Perhaps Mel Ferrer's first rave review
in the New York Times came from this production of Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Ernest", which might be one of the funniest plays ever written. The Times reported that "The effort was well polished. The performances of Melchor C. Ferrer, class of '39, of New York, as Algernon Moncrieff, and of W. Boardman Jones, '37, of St. Louis, as the Rev. Chasuble, were outstanding."
While it might be forgiven today that the New York Times got his middle
initial wrong, almost assuredly it irked young Melchor at the time.
This particular play opened the Fall season for Princeton University's
Theatre Intime in October 1936 and began Mel Ferrer's second year at
university. Other leading players in the cast included Roberta Stockton
as Gwendolyn Bracknell and Jean Welch as Cecily Carden with Mrs. Malcolm
Buchanan of Princeton as Lady Bracknell and Mary Earp of Bryn Mawr as
Miss Prism. John Crowley, '37 played Jack Worthing, Gordon Merrick, '39
enacted Lane and Frederick E. Reeve, Jr. '38 played Merriman. Direction
was by Thomas H. Smithies, class of '37, president of the Intime and
Richard A. Baer, '36.
It's interesting to note that Ferrer produced this
play later in La Jolla, and cast himself once again as Algernon
Moncrieff.
