Thoroughly Stupid Things (or the Continuous Importance of Being Earnest)

Description
**** (four stars) Montserrat Mendez’s follow-up to Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is the rare sequel that doesn’t disappoint. The upper classes remain frivolous and atwitter as Mendez picks up Wilde’s story. The endearing Gwendolen (Emma Gordon) and Cecily (Amy Forney) suspect their husbands are having affairs—so, as any good wife would do, they disguise themselves as men and spy on their spouses at a gentlemen's club, slipping in and out of their false identities to choruses of laughter from the audience. Mendez’s script weaves a lattice of clever wordplay, and has great fun blowing up and rebuilding the fourth wall. Barely pausing to inhale, the fine cast reels off Mendez’s verbiage with aplomb, in accents whose tongue-in-cheek snootiness is perfectly matched to the wry smile that Mendez flashes at Wilde.—Ashley Hoffman, Seek Intern