Byline: Sharon Eberson

Aug. 04--A lonely Oscar Wilde, six months before his death in 1900, sits in a Paris cafe and recalls the opening-night triumph of "The Importance of BeingEarnest," a night that also marked the beginning of his downfall. The playwright scans the scene and begins building his ideal production of his most famous play. The scene first played out in Conall Morrison's imagination, with the idea that "Earnest," a searing satire of the Victorian upper crust, became Wilde's enduring success because it contained so much of the playwright himself. It will play out again for PittsburghIrish & ClassicalTheatre in the all-male production that begins in previews tonight and opens Saturday.

"That came about from my perception, when I watch Oscar Wilde's plays, even the ones that are the social dramas, 'A Woman of No Importance' and 'An Ideal Husband.' For me when they most come alive, when you feel the heartbeat of his personality, is when he does comedy," Mr. Morrison said. "Whenever the comedy kicks in, they really zing."

The play opens with the playwright conjuring a vision of the cafe's male denizens in each of "Earnest's" role, but saving the plum -- the outrageous Lady Bracknell -- for himself. It's "The Importance of BeingEarnest" reimagined as Mr. Morrison suspects Wilde would have imagined it. The director has not tampered with the wit and wisdom of Wilde's satire but hopes his additions have enhanced the experience and the comedy of the oft-produced "Earnest," which opened in 1895 to raves but closed as a result of scandal over the playwright's homosexual affairs, which resulted in a prison term. "The language is astonishing; a string of jewels beautifully lined up together," Mr. Morrison said of the importance of "Earnest." "Much of it is ridiculous nonsense, the situations are absurd, yet it does have a wonderful turnover of story about the pursuit of classic objectives: love, marriage and money. There are all these kind of paradoxes that undermine traditional ethics, but always in service of the narrative. That's why it is arguably the best comedy in the English language -- it has astonishing wit and jokes, but the story never stops moving." Mr. Morrison and Alan Stanford, who directed Wilde's "Salome" for PICT in 2008, come to Pittsburgh with help from an NEA grant. Their collaboration was essential to the task, Mr. Morrison said. "I've known Alan for a long time, and I knew he was an Oscar Wilde obsessive," Mr. Morrison said. "He knows more about Oscar Wilde than Oscar Wilde ever knew; sort of a repository of Oscar-ania. Alan had always struck me as looking like Wilde, very tall and imposing in the way Oscar was, with a sort of somber face and a funny actor as well, and intelligent and articulate. So when I thought of this idea, I thought, 'Alan Stanford.' And he was up for it." There's a theatrical tradition of actors in drag as Lady Bracknell, most recently with Brian Bedford earning a Tony nomination in the role. So the idea that the character of Wilde would choose an all-male cast isn't a giant leap. "He kind of becomes the director of this play, and he casts it the way he would have loved to have cast it, which is to have beautiful boys playing all the roles, dressed in beautiful Parisienne clothes ... so Oscar the esthete manages to improve on social standards and even to improve on nature. And of course he ends up saying, ah, what the hell, I'll play Lady Bracknell, my most famous creation."

Lady Bracknell is Wilde's embodiment of imperious, hypocritical high society as she determines to see that her daughter, Gwendolyn, is married to someone of the proper social standing. Gwendolyn accepts the proposal of Jack, charmed when she is led to believe his real name is Ernest, just one of the many deceits perpetrated from start to finish.

The title's "Earnest" is a play on words -- "earnest" was Victorian slang for gay. The play opened as a feud with the Marquess of Queensberry, over Wilde's affair with the aristocrat's married son, hit full tilt and before Wilde was imprisoned for "gross indecencies" with men.

"The play is just full of, in kind of ironic ways, of these autobiographical details: leading double lives, the hypocrisy of society, the subterfuges and ruses. ... There are all sorts of little echoes as if in some bizarre sense he had premonitions of what was to come," Mr. Morrison said.

Working at PICT with a mostly American cast, Mr. Morrison has been impressed by the work ethic among Martin Giles, David Whelan, Leo Marks and other names familiar to the company's audience. "I'm not saying that Irish actors don't work hard, but these guys go at it with a kind of a will and an unceasing energy," he said. He's also found it rejuvenating to work with a new group that so embraces the Wilde ways and in Oakland's Stephen Foster Memorial Theater, which "in its glorious over-the-top-ness really adds to the decadence of the piece." Perhaps it's the opportunity to play dress-up and step into a woman's heels that has some of the actors so enthusiastic about this production of "Earnest." "We got the guys into rehearsal frocks and shoes as soon as possible, but I've long observed that actors just can't wait to get into frocks," Mr. Morrison said. "Gay or straight actors, they just want to get into frocks." Sharon Eberson: [email protected] or 412-263-1960.

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By Sharon Eberson