Theater review: 'The Importance of Being Earnest'

Who knew an Oscar Wilde character dressed like Turtle from "Entourage?"

That'll be Algernon, one of the male leads in Vpstart Crow's of "The Importance of being Earnest," running weekends through Oct. 19 at the Cramer Center. This production is set in modern Beverly Hills, rather than 1895 London. It's a clever update, but there's a sense that Algernon should be getting into hijinxs with Johnny Drama rather than ending a lot of his sentences with the phrase "old boy."

That shaky transition is really the only fault of "Earnest," a terribly funny play in its own right. Still credit is due to director Stephanie Hanna for trying something new. As she notes in the program, "Wilde was making strong social comment for his time with his play, and today this view on certain parts of our society is still very applicable. Beverly Hills is a case in point where just about everything that is trivial is taken very seriously, and consequently, serious events are regarded as trivial."

The only problem? The world sketched out in "Earnest" doesn't resemble Beverly Hills in the slightest. Instead, it's some amalgamation of Wilde's London with somewhat of an American appropriation, a mixture of droll butlers, vacations in the country and hip-hop clothing. Just because the Fresh Prince of Bell Air had an English butler doesn't mean Algernon and Jack need similar staff.

But Wilde's writing shines, and the cast makes it all work in the end.

"The Importance of Being Earnest," Wilde's best known work, is a farce about two men, Algernon (J. Ryan McFadden) and Jack (Clemente Santiago), who create alter-egos named Ernest to further their escapades in wooing women. It's all very, very funny, the characters exacerbating each other's situation by becoming Ernest to suit their needs as suitors. That's the thing both Gwendolyn (Lee Matthews) and Cecily (Megan Graves) are only interested in marrying a man named Ernest. Hilarity, of course, ensues.

There's not a weak link in the entire cast, but it's the bit players that steal the show. Check out Michael Donahue in drag as Lady Bracknell, Gwendolyn's overbearing mother and Algernon's aunt. He's got a booming presence, believably controlling of his family's affairs and utterly intimidating to Gwendolyn's suitor, Jack. Plus, he's very, very funny.

Likewise for Jack Seeley as Dr. Chasuble, a priest tasked with well, that would be giving it away. As with his role as fire-and-brimstone preacher Matthew Harrison Brady in Prince William Little Theatre's "Inherit the Wind," Seeley, who also appeared in HBO's "The Wire," steals every scene he's in.

Then there are the one-liners, the character's musings about life, love and happiness that are as funny as they are caustic. That's really the highlight, the rapid-fire zings. In that sense it's almost like a Simpsons episode blink and you might miss something. (Personal favorite? The perhaps unintentionally funny line "He seems to have expressed a desire to be buried in Paris." "In Paris! I fear that hardly points to any very serious state of mind at the last." Wilde decomposes in The City of Lights.)

"The Importance of Being Earnest" is one of those plays that every 10th grade English teacher should assign (it's certainly easier to follow than Shakespeare). If you've never seen it before, go. You'll forgive the improbable coincidences in third act, you'll forgive the fact that by the end of the play you'll need a visual diagram to keep the character's relations straight and you'll forgive the Beverly Hills setting. Best of all, you'll laugh.

Staff writer Josh Eiserike can be reached at 703-878-8072 or jeiserike@insidenova.com.