like I really can’t sing. That production is stunning so maybe the Lion King. But I’d love to be at the Globe, doing Shakespeare. The writing of this (play) has been so thorough so it feels like it’s been great rehearsal for later doing Shakespeare."
What can our readers expect from this new adaption of The Importance of Being Earnest?
"Oh, a good giggle. I mean it’s so camp, it couldn’t get camper. It’s just a load of silly people being silly on stage and if you can get on board with that there’s so much fun to be had. Because we have so much audience interaction as well, it really feels like we can do it with the audience, that’s why our performance changes so much every time we perform it because it’s feeding off what we get. Yeah, just such over the top characters that you hopefully haven’t seen before in doing black historical characters in this way."
