The Importance of Being Earnest
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is a perennial audience favorite, a play that overflows with razor sharp wit, sublime elegance and dizzy romantic comedy. Yet, Earnest has teeth and this biting satire of the vapid English aristocracy and their facile behavior made for an exciting opening night at the St. James Theatre in London’s West End on Valentine’s Day, 1895. The Importance of Being Earnest tells the tale of Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, both young men who have taken to bending the truth to add a dash of excitement to their lives and secretly escape the social expectations of the English upper class exemplified by the quintessential matriarchal battle-ax, Lady Bracknell. Jack has invented an imaginary brother, Ernest, whom he uses as an excuse to escape from his dull home in the country in order to frolic in town. Algernon has an imaginary friend, Bunbury, who provides a convenient excuse for taking adventures in the country. However, their deceptions eventually cross paths, resulting in a series of hilarious discoveries that threaten to spoil their romantic pursuits and strike at the very heart of the aristocracy’s obsession with birth, breeding and class.
