PHOTOS: Upper School Students Bring Oscar Wilde’s Satire The Importance of Being Earnest to Life 

In four performances in the McGregor Theater last week, eight talented Upper School actors performed the 2022 Upper School play The Importance of Being Earnest. 

 

This production was guest directed by Darcy Rice, stage managed by junior Sophia Kistler, and the lighting design was by junior Jack Justus. According to Mr. Rice, this play is Oscar Wilde’s best-known play and is famous for its witty, epigrammatic dialogue and outrageous characters.

 

In Oscar Wilde’s The Important of Being Earnest, Jack Worthing (Jack Klausner) invents a fictitious brother, “Ernest,” whose wicked ways afford Jack an excuse to leave his country home from time to time and journey to London. In London, he stays with his close friend, Algernon Moncrieff, played by Malcolm Matthew.

 

During his London sojourn’s, Jack, under the name Ernest, has won Gwendolyn Fairfax’s (Maddie Bendzick) love, for she strongly desires to marry someone with the confidence-inspiring name of Ernest. But when he asks for her hand from the formidable Lady Bracknell (Mari Edler), Jack finds he must reveal he is a foundling who was left in a handbag in a train station. Lady Bracknell insists he produce at least one parent before she consents to the marriage. 

 

Returning to the country home where he lives with his ward Cecily Cardew (Gigi Policicchio) and her governess Miss Prism (Jordan Reder), Jack finds that Algernon has also arrived under the identity of the nonexistent brother, Ernest. Algernon falls madly in love with Cecily, who has long been enamored with the mysterious and fascinating brother Ernest. The butlers Lane and Merriman (Mac Ullem) helped tell the comedic story as well as convey props needed in the scenes. 

 

Jake Reeves played the Cardew family rector, Reverend Canon Chasuble, who was called upon to christen both Jack and Algernon so that they could go by the name of Ernest.

 

The Victorian-era costumes were designed by Sarah Timm who also helped student hair and makeup designers, Kate D’Amaro, Jordan Reder and Kaylynn Yang.