by Jenn McKee

Article:9848; Posted: June 16, 2015 at 10:00 a.m.

There’s a key moment in Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” when a man who’d once been a foundling produces the black handbag in which he’d been abandoned as an infant.

In Slipstream Theatre Initiative’s new, pared-down version of the classic play, the handbag is a teeny wallet, and Lady Bracknell (Richard Payton) observes that the now-grown foundling character, Jack Worthing (Graham Todd), must have been a “micro-baby.”

All of which is to say, this isn’t your grandparents’ “Earnest.”

Much of Wilde’s original text remains intact, but Slipstream’s intermission-free production pares the script down so that the running time clocks in at just over 90 minutes; features an all-male cast; and sets the action in the deep South – specifically, Atlanta and Willacoochee (a town name I can’t help but think Wilde would appreciate, applaud, and insert into a play as soon as humanly possible). Plus, rather than having a set change, the production moves its audience to a second room.

Yes, Slipstream gleefully tosses much of what we’ve come to expect, by way of modern theater conventions, out the nearest window. And what a goofy, fantastic time they have by doing so.

The story, of course, begins when city-dwelling Algernon (Steve Xander Carson) gets a visit from his friend Jack Worthing (Todd), who reluctantly confesses that he’s a guardian to 18-year-old Cecily Cardew (Bailey Boudreau), stationed at his country home; and that he’s come to propose to Algernon’s cousin Gwendolyn (Patrick Flanagan), who soon arrives with her mother, the comically stuffy Lady Bracknell (Payton). The proposal is received well by Gwendolyn – who only knows Jack as Ernest, his “city alias” – but not Lady Bracknell.

Jack decides that his imaginary, ne’er-do-well brother Ernest, whom Jack uses to get out of unappealing social obligations, must be killed off. But at the same time, Algernon grows anxious to meet young Cecily, so he travels out to the country to meet her, introducing himself as – wait for it – Ernest. Misunderstandings that drive the story ensue.

The first act’s set (Algernon’s apartment) is a cramped corner strewn with beer cans and bottles, a Millenium Falcon rug, a couple of seats and funky lamps – you know, the consummate bachelor’s pad. When the theater is at capacity, as it was on opening night, patrons squeeze together on benches in front of, and alongside, the space, making the action, and the theater-going experience, far more than simply “intimate.” It’s downright visceral.

The second act, which begins when the audience has moved to an adjacent room and has been re-situated on its rows of benches, is set at Jack’s country house: the room is brightly painted in green, and it’s furnished with a kiddie pool and some uncomfortable, white, fussy Victorian outdoor chairs (the source of a few physical jokes).

Payton has a grand time chomping on every bit of scenery, and wheeling recklessly around the sets in a motorized wheelchair. With a stacked-high blond wig, a booty-shaking toddle,and super-dry delivery, Payton played the pompous Lady Bracknell to the hilt. Ryan Ernst provides a funny straight-man – two, actually. He plays both Algernon’s long-suffering servant Lane, and the country house servant, Merriman. And Boudreau is hysterical, whether he’s jumping in the kiddie pool with Flanagan, self-obsessively writing in a diary, or leaping into Carson’s arms, all while delivering lines in a wise-beyond-her-years Southern drawl.

Director Luna Alexander oversees all this lunacy, and does so with such a sense of irreverent abandon that it’s pretty impossible not to be seduced. Yes, as with the original, full-length play, the energy and spark flattens a bit as you get impatient for the misunderstandings to get straightened out. But generally, this bawdy, no-holds-barred approach to (or assault on?) “Earnest” feels exactly right.

For Wilde wanted us to laugh hard at these characters and their ridiculous foibles. Too often, Victorian era comedies like “Earnest” are produced as dry, stiff, museum pieces – productions that occasionally cause audience members to, at most, politely titter. Part of this, of course, is due to the many ways we’ve changed, and how humor has evolved, since the time when “Earnest” originally was a hit on stage. But this makes it all the more impressive that Slipstream has figured out how to breathe new life – and for the love of God, FUN – into a script more than a century old.

I have to think that Oscar himself would heartily approve.

SHOW DETAILS:
The Importance of Being Earnest
Slipstream Summer Home, 20937 John R. Rd, Hazel Park
June 14–July 7, 2015
Evening performances Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m.
Price: $10 (in advance, no walkins)
248.298.9617
SlipstreamTI.com