Whittier Community Theatre celebrates its long-awaited return to in-person productions (and the start of its 100th-anniversary season) with the absolutely smashing The Importance Of Being Earnest: A Wilde New Musical, a high point in WCT’s century of shows.

The Earnest in question is young Earnest Worthing (Jay Miramontes), a well-to-do London bachelor and the object of affection of Miss Gwendolen Fairfax (Eleen Hsu Wentladt), whose “ideal has always been to love someone of the name Earnest.”

It turns out, however, that “Earnest” isn’t our handsome hero’s given name at all but rather an alias he assumes for life in the big city, his real name Jack being reserved for days spent in rural Hertfordshire.

Though Gwendolen’s mother Lady Augusta Bracknell (Dyan Hobday-Smith) approves of the young gentleman’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 a double life 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 (Jonathan Tupanjanin) 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 (Jenna Lockwood) 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 Dr. Chasuble (Guy C. van Empel), 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 (Patty van Empel), 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.”

Clever Wildean turns of phrases like “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness” are as timeless as ever, but this time round, they’re not Earnest’s only appeal.

That honor goes to Bret Simmons’ hummable melodies and David Howard’s clever lyrics, fourteen catchy ditties that transform a proven script (niftily trimmed by book writer Howard to make room for the music) into a musical that easily stands comparison with such 21st-century period charmers as The Drowsy Chaperone and A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder.

From the operetta-eque “Victoria Euphoria” to the Kander-and-Ebb-like “Marriage Is Truly A Bore” to the musical hall-ready “Bunburying” to the romantic ballad bliss of “Swept Away,” there isn’t a weak song among them, and Earnest The Musical is just getting started.

“Most Earnest Of Times” has Lady Bracknell warbling in three-quarter time, Miss Prism and Cecily’s duet a sultry tango in “Wicked Little Secrets,” and “All Alone” closes Act One with a jazzy dance hall beat.

Best of all is the eleventh-hour “The Bag, The Book And The Baby,” which adeptly sets Act Two’s lifechanging revelations to song.

And it’s not just the book, music, and lyrics that make The Importance Of Being Earnest: A Wilde New Musical a winner.

Under Glenn Kelman’s pitch-perfect direction, a uniformly tiptop cast deliver the pro-caliber goods from start to finish.

Miramontes and Tupanjanin capture Jack and Algernon’s joie-de-vivre with abundant verve, Hsu-Wentlandt and Lockwood make for the most charming of eligible young maidens, Patty and Guy van Empel are absolute delights as Miss Prism and the reverend who has caught her eye, and Rob Tracy creates two very different butlers, with special snaps to his hilariously doddering Merriman.

Most memorable of all is Hobday-Smith’s deliciously imperious Lady Bracknell, who milks every outrageous Wildean bon mot for all its worth and sings up a storm.

And not only does the entire cast vocalize quite splendidly under Simmons’ expert musical direction and dance quite terrifically to choreographer Linda Love-Simmons’ jaunty footwork, the orchestra doesn’t hit an off-key note under the musical director’s accomplished baton.

Last but not least, the production looks and sounds quite spiffy indeed thanks to the design contributions of Roxie Lee (set), Melissa Tanaka, Nancy Tyler, and Cheryl Chang (costumes), Tyler (properties), Suzanne Fredrickson (lighting tech), and James Markoski (sound tech), with a tip of the hat to song writers Simmons and Howard for what may well be the first song specifically written to accompany a scene change, the oh so clever “A Change Of Scenery.”

The Importance Of Being Earnest: A Wilde New Musical is produced by Lee. Steven Sanborn is stage manager and Margie Wann is assistant stage manager. Mark Frederickson is technical director.

Not only is The Importance Of Being Earnest: A Wilde New Musical one of the best new musicals to debut locally in many a year, Whittier Community Theatre gives it a production to do its writers proud. All that remains now is for big-leaguers like McCoy Rigby Entertainment and Musical Theatre West to start bidding for the rights. It’s that fabulous a show!

Whittier Community Theatre, The Center Theatre, 7630 S. Washington Ave., Whittier.
www.WhittierCommunityTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
September 17, 2023

Tags: Bret Simmons, David Howard, Los Angeles Theater Review, Oscar Wilde, Whittier Community Theatre