In Fort Collins, Bas Bleu presents Oscar Wilde’s timeless comedy.

Watching The Importance of Being Earnest can feel like seeing the genesis of half the stage comedies ever written since its debut in 1895. Oscar Wilde’s drawing room play is English humor at its best — wealthy prigs chasing romance and money whilst engaging in a series of farcical situations that grow more ludicrous as the scenes mount.

In the production now running at Fort Collins’ Bas Bleu Theatre, Director Steve Keim has a solid cast working on a minimalist but highly functional set to tell the story of a pair of rakes who both have alternate identities to further their own ends. Jack Worthing (a frenetic Calvin McConnell) lives in the country but upon visiting London takes on the handle “Earnest” as he pursues the hand of Gwendolen (a perpetually alarmed and very funny Elisabeth Sells). He’s compelled to admit this to Algernon (a wonderfully foppish Brett Darling), who is Gwendolen’s cousin, who then cops to also having a fake alter-ego named Earnest for his forays to the country.

From this preposterous premise comes a barrage of signature Wilde wit as the two men trade barbs and Jack presses his case with Gwendolen’s mother, Lady Bracknell (Wendy Ishii). There are questions about Jack’s humble origin that she finds disqualifying, and he decamps to the country where we take up the action in Act Two.

Here, we meet Cecily — an excellent Elisabeth Larson — Jack’s young ward, who’s being tutored by her governess Miss Prism (Robyn Krause). We also meet local priest Rev. Canon Chasuble (Jeffrey Bigger) who, it’s soon clear, has the hots for Prism. Larson nails perky Cecily, whom Wilde endows with some of the play’s quirkiest lines. Bigger similarly pegs Chasuble’s droll witticisms and double entendres as he and Prism struggle to contain their lust for one another.

Wendy Ishii wields a deadly upper-crust British accent as Lady Bracknell, using it effectively to look down her nose at those she thinks might be beneath her. She also has a number of excellent lines like “Thirty-five is an attractive age. London is full of women of the highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”

Brett Darling and Wendy Ishii as Algernon and Lady Bracknell. | Photo: William Cotton Photography

Uneven in spots

Reviewing all of these characters reveals a cast that at times seems at odds with itself in terms of how broadly to play the various types. Darling, Bigger, Larson and Ishii strike what seems the right chord of comedic balance — more or less normal people caught up in absurd situations and armed with excellent lines with which to move forward. Some of the other players, however, turn the silly knob up a bit high.

Sells is highly amusing as Gwendolen, but at times she has the character’s incredulity dialed so far up that she ultimately has nowhere to go. McConnell’s performance is a breathless Marty McFly/Ferris Bueller mashup that leaves less room for exploration as the play reaches its climax.

More concerning, particularly in Act Three, is the pacing. Wilde’s script is meant to bring home the comedy with a cascading sequence of reveals and twists that rely on sharp, precise timing and spot-on line delivery. In the matinee I saw Feb. 22, the second show in the run, the cast just wasn’t there yet. I wouldn’t normally take notice of a few bobbled lines this early in the run, but there were enough of them to take the wind out of the sails on multiple occasions. Keim’s blocking also didn’t seem to give the actors enough to do physically, leaving them in static positions just as the action was reaching its peak.

It may be 130 years old, but The Importance of Being Earnest has lost none of its bite — particularly in our present era where the gap between the haves and have-nots is as ripe for skewering as it was in Victorian England. With a cast that largely finds the right register for Wilde’s razor-sharp wit and a cozy venue that puts you right in the drawing room, Bas Bleu’s production is plenty of fun. Just give them a few more performances to tighten up that third act.