Age cannot wither not custom stale Oscar Wilde’s immortal comedy The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). This production at the Alley, while visually stunning, has several bumpy moments though.
Perhaps the greatest comedy in theater history, Earnest is Wilde at his bitchy best. Not even Shaw could puncture the hypocrisy, the pretension, the gall of the last gasps of the late-Victorian privileged class with such precision as Wilde was able to do with breathless aplomb. He pricked the upper class with a hypodermic needle. Death by a thousand bon mots.
Almost every line of dialogue in this hilarious farce is a quotable epigram, a wicked observation, a precision strike against conventional morality, the noblesse oblige, the chin-up one-percenters. Only W.S. Gilbert – of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Savoy operettas – was able to skewer his own staid audience with such deadly accuracy.
What keeps Earnest so evergreen is its universal freshness. Human nature doesn’t change over the centuries. Blowhards still exist, moral blindness shows up in any era, class and social standing remain an impediment. But pleasure is there for all to take, if one dares. Wilde dares and then some.
In a spectacularly visual production – look closely at Michael Locher’s contempo/period settings using neon and plush wing chairs, Alejo Vietti’s wildly imaginative costumes in chartreuse, orange, or burgundy, Jiyoun Chang’s caressing lighting – the Alley falls for the easy way out. It goes for the sit-com laugh, the exaggerated line reading, the silly walk, the foppish flop on the couch. It’s precise in execution, no doubt about it, and everybody’s having a grand time on stage, but Wilde gets buried under the frantic details.
Although things go south almost immediately upon Algernon’s entry, as Dylan Godwin sashays into the room as if Queen of the May, practically dripping lace and limp wrist, the play eventually evens out by the third act. But it takes a long time. The incomparable Wildean voice finally overrides, and the farce settles down into its intended frivolity.
There are tantalizing glimpses of what this production could have been. The cast is ideal and imbue their characters with detailed hints of what lie beneath. In Act II’s famous cat-fight scene between Gwendolen and Cecily (statuesque Amelia Pedlow and dewy, not-so-innocent Melissa Molano), both in love with who they think is Ernest, Gwendolyn asks for tea, no sugar, and bread and butter. In pique, Cecily serves her tea with sugar and cake, not bread. In high but controlled dudgeon, Gwendolen transforms into her battleaxe mother, Lady Bracknell, in pronunciation and vocal inflection. It’s subtle, specific, mighty telling, and very funny.
Lady Bracknell, Wilde’s most indomitable character (Candy Buckley), arrives like a warship fully-rigged with guns blasting. She’s her own play, and Buckley knows it. She plays with the audience, going all bass into tenor, flouncing her hauteur like handing out an upturned wrist to be kissed. She overplays, but we forgive her because this character is so improbably comic and gets Wilde’s most incisive lines. She lands these with a chef’s command of a Ginsu knife.
Elizabeth Bunch is prim Miss Prism, Cecily’s governess, hot-to-trot with Canon Chasuble (Spencer Plachy) and giddy with nervous tics and forbidden shudders when he asks her to walk in the garden. Lovely. Christopher Salazar overlays common man John Worthing as a lug in love with Gwendolen. He’s the eponymous “Ernest,” who has lost his parents in childhood and needs to prove his “importance” if he wishes to marry Bracknell’s daughter. He’s the sensible one among the crazies and plays it straight. Chris Hutchison makes a complete meal out of fuzzy servant Merriman, who shuffles around like Tim Conway’s “old man” from Carol Burnett. His silly walk receives deserved applause.
Algernnon Moncrieff is Wilde’s own self-parody. He’s shallow, self-important, an aesthete who lives for drama and cucumber sandwiches, a wicked wit who has an acerbic retort for everything. But he’s not an LGBTQ pride parade float. Whether this was director Rob Melrose’s take on the character or Godwin’s own discovery, his flamboyance throws off the wacky comedy. It’s too forced and calculated a reading. He downplays the feyness as the play progresses and that’s for the good. But it’s that initial impression that palls and throws the brittle comedy off balance. Godwin’s got great comic timing, however, and his silent screen bits of physical comedy are warmly appreciated.
When Earnest opened in London, February, 1895, it was an unprecedented smash. By April, Wilde’s name was removed from the playbills and the play closed in May after 83 performances. The scandal from Wilde’s libel lawsuit against the Marquess of Queensberry who accused the playwright as “posing somdomite [sic],” eventually led to Wilde’s verdict of “gross indecency” and sentenced to two years hard labor. The punishment ruined Wilde financially and physically. He died in exile, destitute, in Paris, 1900.
But Earnest lives on, scintillating in its brilliantine surface and extremely well-made structure. This greatest comedy of the 19th century, perhaps even the 20th, is unparalleled. The Alley tries hard to make it relevant today but only manages to touch its genius from afar.
The Importance of Being Earnest continues through March 29 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and 7 p.m. Sundays at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas Avenue. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $36-$135.