Fun within the drawing room with ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’

In Fort Collins, Bas Bleu presents Oscar Wilde’s timeless comedy.

Watching The Importance of Being Earnest can really feel like seeing the genesis of half the stage comedies ever written since its debut in 1895. Oscar Wilde’s drawing room play is English humor at its finest — rich prigs chasing romance and cash while partaking in a collection of farcical conditions that develop extra ludicrous because the scenes mount.

In the manufacturing now working at Fort Collins’ Bas Bleu Theatre, Director Steve Keim has a strong solid engaged on a minimalist however extremely useful set to inform the story of a pair of rakes who each have alternate identities to additional their very own ends. Jack Worthing (a frenetic Calvin McConnell) lives within the nation however upon visiting London takes on the deal with “Earnest” as he pursues the hand of Gwendolen (a perpetually alarmed and really humorous Elisabeth Sells). He’s compelled to confess this to Algernon (a splendidly foppish Brett Darling), who’s Gwendolen’s cousin, who then cops to additionally having a faux alter-ego named Earnest for his forays to the nation.

From this preposterous premise comes a barrage of signature Wilde wit as the 2 males commerce barbs and Jack presses his case with Gwendolen’s mom, Lady Bracknell (Wendy Ishii). There are questions on Jack’s humble origin that she finds disqualifying, and he decamps to the nation the place we take up the motion in Act Two.

Here, we meet Cecily — a superb Elisabeth Larson — Jack’s younger ward, who’s being tutored by her governess Miss Prism (Robyn Krause). We additionally meet native priest Rev. Canon Chasuble (Jeffrey Bigger) who, it’s quickly clear, has the hots for Prism. Larson nails perky Cecily, whom Wilde endows with a number of the play’s quirkiest strains. Bigger equally pegs Chasuble’s droll witticisms and double entendres as he and Prism wrestle to include their lust for each other.

Wendy Ishii wields a lethal upper-crust British accent as Lady Bracknell, utilizing it successfully to look down her nostril at these she thinks is perhaps beneath her. She additionally has quite a lot of glorious strains like “Thirty-five is an attractive age. London is full of women of the highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”

Brett Darling and Wendy Ishii as Algernon and Lady Bracknell. | Photo: William Cotton Photography

Uneven in spots

Reviewing all of those characters reveals a solid that at occasions appears at odds with itself when it comes to how broadly to play the varied sorts. Darling, Bigger, Larson and Ishii strike what appears the appropriate chord of comedic stability — roughly regular individuals caught up in absurd conditions and armed with glorious strains with which to maneuver ahead. Some of the opposite gamers, nevertheless, flip the foolish knob up a bit excessive.

Sells is extremely amusing as Gwendolen, however at occasions she has the character’s incredulity dialed thus far up that she finally has nowhere to go. McConnell’s efficiency is a breathless Marty McFly/Ferris Bueller mashup that leaves much less room for exploration because the play reaches its climax.

More regarding, significantly in Act Three, is the pacing. Wilde’s script is supposed to convey dwelling the comedy with a cascading sequence of reveals and twists that depend on sharp, exact timing and spot-on line supply. In the matinee I noticed Feb. 22, the second present within the run, the solid simply wasn’t there but. I wouldn’t usually take discover of some bobbled strains this early within the run, however there have been sufficient of them to take the wind out of the sails on a number of events. Keim’s blocking additionally didn’t appear to present the actors sufficient to do bodily, leaving them in static positions simply because the motion was reaching its peak.

It could also be 130 years outdated, however The Importance of Being Earnest has misplaced none of its chew — significantly in our current period the place the hole between the haves and have-nots is as ripe for skewering because it was in Victorian England. With a solid that largely finds the appropriate register for Wilde’s razor-sharp wit and a comfy venue that places you proper within the drawing room, Bas Bleu’s manufacturing is loads of enjoyable. Just give them a couple of extra performances to tighten up that third act.