Centerstage performs Wilde's classic comedy

With so much of our modern entertainment consisting of sitcoms, our society owes a debt, in a way, to the original master of such situational wit and banter, Oscar Wilde, and his arguably most popular play, The Importance of Being Earnest. This unapologetically entertaining show is playing through Nov. 8 at Centerstage Theater, and the production is a fresh take on an old favorite.

The stage opens to actor Luke Robertson, portraying dandy Algernon Moncrieff, sitting at the piano and casually playing a tune. His first interactions are with his butler Lane (Bill Kux), whose humor was stiff, but wry - convincingly servile, but also effortlessly funny. Although Kux, who also played the second butler Merriman, had fewer lines, he played each one to its full comedic potential.

In short order, the play introduces Jack Worthing (Ben Huber), who has been going by the name of Ernest, in order to have some freedom from his life in the country, where he is guardian to an 18-year old girl, Cecily Cardew, played by Nicole Lowrance. If you don't know the plot of The Importance of Being Earnest, this is about where it gets too complicated to satisfactorily explain.Robertson and Huber quickly set the affected, but dynamically hilarious and youthful tone of the play. Algernon, immune to the constraints of etiquette, bounces his wit off of the uptight Jack, relishing moments when he can tease his friend. However, Robertson also lets his character laugh at himself at times, adding to his charm and likability.

The character of Lady Bracknell, or Aunt Augusta, was played by Laurence O'Dwyer in drag, a casting decision described as simply giving the part to the right actor. According to theater dramaturg Gavin Witt, the part of Lady Bracknell has been played by a man in a number of other productions of the play, although in this case, the effect was not as "campy" as it might have been. O'Dwyer, who was recently called "Best Actor" for 2009 by Baltimore Magazine, was especially comedic, although casually so rather than forcefully.

Especially ironic lines were reinforced with a wave of the hand, looking for affirmation, which came in the form of laughter from the audience. Overall, O'Dwyer just seemed to be having fun, and it was infectious.Actress Gretchen Hall played the adorable and silly Gwendolyn Fairfax, who is forbidden by Lady Bracknell to accept Jack's hand in marriage. Although the inflection in her delivery was sometimes hard to follow, her exaggerated and enthusiastic performance was effectively hilarious.

Once the setting moves to the countryside, her counterpart, the engaging, petulant character Cecily enters the plot. She is a contrast to her uptight teacher, Miss Prism (Carmen Roman), and her teacher's love interest, Reverend Chasuble, (John Rothman). Miss Prism minces and winces throughout the play, to great comedic effect, while Cecily wins Algernon's heart with her childlike affection and affectations.

The directing, by Irene Lewis, kept the actors moving across the stage, with some lounging on the furniture, and the couples falling over each other, by accident, into sexually suggestive positions. Some of the most hilarious moments came when a slight innuendo in the script was played up for all it was worth. For example, Algernon straddles a bench , in an obvious breach of good manners, next to his love interest Cecily. She, in turn, later pours water from a watering can down the front of her dress in order to cool off after kissing her new beau.

One of the more original features of this production was the set changes between acts. Because the intermission of this play actually fell in the middle of a scene, these changes required some creative disguising. The decision was to have dream-like interludes where stagehands dressed as maids move the furniture, while couples- Hall and Huber, then Robertson and O'Dwyer- dance together around the stage, their movement choreographed by Nicco Annan.

The production of the whole seemed to be paying tribute to Wilde. Some of Wilde's quotes were displayed around the theater, and his "presence" was emphasized by a large, yellow-tinted portrait of him above the set. The scenic director, Riccardo Hernandez, designed the rest of the set in an appealing palette of fuchsia, white, black and hints of green. The most striking and modern feature of the set was the line of three-dimensional, 10-foot high, white letters spelling "EARNEST" across the stage. The actors interacted and arranged these versatile letters during the scenes, as though in a linguistic playground. The Victorian-style furniture was mostly black and white, or light fuchsia, with modern twists such as a zebra-print pattern.

The costumes in this show, by costume designer Candice Donnely, were also surprisingly modern. During the talk after the show, Witt described this deviation from pure Victorian fashion as an attempt to acknowledge the "modernity" of the show. The costumes were supposed to be a "synthesis" - for example, mutton sleeves which echoed both the 1890s, and the shoulder pads of the 1980s.

The hemlines were interpreted especially liberally, with the ingenuous Cecily prancing and sometimes crawling across the floor in a pouffy flowered dress, often flashing her ruffled undergarments.

Indeed, if you go, you might be surprised by how well Oscar Wilde's writing holds up in the modern day. And if Wilde's writing isn't usually your cup of tea, bear in mind his own opinion on the matter: "There are two ways of disliking my plays. One is to dislike them, the other is to like Earnest."