Review: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Tuesday 12th May 2026.

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, a Trivial Comedy for Serious People, is the latest production from State Theatre South Australia, directed by the new Artistic Director, Petra Kalive, with Assistant Director Maeve Mhairi MacGregor. Wilde wrote it in 1895, just before he was imprisoned for gross indecency, but it was not published until 1899.

In the country, at Manor House, Woolton, John Worthing, J.P. is known as Jack but, in the city, he uses the name Earnest Worthing. He contrives to visit his friend Algernon Moncrieff, who is attended by his manservant, Lane, at Algernon’s flat in Half-Moon Street. Algernon is expecting a visit from the formidable Lady Bracknell, his Aunt Augusta, who is accompanied by her daughter, Gwendolen Fairfax, Algernon’s first cousin and the object of Jack’s affection.

Jack’s identity deceit is complicated by Algernon, who turns up at Manor House calling himself Earnest and claiming to be Jack’s black-sheep younger brother, and he promptly falls for Jack’s ward, Cecily Cardew. Cecily is under the watchful eye of her governess, Miss Prism. Merriman is the butler at Manor House, where the Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D. is a regular visitor

This production is not the play with which you might be familiar, but a shortened version, edited to a two-hour version with no interval. It is nothing like the very fine 1952 film, directed by Anthony Asquith. This production is many times larger than life; pantomime, bordering on cartoon, farce, and physical comedy, and embracing the subtly concealed gender politics in Wilde’s text.

Petra Kalive has made some interesting casting choices, with several female characters played by males, and vice versa. Only Jack, Cecily, and Lady Bracknell are unchanged and, equally interestingly, Lady Bracknell is the one role that is occasionally played by a male in drag. I couldn’t help thinking back many decades, to 1989, and the time that I saw the wonderful duo, Hinge and Bracket, playing all four female roles in an hilarious adaptation of this play. Dr Evadne Hinge and Dame Hilda Bracket were played by female impersonators, George Logan and Patrick Fyffe. Wilde would, I am certain, have loved it. Kalive goes several steps further again.

Carla Lippis appears first, as Lane, opening the performance in song before, as servants do, stepping into the background, while Anna Lindner, as Algernon Moncrieff, plays the piano, seen through the doors upstage. Teddy Dunn, as Jack Worthing J.P., arrives, followed soon after by Glenda Linscott, as Lady Bracknell, and Connor Pullinger, as the Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax. Lindner gives us an outrageous, exceptionally physical interpretation of Algernon, and Linscott is impressively imposing as Lady Bracknell, while Dunn brings a calmer tone to Earnest and Pullinger is a demure Gwendolen. The four-way interactions keep the audience laughing with barely time to breath.

The play moves to the country and, with Carla Lippis now as Merriman, we meet the rest of the cast: Pia Gillings as Cecily Cardew, Nathan O’Keefe as Miss Prism, and Caroline Mignone as the Rev, Canon Chasuble D.D., oh, and that famous handbag. Gillings brings a youthful imagination to the role of Cecily, and O’Keefe is a prim and proper Miss Prism, while Mignone adds a nervous energy to the Reverend Chasuble, torn between duty and a desire for Miss Prism. Again, it is the group dynamics that bring forth the ever increasing laughter and applause, with false and mistaken identities adding to the mayhem. All, of course, resolves happily with the aid of a comical deus ex machina.

The sets for the three acts: Act I, Algernon Moncrieff’s Flat in Half-Moon Street, W., ActII, The Garden at the Manor House, Woolton, and Act III, The Drawing-Room at the Manor House, Woolton, are accomplished by the use of a revolve. Designer Kathryn Sproul has hit floral overload, with huge displays on either side of the stage and more on the revolving set, with a framework representing the different locations dividing it in half. It is inspired and ideally suited to Kalive’s interpretation of the play. She has also devised an equally quirky and colourful collection of costumes, with modern sneakers in matching colours juxtaposed against pseudo-Victorian outfits. Everything is illuminated by lighting designer, Katie Sfetkidis.

Music has been added to this performance. Carla Lippis adds a touch of cabaret with a few songs of her own composition, with co-composer, Geoffrey Crowther, that drew considerable audience response. Keep an ear open, too, for the work of the pianist, the highly respected Josh van Konkelenberg.

The audience showed its appreciation with loud and extended applause, following a closing number from Lippis. This very different ‘Earnest’ runs until 30th May, but don’t wait to book.

Photography, Matt Byrne.

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