The Importance of Being Earnest comes to UNC's Student Union

Medical and graduate students will get a chance to trade the classroom for the stage in the School of Medicine drama club’s production of “The Importance of Being Earnest” Saturday and Sunday in the Student Union.

Stage IV Productions brings to life Oscar Wilde’s Victorian satire about two young men who take on the false identity of Ernest and end up falling in love with women who are obsessed with the name.

Patrick Lang, director and president of the club, said the production is staying true to Wilde’s play with a Victorian setting, authentic costumes and British accents.

Lang started Stage IV Productions three years ago when he started medical school at UNC because he wanted to get involved in theater again after missing the opportunity in his undergraduate years.

“There wasn’t a theater group here at the time for graduate and professional students, so I decided to start one,” he said. “There was a lot of support from the medical school in starting the group.”

Lang said his goal is always to transport audiences somewhere else — a different era or environment.

“We get so caught up in what we’re doing and the here and the now that doing theater and being involved in the arts is a great release for the people involved,” he said. “Living (in) that different environment for a brief few moments can be incredibly satisfying and rewarding to everyone.”

Alex Raines, an M.D. and Ph.D. student playing Jack Worthing, said participating in theater productions was not an opportunity he was expecting to have in medical school but he has welcomed it.

“I think we’re all really busy and stressed out as medical students, grad students, everything else, so it’s nice to have a release sometimes,” he said. “It also serves sort of a deeper purpose of making people more well-rounded human beings and better able to relate to patients and understand the emotional, social side of things, which is important in medicine.”

Raines said he can connect to the fact that his character goes after what he wants at all costs.

“He’ll do anything to marry Gwendolen even if it means pretending to be somebody else and getting christened as a different name,” he said. “He’s willing to do anything for her.”

Casey Farin, the show’s producer who plays Cecily Cardew, described her character as flighty but a big dreamer.

“She has made up this whole fantasy world where she’s engaged to somebody who she’s never met before, which I think is amazing,” she said.

Farin said this production is unique because of how little theater experience all of the actors have, and Lang said that fresh take on theater will make the show one worth seeing.

“These are future physicians and future professionals, and the amount of time we have is just so limited,” he said. “For us to be able to pour in this much effort to put on shows every year, it takes so much, and I hope people can appreciate that.”

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