Earnest’s Dana Ivey on the Wonders of Wilde and Joining ‘The Greatest Club in the World’

The lilting rhythms of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest may as well be Dana Ivey’s mother tongue. The indomitable actress is tackling her fourth production of the play (one of her favorites), this time as prickly governess Miss Prism in a Roundabout Theatre Company production opposite director Brian Bedford as Lady Bracknell. Hers is a face familiar to New York theatergoers. In a Broadway career spanning 30 years, she has both created new roles and tackled classics from Shakespeare to Shaw, and the five-time Tony nominee is still one of only four women to have been nominated twice in the same year. Broadway.com recently caught up with Ivey to chat about her love of Wilde, her trouble with Beckett and the mistake of looking at theater from an MTV point of view.

This is a delightful production of Earnest. Why do you think Oscar Wilde hold up so well over time?
Oscar Wilde has such beautiful language and, in this case, it’s spoken so well. The wit and humor behind it are just delicious, because it’s based on characters' foibles, and human nature never changes.

What made you want to tackle the show’s quintessential governess, Miss Prism?
I have played her before, actually, and indeed I played Gwendolyn when I was quite young and I have played Lady Bracknell. This is my fourth production of Earnest; I have to say it’s one of my favorite plays. I absolutely love it and I will almost always do it.

Does it ever surprise you that the humor lands with a modern audience?
I don’t know why anybody would think that it wouldn’t. Great literature speaks to all times and all ages, otherwise why would we read A Tale of Two Cities? This is great literature; it just happens to be played out. I think the emphasis on saying "oh it’s old, why would modern people understand it?" is a complete red herring. Comedy is comedy whether it’s from the Greeks or Shakespeare or 100 years ago or 50 years ago. Just because something is older doesn’t mean people won’t respond to it. That’s a very MTV way of looking at it.

This sort of articulate comedy requires impeccable timing, which you have in spades. Do you think that's an innate quality, or can it be taught?
I think it probably is innate and would be hard to teach. A lot of it has to do with a sensibility for language and the pace of things, and a sense of timing is just something that seems to be built in.

Earnest comes at the end of a very busy year for you, which included a production of Beckett’s Happy Days in Westport.
That was just about the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. To have succeeded with it gave me a great feeling of accomplishment.

Are you a Beckett fan?
Well, I have to say no. I’ve never quite gotten Beckett. I’ve seen a lot of his shows, but it never quite resonates with me the same way Wilde or Shaw does. But I love Mark Lamos as a director, so I was anxious to do it just because he asked. I knew it was going to be very hard, but I was willing to take it on because of him and I’m glad I did.

You also appeared on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire this year. Did you expect it to become a hit?
I wasn’t surprised because HBO had such a hit with The Sopranos, so they do things like this very well. We’re all thrilled because it’s shooting here so they can mine the New York pool of actors. Steve [Buscemi] and I had worked together before on The Impostors so working together again was great fun.

The web of actors in New York is pretty extraordinary. What’s it like having worked with so many great actors in multiple shows and being a part of the fabric of the community?
When you act in New York and you become part of the theater community, it’s like belonging to the best club in the world. There’s nothing like it.

It seems every show is a reunion of sorts with someone.
Indeed, even in this show. Paxton Whitehead is playing Doctor Chasuble, and after coming back from studying in England I did my very first show playing his mother in My Fair Lady. He was playing Henry and I played Mrs. Higgins. It was a very character role for a 23- or 24-year-old. We’ve known each other for a very long time, we worked together at the Shaw Festival when he was running it, and it’s a lovely reunion to work with him.

Your early Broadway career trajectory is staggering, from a debut in 1981 to two Tony nominations in 1984. What was that period like for you?
It made me breathless.

Were you surprised to be embraced so quickly?
Well, yes and no. It was certainly uncharted territory for me, but I had done so much time in the regions and in Canada, that frankly I was just trying to do my best so anything that came my way was icing on the cake. It was surprising, of course it was, but also a lovely reinforcement of "oh, you’re on the right track, keep it up." It was an encouragement.

Which of your co-stars or shows have meant the most to you?
The first thing that comes to mind is Driving Miss Daisy and [co-star] Morgan Freeman. I created Daisy with him and that play was very, very special to me. The other is Sunday in the Park with George, which was also an apotheosis of Broadway for me.

Have you seen the current Broadway revival of Driving Miss Daisy?
No I haven’t, and I’m not going to. And I’d prefer we not talk about this.

You worked again with Daisy playwright Alfred Uhry.
We’re great chums. The first show we did was Daisy, then we did [Last Night of] Ballyhoo. We both come from Atlanta and we have similar backgrounds, so it was just like old friends right away.

You were Tony-nominated for Sunday in the Park, but you haven’t done a Broadway musical since. Any plans for one?
I love musicals! But I don’t consider myself a real singer, so as much as I love doing them it has to be something my voice can do. But I love the energy of musicals; they’re great fun.

You’ve covered so much of the classical theater canon. Are there any roles you’ve yet to do that you’ve had your eye on?
Oh I have many favorite roles that I’m much too old to play anymore. I’ve always wanted to do Saint Joan and I’ve always wanted to play Cleopatra, but I’m afraid I’m beyond them now. Ah, well!

See Dana Ivey in The Importance of Being Earnest at the American Airlines Theatre.