There’s seldom any lack of opportunity to see Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” as it usually seems to be playing somewhere or other. In fact, the 1895 comedy’s very popularity makes it an interesting choice for Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company, which tends to favor more neglected classics alongside new and newish plays.
As it happens, though Aurora has done a lot of George Bernard Shaw, it hasn’t really done much Wilde. Not only has the theater never staged “Earnest” before, but the only Wilde play it has previously produced was “Salome” in 2006.
It’s no mystery why Wilde’s play remains so ubiquitous. It’s a devilishly clever script brimming over with witty aphorisms, and at least one scene (an alternately gushy and catty back-and-forth between Gwendolen and Cecily) is about as close to perfect a comedic exchange as anyone has written.
Director Josh Costello, Aurora’s literary manager and recently announced incoming artistic director, gives the play a lively staging with a pleasing cast packed with Bay Area favorites.
Patrick Kelly Jones (Aurora’s “Detroit,” TheatreWorks’ “Peter and the Starcatcher”) plays aristocratic idler Algernon with jaded, deadpan drollness, nicely contrasted with Ubuntu Theater Project regular Mohammad Shehata’s animated Jack Worthing.
Costumer Maggie Whitaker gives the dandyish Algernon some wonderfully bright and becoming finery. Nina Ball’s elegantly simple patio set is also full of bright colors in stained-glass patterns and borderline gaudy floral upholstery.
The play whirls around Jack’s double life, going by the name Ernest in London while pretending at his country estate that he has an estranged brother by that name. His city friend Algernon goes to the country posing as Ernest to meet Jack’s pretty ward Cecily, and both Jack and Algernon find themselves in love with women who love them primarily because they’re named Ernest, which of course they’re not.
Former Shotgun regular and current New Yorker Anna Ishida is a delightfully refined and self-assured Gwendolen, Algernon’s cousin, whom Jack would very much like to marry. Gwendolen shows more than a little of her mother with in her many unassailable opinions. Said mother is the stern, aphorism-spouting Lady Bracknell, here portrayed with keen comic gusto by former Mime Trouper and Berkeley Rep veteran Sharon Lockwood.
Gianna DiGregorio Rivera (Shotgun’s “Arcadia”) is bright and brimming with enthusiasm as the young Cecily. As her prim tutor Miss Prism, Shotgun company member Trish Mulholland is amusingly flustered by the awkward flirtations of Campo Santo cofounder Michael Torres’s plodding rector, Dr. Chasuble. Torres doubles as Algernon’s dryly restrained butler, Lane, while Louel Señores (Central Works’ “Ward 6” and “The Crazed”) is discreetly bewildered by all the upper-class antics as Jack’s attendant, Merriman.
This is a particularly animated “Earnest,” and occasionally a moment is played so broadly that a particularly juicy witticism gets lost in the shuffle. On the whole, though, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable opportunity to revisit a well-loved comedic classic in the capable hands of a who’s-who of terrific actors from all around the local theater scene.
Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.
‘THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST’
By Oscar Wilde, presented by Aurora Theatre Company
Through: May 19
Where: Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley
Running time: Two hours and 20 minutes, two intermissions
Tickets: $35-$70; 510-843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org
