Is there a more deliriously witty, lighter-than-air comedy than Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest?

        Bon mots effervesce like so many champagne bubbles in this greatest of drawing room comedies about Jack Worthing, an orphaned young man who has only a carpet bag for an antecedent. Jack has the misfortune to love a proper young lady with a gorgon of a mum who is very earnest about proper ancestry.

        Can true love find its happy ending, especially when the infamous Ernest enters the picture in a picturesque garden?

        We'll have the answers to that question and many more Friday and Saturday when Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival takes the stage at the Taft Theatre under the marquee of the Children's Theatre.

        Last week I was invited to join artistic directors Jack Louiso (Children's Theatre) and Jasson Minadakis (CSF) and Earnest director Terrell Finney (University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music) for a civilized chat over tea and cucumber sandwiches.

        “Wilde called it "a serious comedy for trivial people,' ” Mr. Finney notes. “He satirized the people he was writing for, and they ate it up.”

        He adds that it's not much of a leap from the turn of the last century when Earnest was written to the turn of this one. “We all know the dowager aunt, we've all fallen head over heels and found our path blocked, and anybody who works understands that these servants work not for their betters but their employers.”

        While the audience's only job is to revel in the unalloyed joy of this comic souffle, backstage the gentlemen are testing a first-time collaboration.

        Children's Theatre wants high school and junior high school audiences, and Mr. Louiso is betting that Cincinnati Shakespeare's energetic young company will be just the ticket. He defines the company as “adventuresome.”

        “They have spirit and attitude,” Mr. Finney adds.

        A perfect fit, the gentlemen agree, for the “effortless prose” and the “speed, grace and elegance” required in the playing, Mr. Finney concludes.

        Anybody who caught Mr. Finney as Nurse Nanny Fanny in Ensemble's Snow White many, many years ago knows he's a perfect fit, too. (That rare on-stage appearance away from his duties as a division head at CCM is most fondly remembered by avid local theatergoers.)

        Mr. Finney laughs as he agrees that he does have the right stuff for this job. “I have a sense of humor, I do love words, I do love rich language. I like comedy and I especially like comedy that has a cutting edge. I love farce as a form, as a thing, as an entity.”

        As for Cincinnati Shakespeare, the partnership with Children's Theatre puts them in front of a new audience on a stage far larger than they've worked on before. (The Taft seats almost 10 times as many people as their home base at 719 Race St.)

        Mr. Minadakis is also delighted to be strengthening already strong ties to UC.

        Jeremy Dubin and Nick Rose play larky heroes Jack and Algie with Anne E. Schilling and Corinne Mohlenhoff as their lady loves, both so fond of the name "Ernest'.

        Giles Davies will be donning dowager garb to take on starchy Lady Bracknell. Due to a recent injury, Mr. Davies may be playing from a bath chair.

        Brian Isaac Phillips also will be in skirts playing spinster family retainer Miss Prism. Drew Fracher, who just ended a sublime comic turn as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the festival sell-out Twelfth Night, returns in a dual role as a pair of unflappable servants.

        Public performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Tickets ($5-$16) are available at all Ticketmaster locations and by calling 562-4949. And pass the crumpets.

        Stage struck: In other theater business:

        • The December slot for Ensemble's Off-Center/On-Stage hasn't been announced but the theater's interns are hard at work on a response to Sept. 11. Expect details soon.

        • Also in December, Ovation Theatre expects to be doing a first reading of Blake Bowden's script for Fellowship of the Rings follow-up Two Towers.

        Fellowship drew 2,100-plus theatergoers in September despite a listless script, speaking to the staying power of J.R.R. Tolkien no matter how the material is abused. If all goes as planned, The Two Towers will be unveiled next fall.

        • Kevin Barry (see Tempo cover) got his local start by scoring almost yearly wins in the Fitton Center's annual national one-act play festival. The center is inviting non-musical original scripts of no longer than 30 minutes for its ninth annual competition.

        Deadline is Feb. 15, 2002. Three finalists will be presented April 12-14. For submission rules and more information, call (513) 863-8873. The Fitton is at 101 S. Monument Ave., Hamilton.

        Opening nights: Opening this week: Local community theater favorites Wayne Wright and Jhon Marshall are among the cast of Cincinnati Music Theatre's She Loves Me, a charming musical romance based on the same story of feuding shop employees that has inspired movies from In the Good Old Summertime to You've Got Mail.

        There's a 2 p.m. matinee today.Performances continue Wednesday through Saturday at the Aronoff Center's Jarson-Kaplan Theater. Aronoff box office, 621-2787.

        • It's a big week for mid-20th century masterpieces. Tennessee Williams' exploration of memory, The Glass Menagerie, continues through next Sunday at Rising Phoenix Theatre Company in Middletown. Call (513) 705-4131.

        • Arthur Miller also had family issues on his mind for The Price, which brings two estranged brothers together to dispose of their father's belongings. Ginny Chizer directs for the Drama Workshop. Performances Friday-Sunday at Westwood Town Hall, call 598-8303.

        Closing alert: When the curtain comes down on the 2001-02 season, people will still be talking about Pam Myers' star turn in Gypsy at Playhouse in the Park, an all-in-all wonderful evening of theater.

        Performances are selling out, but there are seats left before the Nov. 16 close. Make sure you're in one of them. Call the box office at 421-3888.

        Contact Jackie Demaline by phone: 768-8530; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: jdemaline@yahoo.com.
       

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