Utmost ‘Importance’

Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” remains uncommonly popular, considering its lowly genre (the farce) and its advanced age (well over a century):

• A West End revival was one of the hottest tickets in London this year.

• Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon and Judi Dench starred in a 2002 movie version.

• It continues to be a staple at regional theaters. Beginning this weekend, Spokane’s professional Actor’s Repertory Theatre has chosen the play to kick off its fifth season.

Which begs the question: How do you explain the importance of “Importance”?

For one thing, it changed the attitude of comedy even into our own time, according to Michael Weaver, who is directing it for ARt.

“It’s really a subversive play,” said Weaver. “It led to the comedies of Kaufman and Hart, to screwball comedies, to Mel Brooks and ‘American Pie.’ It was the first absurdist play in some ways.”

Weaver paused for a moment to let that absurdity sink in.

“So, yes,” he said, laughing, “I’d say Oscar Wilde is responsible for ‘American Pie.’ “

“The Importance of Being Earnest” is that rare creature, a farce both silly and smart. Weaver called it both “really funny” and “one of the great plays of the last 113 years.”

Here’s how Time magazine described it, in a 1947 Broadway revival starring John Gielgud: “It is often farce at its most absurd, but it is also farce at its most elegant.”

The writer called it “insolently monocled in manner” and “killingly high-toned in language.”

Also, it’s strongly identified with a time and place – Edwardian England – yet it somehow seems completely contemporary in its attitudes. Wilde’s characters are noted for their irreverence, cynicism, sarcasm and breezy refusal to take anything seriously. This is hardly the stuff of most costume dramas.

Wilde himself gave the play the subtitle, “A trivial comedy for serious people.”

“It’s the first example we see of characters saying something, in complete seriousness, that is completely off the wall,” said Weaver.

And finally, another overriding reason: This is the acknowledged masterpiece of one of the funniest, cleverest and most biting of Irish writers.

“Few comedies of the English stage have such wit, elegance and theatrical dexterity,” says the “Oxford Companion to the Theatre.”

Nobody could construct a wicked observation like Wilde, and nowhere did he do it better than in this play.

Here, for example are some characteristic bits of Wildean wisdom:

• “Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die.”

• “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

• “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.”

Wilde averages about 20 of these killer epigrams in every act of “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

The plot is a relatively standard farce involving two separate cases of mistaken identity. Jack needs an excuse to run off to London, so he invents a wicked brother that he has to look after. Algernon wants to see Jack’s niece, so he pretends to be the wicked brother. Complications ensue.

Yet out of this comes a number of memorable characters – notably Lady Bracknell, who has been played by the most formidable actresses of the 20th (and 21st) century, including at least three certified dames: Dame Edith Evans, Dame Judi Dench and Dame Margaret Rutherford.

In the ARt production, Karen Nelsen (fresh from a brilliant role in last year’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”) will sink her teeth into the Lady Bracknell role.

Damon Mentzer will play Jack and Jon Lutyens will play Algernon. Patrick Treadway will play the Rev. Chasuble.

The rest of the cast includes Caryn Hoaglund-Trivett, Kari McClure, Carolyn Crabtree, Jeremiah Hatch and Brandon Montang.