Campy play mugs from gag to gag

Nearly 100 years ago, after George Bernard Shaw saw the opening of Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest,” he wrote “It amused me, of course, but unless comedy touches me as well as amuses me, it leaves me with a sense of having wasted my evening.” The same might be said for the revival of “Earnest” playing through July 25 at Acadia Repertory Theatre. It’s all very amusing, but not very touching.

Shaw was disappointed with three long acts of laughter for laughter’s sake, but it’s not the script that misses in this current production. The acting and directing suffer from — believe it or not — an overabundance of farce. A play that is so swiftly written, so bitingly slapstick with satire, does not need melodramatic actions to support its humor and drive home its point — even if that point is merely to make you laugh. “It must go like a pistol shot,” said Wilde, and while the production moves along at an acceptable pace, it has no bang.

Returning guest director Wayne Loui has infused Wilde’s play about marriage, lies, and love with about as much liveliness as possible. The actors frequently deliver animated lines directly to the audience, and have sweeping, emotional responses to the simplest things. Sometimes, the production is cartoonish, sometimes like one of the old talkie films, but rarely like the society it sets out to mock. The key to Wilde is the perfect mix of the immature emotional side and the over-intellectual style of the day. It was Wilde’s point that trivial things are serious and serious things are trivial, and Loui’s production leans too much toward the trivial.

Instead of progressing from scene to scene, this campy production progressed from pose to pose and gag to gag, which can be annoying in a 2 1/2-hour show. The cast, in general, lacked a sharpness in timing and a smoothness in movement. The opportunisitic and smug Algernon (Alan Gallant) does not need to raise his eyebrows or cock his head importantly at every comment. And the conniving Gwendolyn (Alexandra Loria) is hardly a model of Victorian voguing. In the second act of the play, there is a wildly venomous yet subtle scene between Gwendolyn and the apparently innocent Cecily (Grace Jordan), but the scene is completely lost as Loria and Jordan rush through their lines and movements with very little punch. Similarly, Lou Solomon and Kevin Moriarty as the house servants are rather flat in roles that should add so much spice to the play.

Although he garbles his words from time to time, Ted Cancila as John Worthing is great fun to watch. Eugene J. Tierney as the reverend Chasuble is memorable, too, for his understated delivery.

Claudia Traub doesn’t quite affect the age, wit and largeness of Lady Bracknell, and Peggi Parsley-Cole is more like a granny than a governess as Miss Prism.

Ken Stack’s scenic design is unusually sparse and unappealing, with feigned marble columns that serve as both drawing room and garden. Karen Malm’s costumes are, likewise, fairly inelegant.

Fortunately, the script of this play is so naturally funny that even when the lines are thrown away — and a lot of them are — they are still catchable and entertaining. Although this deliciously complicated and ridiculous play should bring the house down with rollicking laughter, you could hardly say it did so opening night. There was laughter, but not nearly as much as there should have been.

“The Importance of Being Earnest” will be performed 8:15 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday through July 25 and 2 p.m. July 25 at Acadia Repertory Theatre in Somesville. For tickets, call 244-7260.