Such is the crux of what is widely regarded as Oscar Wilde’s (The Picture of Dorian Gray, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband) most brilliant comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest. The witty, lyrical lines demand constant attention, as the expressions and stiff body language of Victorian England often only slyly hint at the high comedy the script is stuffed with. Of course, it is that very Victorian stiffness that Wilde smirks at – poking fun at a society that held “style over sincerity.”

A magnificent ensemble handles the flurry of dialogue with nimble tongues, elegant style, and a mastery of subtly conveying the humor – so much of which could be overplayed to the point of losing the humor or underplayed to the extent that it is simply missed. That the audience “got it” was evident by the giddy laughter and standing ovation that the actors and crew were greeted with.

The always-hilarious Jessa Watson stars as the outwardly prim and proper Gwendolen who can barely contain her passion for her “Earnest” played delightfully by James Saba. James, who is really a “Jack,” assumes the identity of a made-up brother named Earnest when he comes to the city where he can be his eccentric alter-ego and try to win his love Gwendolen who loves the more unconventional “Earnest.” When Jack is forced to tell Gwendolen’s amusingly pompous playboy cousin Algernon (Jeffrey Jones) about his little scheme, Algernon admits to pulling a similar scheme when he goes out into the country. But when he learns of Jack’s young ward Cecily (Julie Jacobs), he becomes intrigued and soon arrives in the country assuming the identity of Jack’s fictitious brother Earnest to gain entrance to Jack and Cecily’s home. Little did he know that his courting of Cecily was half done before he even arrived – with Cecily already having a crush on her ward’s wicked brother “Earnest.” Julie Jacobs is an exuberantly youthful Cecily who pouts childishly and seduces charmingly with equal skill. Julie and Jessa share the best scene of the show where they meet, become instant lifelong friends, soon grow jealous and catty as they believe themselves engaged to the same Earnest, before becoming lifelong friends again.

Other great performances were turned in by the entire cast. Annie Hinton is a riot as the snooty Lady Bracknell who is not impressed with Jack’s heritage – having lost both his parents (very careless of him, she reproves) and having been discovered in a handbag in a cloakroom of a train station -- the Bainbridge line. Her wonderful accent and speech inflections, along with eyes that bulged and narrowed to say a million things her speech did not, were outrageously hysterical. Don Loper deftly modified his style to become two different English butlers for the price of one. And Sandra Ellis-Troy and Jim Chovik combined nicely as Miss Prism and Rev. Canon – Miss Prism being the middle-aged tutor of Cecily who was almost a great novelist, and Rev. Canon being the kindly, somewhat naughty, priest who likes to make house calls on Miss Prism.

Currently this marvelous show is only playing every other night, thanks to a brilliant idea to run Tom Stoppard’s Travesties in conjunction with The Importance of Being Earnest, and running with a nearly identical cast.

Travesties takes place in World War I Switzerland, during which time Lenin, Dada artist Tristan Tzara, and novelist James Joyce were all in Zurich at the same time. Henry Carr, a minor British official in Zurich, narrates the story as he “remembers” it – a memory that is not completely to be trusted! But if he’s right, they all ended up in the Zurich Public Library on the same day. In real life, James Joyce convinced Henry Carr to play Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest that they were putting on in a local theatre of which Joyce was a manager, and Henry Carr eventually became a major character in James Joyce’s book Ulysses.

How all of that becomes weaved into a plot, like forgetful Carr, I don’t exactly recall. In fact, I’m not sure I knew at the time. But what follows is a highly amusing, and ironically tragic, story involving Lenin, Dadaist Tristan, novelist Joyce, the humorous Carr, as well as Cecily (here the librarian of the library in which the main characters converge), and Gwendolen who is an assistant to Joyce, all eventually becoming a cleverly devised farce of Oscar Wilde’s Earnest.

Sean Murray, North Coast Rep Artistic Director and Co-Director of the two plays, leads this cast as the divertingly forgetful Henry Carr who narrates the play, callously belittles his butler (another amusing butler courtesy of Don Loper) in deriding the lower classes, and then falls for the beautiful librarian Cecily (again played by Julie Jacobs) who has strong Leninist leanings (before they were known as “Leninist”), charming the librarian by listing things in alphabetical order to the point that they both nearly forget they are in a library. Sean is fantastic throughout, with the narrating, tapping his befuddled memory, his sly goggling of Cecily, and his mechanical movements as the play occasionally fast forwards and rewinds, with Sean occasionally tossing in a goofy look or body movement that you didn’t see when played at regular speed.

Jeffrey Jones plays the absurd Dadaist, the baffling "intellectual" movement devoted to nonsense over the pre-war “civilized” culture that Dadaists blamed for The Great War, and Jeffrey plays it with great charisma – from his Dadaist ramblings to his courting of Gwendolen (again played by Jessa Watson). James Saba is great as the absurdly eccentric writer James Joyce. Jim Chovick is a lovable little Lenin (if that’s possible). And Jessa Watson again joins Julie Jacobs for the most amusing scene of this play, this time singing through their love-hate-love relationship in a succession of witty stanzas.

How this talented cast managed to learn both scripts simultaneously, both scripts packed with some of the most complicated dialogue you’re going to hear in theatre, is another tribute to their skill. How they don’t get tongue-tied or stumble, I’ll never know. But most impressive is their tremendous sense of comedy that shines throughout. Costume Designer Shulamit Nelson dresses them up elegantly for the occasion. And the strikingly green background with the fine, dark, affluent-looking furniture makes for an appealing, non-obtrusive set.

Rob Hopper
National Arts Digest