Vanguard Too Earnest With Oscar Wilde

Unquestionably, Oscar Wilde’s best play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” is a bit of delicate froth, like a souffle upheld by the merest hint of structure. Dramatically, it’s similar to a piece of music, a Mozart sonata or a Chopin etude, its lacework wit and irony as sheer as a cobweb.

It would seem to be a perfect vehicle for a company as estimable as the Vanguard Theatre Ensemble. But for all their efforts, their staging of the play at Brea’s Curtis Theatre is clunky, awkward and uneven.

The plot is a late Victorian stab at the pretensions of the privileged class. Earnest Worthing, intent on marrying Gwendolyn Fairfax, admits to her cousin Algernon Moncrieff that although he is Earnest in town, he is actually Jack in the country, and has a young ward named Cecily Cardew.

Algernon, assuming the character of the racy Earnest, shows up at his friend’s country house and immediately falls for Cecily. Threads of pretense entwine, until the revelation of Jack’s real persona is revealed and all ends happily.

To make all this work takes a feather-light hand. But director Wade Williamson seems to have put on boxing gloves for the job. His staging is heavy-footed, slow and ragged, particularly in balancing the actors’ performances.

Three are worth noting. Tom Royer’s Algernon is crisp, a little brittle, and restrained, as it should be. His reading of the dialogue has the right hauteur and self-satisfaction for this elegant wastrel. Both Monica Welton’s airy and proud young spoiled socialite Gwendolyn and Cheryl Etzel’s brisk, bubbly, naive rural heiress Cecily are delightful. Their scenes together give the show its only sparkle.

But Bill Forant’s Earnest/Jack is no match for Royer’s Algernon. Forant is stodgy and dull and plays the role on one pompous note. Kim Eichelberger, as Cecily’s governess Miss Prism, frequently a comic gem, is bland and colorless here, as is Richard G. Lewis’ Rev. Chasuble, another plum role, and the apple of Prism’s eye.

Clay Eichelberger is undistinguished in the double role of Algernon’s butler Lane and Earnest’s butler Merriman.

The real sour note in the staging, however, is Nancy Lewis’ Lady Bracknell, who, instead of being a send-up of a superficial social maven, has been turned into a screeching shrike. Lewis may have seen Dame Edith Evans’ definitive performance of the role on film, for the homage can be heard in every line, but her harsh, indifferent readings grate on the ear, and get no laughs, not even one of the three solitary laughs the production got at last Sunday’s matinee.

BE THERE

“The Importance of Being Earnest,” Curtis Theatre, 1 Civic Center Circle, Brea. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends April 25. $15. (714) 990-7722. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.