Few modern plays are more widely known, read, or performed than Oscar Wilde’s comedic masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest. Premiering in 1895, I believe it was the most performed comedy of the 20^th century. Given that repute, it is a daunting task to adapt the play, as Sterling Sax did for Nittany Theatre at the Barn, in a production directed by Dave Saxe. Cutting the play down from nine characters to five was an interesting choice, which had a mixed effect.

While most of the characters cut from the show—Lane, Merriman, and Dr. Chasuble—could easily be done away with, cutting Ms. Prism produced a very odd effect at the end of the play. Of course, Algernon’s conversations with an off-stage (and non-responsive) Lane, or Jack’s conversations with a similarly absent Dr. Chasuble were slightly awkward, but they weren’t detrimental to the show itself. But eliminating Ms. Prism, who ultimately leads to the unravelling of the entire conflict, made for an ending that moved very awkwardly. It doesn’t make much sense to keep Lady Bracknell’s demand that Ms. Prism be brought at once, then to immediately move on and have Lady Bracknell and the others supply the entire story of Jack’s origins and the mix-up with the handbag, baby, novel, and pram. It’s possible that the ending could have been written in such a way as to make this a smooth resolution, but because Ms. Prism is the missing element in revealing Jack’s origins (which allows the play’s happy ending) it feels like we haven’t quite gotten there if she is called for but then never appears.

Although some of the cuts and revisions to the play were questionable, the performances by the actors were generally quite strong, especially by the female members of the ensemble. Each of these actors brought their own distinct style and strengths to the performance, but each in her own way evoked British performance traditions of melodrama or music hall, which really played up the camp humor of Earnest. Lady Bracknell (Laura Ann Saxe) is one of the most delightful roles—in my opinion—in all of theatre. She is a haughty aristocrat with a finely developed sense of irony and a superiority complex only matched by her dedication to the arts of society. Saxe’s performance was more energetic than I typically picture Lady Bracknell, with more gestures and a raised voice, but she brought a dynamic energy to the character which balanced the kind of hoity-toity looking down one’s nose that I associate with the character with occasionally flying off the handle to keep Gwendolyn (Jocelyn Kotary) from being close to Jack (Tim Billiett).

Kotary’s performance was smaller than Saxe’s, with less big gestures, but she did a masterful job using facial expressions to generate humor. Kotary’s performance really reminded me of British music hall or of early silent films, where performers relied on facial expression. There isn’t much substance to Gwendolyn—out of all the major characters, she is most an object acted upon, as opposed to acting for herself—but she has some great commentary. One thing Kotary did to really stand out in perhaps the weakest major role of the play would be to deliver one of Gwendolyn’s lines and then look at the audience in a mix of confusion and self-satisfaction, which said “this character knows she’s supposed to be witty, but doesn’t fully know why.”

Courtney Witmer also gave a great performance as Cecily Cardew, blending a kind of wide-eyed innocence with a clearly controlling hand designed specifically to assert her will. Cecily, being associated with the country, is supposed to be a send up of stereotypical simplicity and purity, and Witmer conveyed that through her facial expressions, which were often wide expressions of astonishment or hope, especially when dealing with Algernon (Jeff Buterbaugh) in his guise of Earnest Worthing. However, we also saw the opposite component of Cecily’s personality, when she skillfully manipulates Algernon, and then wins Lady Bracknell’s approval. Watching Lady Bracknell’s inspection of Cecily, one had the not entirely comfortable sensation of watching something like a dog show, where the winner knows exactly what must be done to win and tries her best to fulfill that expectation. For instance, the way Witmer held her hands, turned up at the wrists, with arms slightly out from her body, suggested a studied poise—a pose meant to convey delicacy, sophistication, and good manners, but which also faintly suggested the country denizen trying too hard to fit the grace she thinks society expects.

My one critique of the performances is of the decision to perform using fake English accents. Many people, even actors, do not do accents well, and do not sustain them well. It’s just rough to hear a play done entirely in what are clearly fake accents.