You don’t know Jack 2nd Story’s Earnest is good fun BY BILL RODRIGUEZ
	The Importance of Being Earnest By Oscar Wilde. Directed by Ed Shea. With Will Jamison, Malik McMullen, Hillary Webster, Laura Sorensen, J.M. Richardson, Rae Mancini, Wayne Kneeland, Ryan Maxwell, and Jim Sullivan. At 2nd Story Theatre through April 10.

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the most frequently staged comedies around for good reasons: it has something for everyone. Scathing wit. Smart-aleck wisdom. Timeless human foibles that people will recognize a thousand years from now, when giddy romantic excess will be as hilarious on Mars colonies as it was in Victorian England — and in the Roaring ’20s, in which the current 2nd Story Theatre production is set.

Oh, what a tangled web they weave, when last these rascals Jack and Algernon practice to deceive. The deceptive practice brought to a screeching, and screamingly funny, third-act halt is that of pretending to be people they are not. Which is something that gay blade Wilde knew all about, in the straitlaced high society of 1895 London.

Jack Worthing (Malik McMullen) is known as Jack in the country but Ernest in the city. In each location he pretends to have a brother by the other name in the other place, a ruse that allows him to escape unwanted social commitments and whatnot by pretending to be summoned. This comes out when his bon vivant friend Algernon Moncrieff (Will Jamison) discovers that his friend Ernest’s cigarette case is inscribed to "Jack." What a coincidence, Algernon says — on occasion he pretends to have to flee to the country to care for an invalid brother named Bunbury.

If Algernon says it once, he smirks it 20 times: he has made a habit of "going Bunburying" at every opportunity. (Wilde was to be convicted of being a sodomite, as the term was, not long after this comedy of manners was a hit. He must have stifled a giggle each time he heard an actor utter his visually descriptive code word before a starched and proper audience.)

Since this is a send-up of the romantic conventions, and thereby expectations, of the time, Jack is the guardian of a nubile 18-year-old ward, Cecily Cardew (Laura Sorenson). Sight unseen, his beautiful ward instantly proves magnetically attractive to Algernon, who zips down to the country to woo her — pretending to be Ernest, his friend’s non-existent brother.

For his part, and the sake of plot symmetry, Jack/Ernest had earlier proposed marriage to Algernon’s cousin Gwendolen Fairfax (Hillary Webster). She mentions that for some subliminal reason she can’t pinpoint, she loves the name Ernest so much that she cannot imagine marrying a man with another name, such as "Jack." Cecily has made a similar statement to Algernon, so we have two men vying for the same name, neither of whom really is Ernest (or as earnest as they feign, Wilde is pointing out).

No such British drawing room comedy would be complete without a snooty, power-maddened upper-crust matron, and Wilde’s Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen’s mother, is the mold from which many subsequently were cast. John Michael Richardson does a superb job as Bracknell, going for straight-faced entitled arrogance while letting the dresses take care of the drag fun. Also non-traditionally cast is African-American McMullen, sometimes hyperactive as the hyper-British Jack. When he doesn’t try too hard, he provides a lesson in how well-inhabited character overwhelms appearance.

As Algernon, Jamison gives good decadence, mouthing each bon mot like a bon-bon, to be savored. (One taste, regarding women who flirt openly with their husbands: "It looks so bad. It is simply washing one’s clean linen in public.") Webster and Sorenson fill in the barely sketched Gwendolen and Cecily as petulant and knowing, respectively. Additional amusement is provided by Rae Mancini as the prim-with-potential Miss Prism, Cecily’s tutor (an entire essay on the fallibility of education packed into a name), and Wayne Kneeland as the reluctantly celibate Rev. Chasuble.

Inventive costume designer Ron Cesario has made apparel a prominent character as well as characterizer in this flamboyant production. The simple set design, by director Ed Shea, has books stacked and strewn about amidst more potted plants than in a fern bar. This is clever, since the three acts take place in Algernon’s study and Jack’s country house conservatory. Also fitting the atmosphere of casual dissipation is that there are no chairs or couches, so the hedonistic Algernon can more naturally lounge instead of sit.

But the best atmospheric bonus is Cesario’s costume design. From Jack’s peacock-blue suit in one scene, through Gwendolen’s wiggy-elegant black and white top coat that explodes with tatters and waves (you gotta be there), to the dour Lady Bracknell’s spot-on character-defining last act get-up — below is a Scots tartan, above are feathers from a pheasant she likely strangled with her own hands — we get delightful visual commentary.

The Importance of Being Earnest isn’t one of those theater coups 2nd Story Theatre accomplishes with shameless frequency, making a familiar play seem seen for the first time. But it certainly is rousing good fun.