Long Beach Shakespeare Co. camps up “The Importance of Being Earnest” to great effect

In my early 20s — a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away — I counted The Importance of Being Earnest as a fave. But well before turning 30, all that verbal slapstick left me cold — and so, decades later, I was planning to skip Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s new production. 

“Then again,” I thought, “the last time I chanced one of their non-Shakespeare offerings, September 2025’s A Doll’s House, it was one of the best things I saw all year. And it’s not like I think Earnest is a bad play, so….”

Good choice, Greggory, as director Rebekah Walendzak Slepski’s NewRo take deliciously leans into the silly with just the right self-conscious style to tickle even if Oscar Wilde doesn’t delight as he once did.

If you’ve never seen Earnest, you may as well skip the rest of this review and proceed directly to buying a ticket, because you shouldn’t shuffle off this mortal coil without having seen a good production of this drawing-room classic (maybe the drawing-room classic). But if you’re still reading, here’s the story: although Jack (Adriano Brown) keeps a house in the country — where his ward Cecily (Jacqueline Vellandi) resides — he loves London life, so he’s invented a younger brother named Ernest whose supposed profligacy Jack frequently uses as an excuse to go to town. He lives life there under that fictional brother’s name, pursuing the affections of posh Gwendolen (Angie Green) and having a (not literally (although…?)) gay old time with her cousin Algernon (Cole Flores) — who himself knows a thing or two about a well-placed fiction in the service of pleasurable pursuits. Gwendolen feels she could never love anyone not named ‘Ernest,’ and Cecily fancies herself in love with Ernest, and Algernon goes out to the country posing as Ernest, and….

In the program, Slepski claims that “Earnest endures because it understands a timeless truth: we all wear masks” and “beneath the laughter lies a surprisingly modern question: Who are we when no one is watching, and who do we become when the world insists we a play a role.” Frankly, I don’t buy it. I don’t think there’s anything beneath Earnest’s silly surface. 

But that’s more than okay, because this is just where Slepski succeeds. From the moment the lights come up, the camp amp is turned to 11, mugging so hard that maybe 15% of their dialog is directed to the audience rather than to each other, thus inviting us in on the joke that this isn’t even serious comedy, but only (“only”) a highly calculated attempt at style over substance. Had they reined it in to the more mannered farce that we usually get with Earnest (for example, in the 1952 film adaptation), I, for one, would have enjoyed it far less. 

Because the entire cast revels in this approach, it’s a bit misleading to single anyone out. But let’s just say that while Cole Flores ravenously chews the scenery (a term that’s usually a put-down, but not here), there isn’t a person treading the boards who isn’t both hungry and has a good set of choppers. 

Apropos of “scenery,” although this bare-bones take on Earnest would’ve worked without anything to speak of on this front, Max de Bernadine has come up with a set design that is not only highly functional but also yields a few surprises. Elsewhere in the mise en scène, Terry Hill’s costumes are far nattier than we have any right to expect in a black box. 

Seeing another production of The Importance of Being Earnest after all these years doesn’t make me like it any better. My taste in art has simply traveled too many miles from I loved it so. But Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s production does remind me that, so long as you’re dealing with material of a certain craft and quality — and say what you will about Wilde, you can’t say he lacks on that score — there are always new ways to stir up old embers and generate a little present-tense warmth. 

The Importance of Being Earnest at Long Beach Shakespeare Company
Times: Fri–Sat 8:00 p.m., Sun 2:00 p.m.
The show runs through July 25.
Cost: $16.50 to $26.50 (including fees)
Details: (562) 997-1494; LBshakespeare.org 
Venue: Helen Borgers Theatre, 4250 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach