Multitalented director Michael Marchak ups the physical comedy to entertaining effect in Crown City Theatre Company’s 124th-anniversary revival of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance Of Being Earnest, but it remains Wilde’s way with words delivered by a terrific cast of Crown City favorites that earn the lion’s share of laughs.

 Meet posh young Londoner Gwendolen Fairfax (Riegan Sage), whose “ideal has always been to love someone of the name Earnest,” so much so that her beau Earnest Worthing (Hans Obma) dare not let it slip that his given name is one he himself has given his London persona, his real name Jack being reserved for the rest of his life in the Hertfordshire countryside.

Though Gwendolen’s mother Lady Augusta Bracknell (Michael Mullen) approves of the young man’s occupation (smoking) and his fortune (considerable), she nixes any thought of matrimony upon learning that “Earnest” started life as a foundling, abandoned in a handbag in Victoria Station to be raised without the slightest knowledge of his parentage.

“Earnest” is not the only young gentleman leading une double vie in Wilde’s classic romcom of manners.

Just as Jack has concocted a wicked “brother” whose jams offer the straighter-laced sibling an excuse to visit London, his best chum (and Gwendolen’s cousin) Algernon Moncrieff (Bobby Slaski) has fabricated an invalid friend named “Bunbury,” to whose aid he must rush whenever he feels the urge to escape from yet another tiresome evening with boring relations.

 When talk of Jack’s young ward Cecily Cardew (Megan Cochrane) piques Algernon’s curiosity, he heads countryward to meet the fair maiden, posing as the ne’er-do-well “Earnest” only to discover that like Gwendolen, Cecily has set her eyes on marrying a man by that name and no other.

Enter country rector Reverend Chasuble (John Sala), more than happy to christen both young gentlemen Earnest so long as it doesn’t keep him away too long from Cecily’s frazzled governess Miss Laetitia Prism (Mouchette van Helsdingen), with whom he is smitten.

As Shakespeare put it (though not nearly as wittily as Wilde surely would have), “The course of true love never did run smooth.”

 Wilde’s bon mots (“To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” “No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.”) are as timeless as ever at Crown City.

Still, what distinguishes this Importance Of Being Earnest from the countless that have preceded it is its heaping helping of physical comedy, much of which would do Lucy and Ethel proud.

Though some directorial reining in would improve occasional out-of-control moments, it’s hard to resist the running gag of presumably well-mannered gentlemen of leisure disobeying their nannies’ orders not to speak with their mouths full (or wipe their hands and lips on a convenient tablecloth during meals) or Gwendolen’s ever so ladylike way of expectorating overly sugared tea, to name just a few inspired bits.

Leading men Obma and Slaski are dashing and debonair as can be opposite Sage’s simply too divine Gwendolen and Cochrane’s ingenue-perfect Cecily.

 Casting the statuesque van Helsdingen as the often birdlike Miss Prism works quite marvelously, and the absent-minded governess’s romance opposite Sala’s appropriately clergical Canon Chausable adds extra spice to the mix, with Potter’s matched set of butler and manservant earning their own subtle laughs.

 Most memorable of all is Mullen’s scene-stealing star turn as the imperious, witty force of nature that is Lady Bracknell, proving as other have done before that it may just take a man to bring out the lady in Lady B.

Mullen’s costumes are period perfection, with special snaps to Lady Bracknell’s and Gwendolen’s spectacular gowns. Joanne Lamb has meticulously decorated the production’s three absolutely lovely indoor-outdoor town-and-country sets and Zad Potter, who doubles as production and stage manager, has lit them with particular vibrancy. Sound designer Joe Shea adds even more jauntiness to an already jaunty show.

Ariel Barber, Marchak, and Neil Unger step into lead roles at certain performances. Michael Pammit is house manager.

I can’t think of a single other Victorian-era comedy more agelessly entertaining than The Importance Of Being Earnest, and though the Oscar Wilde chef-d-oeuvre has now reached the advanced age of one hundred twenty-four, at Crown City Theatre it seems scarcely a day older than its 20something protagonists.

Crown City Theater, St. Matthew’s Church, 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood.
www.crowncitytheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
February 1, 2019
Photos: Chris Greenwell

Tags: Crown City Theatre Company, Los Angeles Theater Review, Oscar Wilde