The Importance of Being Earnest - Oregon Shakespeare Festival

March 8 – October 25, 2025 Angus Bowmer Theatre

Suitability and Accessibility Directorâs Notes Creative Team Cast The Venue Education Events

A comedy of (hardly any) manners

Director Desdemona Chiang transports Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy of manners to the British Malay Peninsula, a colonial melting pot of South Asian, Chinese, and English communities. Two rakish young men, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, opt to navigate Victorian-era expectations of courtship simply by evading them. But when their personas and egos begin to collide, the pair get caught up in a wit-fueled whirlwind of mistaken identities and romantic snafus. This “trivial comedy for serious people” reveals the absurd lengths that humans will go to in pursuit of acceptance, love, and truth.

Approximate running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes, including two intermissions.

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Suitability Suggestions

From the play’s beginning, Wilde spins a feast of wit and escalating absurdity. This classic comedy is suitable for all ages.

For additional content warnings regarding violence or graphic depictions that may be upsetting to some audience members, please see our Content Warnings page (may contain spoilers).

Accessibility

The Angus Bowmer Theatre is outfitted with an elevator that takes patrons to either Row E or Row K.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is committed to accessibility. We recognize the needs of persons with disabilities and strive to make our facilities and productions accessible to all. Please visit our Accessibility page for details about 2025 programs and services as they develop.

A Tea Party with the Cast of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

Production Photos

One figure kneels in front of another who throws their arms in the air in apparent joy, both dressed in elaborate period clothing.

A person in a yellow outfit pins a flower to another’s lapel in a lush outdoor setting, both gazing at each other.

Two characters stand side by side, one appearing concerned while the other looks shocked, wearing a large, decorative hat.

A figure in a blue floral outfit clutches a handkerchief, looking concerned, while another in an ornate pink gown stands sternly behind them.

A group of actors in vibrant period costumes huddle around a book, displaying expressions of shock, excitement, and curiosity.

Two individuals sit on a couch in a lavishly decorated room, both holding their heads in frustration or contemplation.

One character in a formal black coat holds hands with another who is dramatically sprawled on the floor, while a third person watches in distress.

Two pairs of dancers move passionately in an elegant room, while a third pair enters dramatically from the background.

A joyful group portrait of the rehearsal team, with everyone laughing and posing playfully. The group stands and sits together in a bright rehearsal space, conveying camaraderie and energy.

View rehearsal photo gallery.

Director’s Notes

I first encountered The Importance of Being Earnest in college, when I was assigned to perform the ever-popular Gwendolen/Cecily tea scene in a beginning acting class. I knew nothing about Oscar Wilde, had never heard the term “comedy of manners,” and was terrified at having to pull off a British accent. (Did the teacher not know that English was my second language???)

It was bad. Like, “suppress-these-memories-until-you-go-to-therapy-someday” bad. My British accent sounded fake, shrill, and stilted, while everyone else seemed to speak the Queen’s English trippingly off the tongue. I was so embarrassed.

Fast forward nearly thirty years later: A lot has happened. I’m a working director in the American theatre. I do classical plays. I live in Ashland, home to one of the most renowned Shakespeare companies in the country. And I’m not afraid of the Queen’s English anymore.

One morning, I’m having coffee with Tim Bond, discussing OSF’s 90th Anniversary Season, and he casually floats the idea of The Importance of Being Earnest. And suddenly, like a bad LSD flashback, memories of that mortifying acting assignment come flooding back. But I manage to eke out a generic but convincing response:

“You know, I haven’t read it since college. I’d love to look at it again.”

And upon revisiting Mr. Wilde a second time, I realized:

This is a play about young people trying to manage big feelings in a low EQ world. The women are blunt. The men are dodgy. Innuendos are everywhere! It isn’t always laugh-out-loud-funny, but it is definitely always fun.

And it still feels so British. While I, alas, am still very not British.

But you know what is (or at least, was) British? Hong Kong. Singapore. India. Nigeria. Historically, Great Britain was all over the place, not just in England. Wilde wrote this play to satirize the ridiculousness of Victorian norms, and I was able to find my way into his critique through the delightful, awkward lens of colonialism and assimilation.

So, dear friends, I offer you my take on The Importance of Being Earnest—set in the British Malay Peninsula during the Victorian era, a lush multicultural melting pot booming with the promise of trade, growth, and migration. It’s the production I wish I’d seen in college. It’s frock coats and corsets sweating in 90% tropical humidity. It’s trying to grow a pink rose in a Southeast Asian jungle. It’s English high tea, with a splash of coconut milk.

—Desdemona Chiang