An 'Earnest' fashioned for the times

Bobbie Steinbach (front), Jessica Grant, and Lewis D. Wheeler. (Lyric Stage Company)

To discuss the most superficial matters first - and isn't that what dear Oscar would have wanted? - the costumes for "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the Lyric Stage Company are a complete delight.

Gail Astrid Buckley has compiled the most fantastic assortment of striped silks, feathered hats, patterned waistcoats, and spats this side of Savile Row, and the wit and precision with which she deploys them delineate character even as they form a unified whole. They are, in a word, spiffy.

Spiffy too are Brynna Bloomfield's sets, with densely patterned wallpapers gracefully giving way to a trellised garden as Wilde's classic comedy of manners moves from town to country. A particularly fitting touch: the Aubrey Beardsley prints in dandyish Algernon's flat, a nod to a contemporary and kindred spirit.

Oh, but you wondered about the play? Well, it's as witty and amusing as ever - dear Oscar did know his business. Algernon and Jack are ridiculously in love with Cecily and Gwendolen, respectively, and each young lady is willing to love equally so long as she believes her intended to be named Ernest; it makes as much sense as it ever did. Lady Bracknell's millinery, condescension, and hauteur are wonderfully intact, and the benighted Miss Prism seems just dim enough to serve as the implausible plot engine she must be.

The first act starts off with a bit too much underlining, as Bob Jolly's butler Lane grimaces pointedly at Algernon's flawed piano playing. That sets Lewis D. Wheeler off on too heavy a footing as Algernon, but he rights himself as soon as he's joined by his friend Jack (a ripe young upper-class twit, plummily delivered by Ed Hoopman) and Algernon's aunt, the redoubtable Lady Bracknell, with her daughter, Jack's beloved Gwendolen.

As Gwendolen, Hannah Barth is a find: swoony, silly, breathy, and with an easily offhand gift of comic timing. Lady Bracknell, meanwhile, is a hilarious force of nature in the condensed but formidable person of Bobbie Steinbach. Steinbach controls the youngsters with the mere flick of her index finger or the pointing of an umbrella, which she wields like a lethal weapon.

But Spiro Veloudos's production doesn't really get airborne until it arrives at Jack's country home. Maybe the fresh air helps (though Shawn E. Boyle's lighting occasionally throws bad shadows in attempting to evoke a dappled glade), or maybe it's the wonderfully understated presence of Dafydd Rees as Merriman, Jack's manservant. Now there's a butler to reckon with.

Jolly reappears more successfully as the blushingly prim Chasuble, neatly balanced by Beth Gotha's amusingly mousy Miss Prism. And Jack's ward, Cecily, gets a spirited, vivacious rendering from Jessica Grant. Her love-you-hate-you-love-you scene with Barth's Gwendolen is a comic highlight.

It's all the better for being played by actors who successfully appear oblivious to just how funny it is. At its best moments, this "Earnest" does what Wilde's artifice always aims for. By fully embracing its utter artificiality, it becomes a real treat.