Breaking news, Tufts: Starting tonight at 8 p.m., you can spend two hours ogling tuxedo-wearing men with means and British accents in the Balch Arena Theater. Oh, and if you're not into that, there's a play happening, too — it's opening night for "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895), written by Oscar Wilde and performed by the Tufts Department of Drama and Dance.
The element of escapism that pervades all theater comes to a head in this biting farce of English propriety. Seeking relief from their quotidian lives, the well-off Algernon (junior Ian Burnette) and Ernest (freshman Adam Bangser) — né Jack — assume alter egos when they flee the city for the countryside.
"Importance" firmly holds a place in the classical canon of theater, and dramaturg Michelle Ashley (doctoral candidate in Drama) noted that scholars have called it "the best put together, most well-constructed comedy of all-time." Yet while it wins praise from the highest of tastes, the piece remains accessible to the masses. Director Sheriden Thomas was quick to dub it "a very funny play."
"Generally, the classics are extremely fine pieces of art," Thomas said, "but this is very entertaining in addition. It's a hoot and holler."
From hierarchy to marriage, no aspect of Victorian society is safe from Wilde's irreverent pen in "Importance." Subtitled "A Trivial Comedy for Serious People," the play especially attacks the human tendency to make mountains out of molehills.
Ashley believes that this mockery of petty matters makes "Importance" a relevant piece.
"We find trivial things important, just as these people find cucumber sandwiches excessively important," Ashley said, referencing a quibble between Algernon and Ernest over a tray of hors d'oeuvres.
Even marinated in wit, the characters' bewildered identities and insincerities could be very unpleasantly portrayed in untalented hands. Fortunately, according to Thomas, the cast has a fine grasp on even the muddled facets of the piece.
"They're great," Thomas said, referring to the actors. "Tufts students are amazing. They're very fast, very devoted, very smart — and this is a very smart comedy."
Audiences can expect robust performances from this cast. Senior Lara Vancans' portrayal of Gwendolen, Jack's shallow and absurd love interest, is brilliantly saucy as she drags her doting suitor's heart across the stage. She and her co-stars couple sweeping melodramatics with stodgy etiquette to reveal the audacious foolishness of their characters.
The decided minimalism of the set seems more a strategic, rather than aesthetic, decision: It offers sufficient room for the actors to blow minutiae out of proportion.
That's not to say that this performance hones in on the writing and acting to the point that it abandons atmosphere. Act II transforms Algernon's polished sitting room into a verdant garden, complete with an ivy-smothered swing tumbling down from the ceiling. There's even a strict and sycophantic butler who cheerfully breaks the fourth wall to dictate the length of intermission ("Ten minutes, no more, no less").
A jaunty musical score affirms the mischievous, trifling nature of the play and its characters.
Though the actors are certainly aiming for laughs, Thomas wouldn't have audience members take "Importance" entirely as a lark.
"It's about the absurdity of the hypocrisy of the upper classes in England at the time," she said. "It is a reminder that we are also contradictory — in our nonsensical beliefs, in our social mores."
In other words, audience members who laugh at this play — as most audience members are wont to do — will be laughing a little bit at themselves, as well … but at least they'll be laughing.
"The Importance of Being Earnest" is playing tonight through Feb. 19 and Feb. 24 through Feb. 26. Tickets can be purchased at the Cohen Auditorium box office for $7 with a Tufts ID and for $1 on Feb. 24.
