Born into an aristocratic Irish family, flamboyant poet/playwright Oscar Wilde was a model of elegance and style. But that didn’t stop him from busting the vacuous veneer of Victorian society, where one had to have beauty or a guaranteed income. Plus a townhouse in the city and a manor in the country.
In The Importance of Being Earnest he gave us one of the most celebrated comedies of manners ever devised. And as we found out last week at Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s production, this wicked satire plays as delightfully today as it did 140 years ago.
Under the consummate comedic instincts of director Paul Mullins, this disarming cascade of wit romps along smartly. Michael Schweikardt’s pleasing set design—one appointed with opulent armchairs and tea service, even a grand piano!; the other a garden setting in the countryside—lays the visual groundwork for Wilde’s brilliant scenario.
Two young gentlemen, Algernon and Jack, lead double lives through an invented surrogate called Earnest, which they use when they need an excuse to leave a tiresome situation and escape to either the city or the country as needed.
However, as “Earnest,” each becomes entangled with pampered young ladies—in Jack’s case Gwendolen, and in Algy’s, Cecily. Turns out that each young woman adores that their beloved’s name is Earnest. Only it isn’t!
The play revolves around the calamities created by this deceit, little eddies of absurd mischief, delicious wordplay and hilarious situations. “I hope you have not been leading a double life pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.”
As the play opens, Algy’s aunt Lady Bracknell (Saundra McClain) is coming to tea, bringing along her daughter Gwendolen (Brianna Miller). Jack shows up, proposes to Gwendolen (who thinks his name is Earnest), but is rejected by her upwardly mobile mother.
McClain’s pitch-perfect Lady Bracknell lays it on as thick as clotted cream, forcing the young ones to devise some desperate plots.
Moving to the countryside, we meet Jack’s ward, lovely Cecily (a pert, decibel-intensive Allie Pratt), who upon meeting Jack’s friend Algy/Earnest, confesses a hysterically romantic attachment for him. Cecily’s housekeeper, Miss Prism (an excellent Marion Adler), has caught the eye of the local parson (an over-the-top Mike Ryan), but that’s not all. Miss Prism holds the key to the accelerating plot, which will once again require the presence of Lady Bracknell and her daughter.
“Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever,” Lady Bracknell observes. “If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes.”
It’s as good as farce gets, loaded with observations about marriage as a destroyer of romance, and women’s tendencies to form incomprehensible attachments to each other.
Expert direction and crisp performances make this a production a complete delight. DeJesus and Block as the two young gentlemen are utterly convincing. So comfortable are they with the set, the words and the motivations that we believe completely in their friendship.
As the reliable butler, and there must be a butler to perform the daily tasks of the idle rich, Kurt Meeker is the soul of discretion. So, a few of the British accents slip now and then. But the chance to watch Mike Ryan as an Anglican minister is priceless.
Everybody’s a dream and the entire production had last weekend’s audience laughing through the entire second half—on a weekend when we all needed uplifting! But highest praise for Will Block as the naughty, mercurial, muffin-loving Algernon. His nimble performance was everything Oscar Wilde had in mind when he penned this clever send-up of social pretense. Kudos to all, and an extra muffin for Block!
Runs through Sept. 7 in the Audrey Stanley Grove, Santa Cruz. santacruzshakespeare.org
