The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine

Ian C. Nelson is Assistant Director of Libraries at the University of
Saskatchewan.

Like James Saunders’s After Liverpool, this play explores
relationships and communication between a man and a woman. But whereas
the Saunders play is a suite of vignettes, The Anger in Ernest and
Ernestine is more consciously a chronology of development in the
psychology of its characters and, simultaneously, a movement from the
comic to the tragic. The former play is easily approached as a script;
the latter is both the record of an improvisational piece that became
highly polished in performance (it was not transcribed until “well
after the first run of the play”) and an outline of direction for
those who would like to rebuild the piece in the classic clown
tradition. That tradition involves acknowledgment of the audience (no
“fourth wall” barrier) and improvisational elaboration of the
outline.

Although the dialogue itself appears straightforward (with a simplicity
reminiscent of Ionesco), the creative demands of this play are enormous
and extremely visceral. Fortunately some actions and gestures are
indicated with precision so that appropriate talent can be given the
right direction.

Theatre Columbus won the 1988 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best
Production in the Small Theatre category for The Anger in Ernest and
Ernestine. The script’s publication provides a hint of the brilliance
of that production, and allows a cherished hope that others might
attempt the challenge of this gutsy theatre tradition. A company would
do well to consider this play for the “fringe” circuit.