Though “The Importance of Being Earnest” was written more than a century ago and half a world away, it’s still sharp and funny, even in Kenai. The characters, dressed in 19th-century upper-crust British attire, come across as so oblivious and so witty that audiences aren’t sure whether to laugh or groan.
The Kenai Performers’ rendition of Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy opens May 5. The play follows two men as they use fake names to make the women they want fall in love with them. The story hinges around a pun — one between the name “Ernest” and the adjective “earnest.” Cue all sorts of hijinks resulting from their lies and fake identities.
Director Amy Burton said she’s had her eye on this play for a while. A former high school director in California, she’s been acting and volunteering with the Kenai Performers since 2020, but this is her directorial debut here.
“It’s a very beloved play in the theater world, partially because Oscar Wilde is incredibly funny and witty, and it is written so, so well," Burton said. "He really creates these amazing, amazing characters, and so it lends itself just really well to portraying these kind of over-the-top characters. I love comedy, so I am just drawn to creating these over-the-top characters and kind of bringing those characters to life.”
Burton said they originally scheduled this play for 2020 but when the pandemic arrived, it threw the performing arts world for a loop. The organization was able to keep running programs to a limited degree because it recently purchased the building housing their rehearsal space. Now that things are a little more back to normal, they’ve been able to return to their full season and bring this play to life.
The characters in Wilde’s script are larger than life. The cast comprises veteran actors — some with degrees in theater and years of teaching English and drama classes — and newcomers, some of whom are performing in their first play. Burton said her job as director is to facilitate a space for actors to bring their own personalities to the script.
“I also give my actors a lot of room to play. They brought a lot to the table. It was interesting to allow them the room to kind of form their own characters and watch how they brought those characters forth,” she said.
The play careens through the cast’s case of mistaken identities over the course of two acts. In that time, there are subplots and different characters to follow, with commentary on the ridiculous lives of the upper class and the individual quirks of people’s choices in love. However, Burton said Wilde himself didn’t intend for audiences to take it too seriously.
“We could probably come up with a really great moral kind of outcome from it or we could pull some kind of life truth from it," she said. "But really, he did it for pure entertainment, and that’s really what we want. We want our audience to come out of here thinking that they’ve laughed a lot. That they’ve really enjoyed the show and that they watched a fantastic story come to life in front of their eyes.”
The play opens May 5 at the Kenai Performers Playhouse on Kalifornsky Beach Road. Showtimes are 7 p.m. May 5, 6, 7, 12, 13 and 14 and 2 p.m. May 8 and 15. Tickets can be purchased online or at the door for $20. For more information, check out the Kenai Performers’ website or Facebook page.