To update Oscar Wilde is a perilous game. He is a playwright locked in the manners and mores of his time. To change the context is to risk sacrificing the comedy. Undeterred, director Josh Roche makes a convincing stab at a 21st-century makeover of The Importance of Being Earnest, first performed in 1895, even if the concept wobbles after its initial gains.
By setting the play among today’s idle rich, Roche breathes fresh life into a familiar classic. Algernon Moncrieff (Parth Thakerar) lounges around in his smart-but-casual cottons, up-turning discarded takeaway cartons and picking out the tune of Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody on his Casio keyboard. His pal Jack Worthing (Robin Morrissey) is a public-school layabout with more education than sense.
