The current production of The Importance of Being Earnest, directed by Victor Pappas for Seattle Shakespeare Company, is a master class in Quinn Franzenâs eyes. The rosy-cheeked young actor merrily glides through his performance as Algernon, a witty and carefree rascal, like heâs acting on ice skates, pausing only to gaze at the audience with sly bedroom eyes whenever he says anything particularly clever. In a different play, this would be too much, but itâs a shrewd move on the directorâs part, underscoring the self-awareness that makes Earnest tick.
Seen from a distance, Earnestâs status as a classic might seem a little improbable. Every piece of the script, taken individually, is a clichĂ© of a clichĂ©, flat types who existed long before Wildeâs time: the rakish Algernon, his lovelorn and comparatively boring pal (Jack Worthington), the imperious old rich bitch (Lady Bracknell), the moony girl waiting for someone to sweep her off her feet (Cecily), even the daft old country parson (Rev. Chasuble). They all seem like cut-rate knockoffs from Jane Austen, but when Wilde bundles them together and stitches them up with his glorious one-linersâârelations are simply a tedious pack of people who havenât got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to dieââthe old clichĂ©s become both fresh and timeless. Theyâre shipping containers for Wildeâs enormous inventory of sharp jokes.
This Earnest succeeds so marvelously because it winks, as Wilde winks, at the outrageousness of his literary heist. Franzen makes eyes at the audience; Connor Toms plays Jack with clownish, foot-stamping sincerity; and Kimberly King as Lady Bracknell is a hair-trigger indignation machine, the absurdly tall feathers in her hat trembling like the needle on a seismograph, telegraphing the earthquakes that are always just about to erupt. The menâs love interests compliment the craziness: Hana Lass is zippy and emotionally unpredictable as Algernonâs sweetheart Cecily and Emily Grogan as Jackâs aristocratic, beloved Gwendolen is as deeply, profoundly vacuous as the play itself. The set and costume designers (Carey Wong and Melanie Burgess) get in on the act with their richly upholstered furniture, silver tea paraphernalia, ascots, slippers, velvet curtains, and cherry blossoms jutting out of Chinese vasesâthe stage looks like a meticulous wedding cake just begging to be smashed.
Wildeâs comedy is based on the fact that people are both arbitrary and foolish. So is his tragedyâa few short years after Earnest was first performed, Wilde would be humiliated and imprisoned, writing his jailhouse poetry: â⊠all men kill the thing they love/By all let this be heard/Some do it with a bitter look/Some with a flattering word.â But Pappas and his crew skewer their faults so knowingly and lovingly we still laugh, despite the prickly, unsettling feeling that weâre actually laughing at our own.