Not since Shakespeare has the confusion of identities caused such, well, confusion.
Only Oscar Wilde could have come up with the rapid fire wit and outré wordplay that lifts “The Importance of Being Earnest” to the heights of the dramatic pantheon.
Cranbrook Community Theatre’s presentation of Wilde’s greatest play opens Friday, Feb. 10, at the Studio Stage Door in Cranbrook.
Director Nathaniel Leigh has set the production in the modern day, but “Earnest” retains its sharp late 19th century edge — that is to say, a mocking satire on the fashions, behaviours, and mores of the Victorian leisured classes. The genius of Wilde’s play is that we can see ourselves in it, almost 130 years after it premiered in London (in February, 1895).
Jack Worthing (Jerrod Bondy) and Algernon Moncrieff (Benjamin Phillips) are two jolly bachelors and good friends with not-so-carefully managed secret double lives — one is “Jack in the city, Ernest in the country,” while Algy’s ailing but fictitious friend Bunbury gives that dandified gentleman a convenient excuse to get out of any disagreeable (to him) social obligation.
Jack wishes to propose to Algernon’s cousin Gwendolyn Fairfax (Jelena Jensen), society lady non pareil, who, it appears, is largely in love with his pseudonym of Ernest. Whereas Algernon, taking advantage of Jack’s secret identity, sets off to London to woo Jack’s young ward Cecily (Elena Hark), as Jack’s oh-so-attractively dangerous brother “Ernest.”
Interfering in and adding to the resulting mayhem are Lady Bracknell (Kathleen Simon) the imperious, indomitable and absolutely socially correct dowager aunt, the stiff and correct Miss Prism (Amanda Casey), and the conflicted clergyman Dr. Chasuble (Patrick Baranowski), while overseeing it all are the two butlers, Lane and Merriman (Michael Prestwich, doing double duty).
Mistaken identities, romantic rivalries, and a whole host of misunderstandings are as timeless today as they were in the late Victorian era.
CCT’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” is directed by Nathaniel Leigh and produced by Everett Olafson. Set design is by Kirsten Taylor. It opens at the Studio Stage Door tonight, Friday, Feb. 10, and runs Feb. 11, 16-19, and 22-25.
Photos by Barry Coulter
