What to do with the perfect play is invariably the problem directors and actors face when they sit down at those initial pre-production meetings prior to mounting The Importance of Being Earnest. Written in the late 1890s, the play fixates on the manners and morals of the pretentious and the manor-born, skewering all with some of Oscar Wilde's finest collections of epigrams and nasty asides. Spit out, stated dramatically or muttered politely, his words are most recently brought to life in a joyous flurry of understated malice by the cast at the Works Theater in Somerville. The final production of Pet Brick Productions' inaugural season, director Patrick Wang and his cast and crew create a treasure for anyone who adores Wilde, theater and beautifully delivered words of wit, spite, and love.

Despite its paper-thin plot, implausible coincidences, and unbelievable ending, The Importance of Being Earnest remains one of the most original and razor sharp plays ever written. Located firmly in the Victorian era, the story revolves around the caddish Algernon Moncrieff (Kent French) and his friend John Worthing (G. Zachariah White). As both men independently undertake a harmless deception, their "bunburying" turns into a major misunderstanding and leads to a first-rate satire of the English class structure. However, as valiantly as the performers try to do Wilde's words justice, the overall acting can often best be described as benign. Not only do several of the actors stumble over their lines and articulation, they also often seem to go into fits of carefully choreographed overacting.

Fortunately, the production picks up steam as it moves along; by Act III the work seamlessly shifts into a full-throttled farce, tending to obliterate memory of what proceeded before it. Despite its shortcomings, the play holds up as a funny, frothy work. After all, "Style, not sincerity, is the vital thing" in Wilde's world.

When their deceptive schemes of John and Algy collide, a series of crises ensue, crises that threaten to spoil their romantic intentions-Jack for Gwendolen Fairfax and Algernon for his intended bride Cecily Cardew. Of the younger female interpretations, Lauren Waisbren gives the role of Cecily Cardew, Worthing's ward, a more ditzy than shrewd rendering, though her phrasing, timing and diction are all impeccable. As her mirrored comrade (and adversary, depending on the scene) Gwendolen, Jennifer Moxin puts her considerable comic vitality to fine work here in what is sometimes mildly bizarre exaggeration, sometimes farcical explosiveness. These two work particularly well together and they fashion Wilde's brilliant Act Two confrontation scene into what is one of the high points of the evening's entertainment. Another image that remains indelibly in my mind is that of Lady Bracknell (Sarah deLima) and her daughter Gwendolen making their first entrance like a battleship with a cruiser in its wake; identical knife-edge profiles at the same angle, the daughter a lesser double of her terrible Mamma. The dialogue in all its sharp cut-glass, epigrammatic brittleness is for the most part well delivered and highly enjoyable.

As their admirers, French and White take the play for some comic turns of their own. As Algernon, French is all dimples and craftily employed myopia thanks to a character who is the essence of flippancy and casual verve. White, on the other hand, is forced into an uneasy and far stuffier portrayal, which makes his comedic tasks that much more difficult. Fortunately, both these actors have the requisite skills that enable them to extract some of the heartiest laughter of the entire production.

The pair of Miss Prism (Ruth Markind) and Chasuble (Robert Astyk) seem less intent to explore their capacity to amuse, so their characterizations remain more conventional and far less boldly interpreted, though not to the point that they detract from the overall style of the ensemble effort. We almost welcome the benign and believable sense of normalcy they add in counterpoint to the wild posturing that takes place in nearly every other nook and cranny of the stage area, as designed by Kevin Lair. Lair's ambitious but simple set adds an attractive visual component to the plot. The play itself seems to cry out for the overstuffed trappings of the period and Lair precisely captures the sense of place essential to recreate the mood of the period with his spare settings.

When Wilde was writing over a century ago, his plays were enormously successful on the London stage, where he was deftly skewering the hypocrisies and pretensions of the very social order that made up his adoring audiences. If this production tries a little too hard to be innovative and pleasing to its audience, and comes up a little too conventional in spite of it all, the laughs are still plentiful, the play chirps along heartily, and Oscar Wilde's genius and the perfection of his little "earnest" gem still manage to penetrate the thickest of skin with laser-quality incisiveness.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

written by

Oscar Wilde

directed by

Patrick Wang

Through April 23

Pet Brick Productions

Works Theater