THEATRE

The Importance of Being Earnest
Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin Ends Aug 22, 7.30pm €15/€12 smockalley.com

How serious can we still be about Earnest? Wilde's "trivial comedy for serious people" was scarely ever an innocent affair – even its original run, in 1895, was disrupted by Oscar Wilde's two sensational trials and the ensuing public scandal of his sexual double life. Ever since, this comedy of manners has seemed to address two audiences, one alive to the signals of a man who is "Earnest in the city and Jack in the country" or a hobby called "bunburying", the other contented by the play's glittering humour and style. Many recent productions have tried to address both layers of the text by bringing gender and sexuality to the fore (10 years ago, Conall Morrisson staged an all-male production at the Abbey) or staging it as a rumbunctious celebrity vehicle (as Rough Magic did with Stockard Channing five years ago). Now Smock Alley presents Wilde's airtight assembly of razor-sharp witticisms and diamond-cut epigrams (starring Katie McCann, left) as the theatre's fourth in-house summer show. You can cling to the shimmering surface, but it has always paid to dig deep in Earnest.