The students treated the audience to a performance almost perfect in all aspects including dialogue, expressions, stage settings, music and lighting. The English pronounciation of all the major performers perfectly conveyed the situations and conflicts. The rhythm of the dialogue was beautifully controlled, resulting in a sublime performance.

The play was a story of faithfulness.

It started with the young and beautiful Lady Margareth Windermere (Novita Sari Paragau), on the afternoon of her birthday. The visit of her friend Lord Darlington (Nyoman Canestra) hinted what would happen next. Bringing her a bundle of red roses, Lord Darlington seemed interested in Lady Windermere

"Oh, nowadays so many conceited people go about society pretending to be good that I think it shows rather a sweet and modest disposition to pretend to be bad," he said.

Then, the Duchess of Berwick (Ni Putu Sulistiani) came with shocking news. She said Margareth's husband, Lord Windermere, often met Mrs. Erlynne (Gustiana Mettasari), for hours at a time.

The gossip continued and shattered Lady Windermere's instable young personality. She became doubtful of her husband's faithfulness. She got very upset when Windermere told her that he had invited Erlynne to her birthday party that evening.

Lady Windermere started to think about doing the same thing to her husband, by surrendering herself to the rascally Lord Darlington. This reminds us of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being in which the main character easily falls in love with different women.

The woman in the novel, tried to act similarly, by giving herself to a Russian soldier occupying her country. But she failed to enjoy it. It was not her nature to be light.

When Lady Windermere left a note for her husband informing him she'd gone to Lord Darlington's place, Mrs. Erlynne found the letter and fled to Lord Darlington to save the woman from a horrible affair.

In a very difficult situation, at Lord Darlington's place, Mrs. Erlynne prevented Lady Windermere from being seen by Lord Windermere (Gede Agus Mahardana), although he found her fan there.

All's well that ends well, so Shakespeare wrote, and the play also ended well. Mrs. Erlynne, who turned out to be the biological mother of Lady Windermere, plans to marry Lord Augustus (Wiryawa Paritranava).

The interplay between gossip and truth, love and deceit, beautiful dialogue and wise remarks of human personalities, sometimes humorous but less exploited, made the performance a pleasure to watch.

The change of scenes and acts moved swiftly as the settings were well planned. We could see a very sturdy fireplace on the wall on one act that disappeared by the next act. It turned out to be a detachable fireplace that functioned perfectly at one time - a letter was thrown into it and burned.

Surely, applause should go to Era Adnyayanti the director and her compact team of artistic, costume, music, and lighting designers. The actors were great. It was as if the Duchess of Berwick had come to life. The same goes for Lady Windermere and Mrs. Erlynne.

Lord Windermere looked strong in personality and Lord Darlington was clearly deceitful.

The play was one of several shows that included another Wilde play, Vera, the Nihilist, a musical play The Princess by W. Gilbert, and The Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen.

The reviewer is a retired professor at Undiksha University, Singaraja, Bali

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