Judith Miller, Kyle Smith, Drew Benjamin Jones Photo by Evelyn Huynh

Silicon Valley Shakespeare has produced this antiestablishment drawing room comedy with amiable results, delivering its absurd notions farcically, but not over the top. Performed outdoors on a stage venue surrounded by stately redwoods, the combination of provocative culture and the grandeur of nature provide an embracing evening.

Like Algernon, whom the playwright probably identifies with, Wilde parodies hypocritical Victorian manners and exposes the truths that they hide. A pointed and poignant observation concerns bunburyism, which derives from Algernon's fictitious friend Bunbury, whose convenient illnesses provide cover for Algernon to avoid social engagements. The hypocrisy extends to Algernon's friend having a dual identity, in which he is Jack where he lives with his ward Cecily in the country, but Ernest when he cavorts in London.

A classic Algernon, actor Drew Benjamin Jones displays the typical foppish mannerisms of a late-Victorian gentleman with a taste for high-waisted suits and cucumber sandwiches. Yet he rebels against upper class mores, most represented by his Aunt Augusta, otherwise known as Lady Bracknell. The redoubtable Judith Miller is Lady Bracknell, and she hilariously captures all of the character's imperiousness, fractured thinking, and superciliousness that are targeted by Wilde's vitriolic pen.

Lady Bracknell's backward thinking is absurd and oblivious, and her misguided quotes could fill a journal. She would impede learning (by the masses?) by noting that "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance," or posits the ridiculous with comments like "To lose one parent ... may be regarded as misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness."

Within this intellectual miasma, Jack asks Gwendolyn for her hand, but her mother, Lady Bracknell, on learning that Jack was a foundling rescued from Victoria tube station, refuses the match, noting that "I would not allow my only daughter to marry into a cloak room." Showing that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, the also frivolous Gwendolyn agrees to marry Jack but says that she can only really love a man named Ernest. Among the playwright's observations, it is clear that while men in this society visibly dominate affairs, the women usually get what they want.

The name Ernest itself is a hot commodity in the narrative. Cecily had created fantasies about an Ernest. Jack "kills off" his fake brother Ernest. Algernon poses as Ernest and falls in love with Cecily. Jack plans to be rechristened Ernest. And so on.

Overall, the acting is quite pleasing and the production hits the right notes in creating the ambiance. Normally, movement wouldn't deserve commentary in a review, but director Sara Kannen Dean's dealing with the small touches turns them into being notable. When Algernon keeps a cigarette case from Jack, it is orchestrated like a humorous, sweeping dance. Movements in unison, particularly Gwendolyn and Cecily's sitting down lock step and multiple examples of turning heads or bodies as one, create effects. And while Mitchell Ost's scenic design is most fitting, the ceremonious changeovers of props by the cast make it an event.

It is interesting to note that one of the criticisms of The Importance of Being Earnest from critics at its 1895 opening was that it lacked social content. Did they see the same play as I did? It teems with social commentary and criticism with virtually every exchange between characters. Perhaps the critics were too close to that society to perceive that Wilde's rapier wit cut it to shreds. This reviewer can say in earnest that this is an essential play, and the Silicon Valley Shakes version, while it won't compete with Broadway, is a fun way to see it.

The Importance of Being Earnest runs through September 4, 2026, at Sanborn County Park, 16055 Sanborn Road, Saratoga CA. For tickets and information, please visit www.svshakespeare.org.