For a play written in 1895 by a dead white guy, the humor and farce of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” still resonate with audiences today. SRJC Theatre Arts department plans to highlight Wilde’s absurdist treatment of Victorian values with its new production of the popular play, opening March 11.

The play follows the misadventures of two earnest young bachelors who both pretend to be named “Ernest” in order to win the hearts of two “Ernest-obsessed” young ladies, according to the Theatre Arts department’s synopsis.

“Earnest” is a comedy of manners, a witty genre concerned with manners and affectations of contemporary society, and lovingly satirizes the triviality and superficiality of the upper class, said Director Wendy Wisely.

“[Wilde] has created characters that exist in, and at times fiercely defend, a world in which bizarre contradictions make perfect sense,” Wisely wrote to her cast and crew.

Wisely, an adjunct faculty instructor since 1995, has a deep familiarity with Wilde’s play, often using scenes in her classes. She directed Theatre Arts’ production of “The Comedy of Errors” last spring and “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde,” a biographical play about the scandal coinciding the original opening of “Earnest” in London.

Wisely said Wilde’s life and philosophy on art and society had a strong influence on how she envisioned the production. Wisely wanted to highlight the influence of the Aesthetic movement, or “art for art’s sake,” on Wilde, and use his opinions and experiences. As an aesthetic, Wilde valued beauty over an adherence to social morals.

“I’m really trying to put the ‘Wilde’ back in the play,” Wisely said.

One result was to move away from a detailed period interpretation and focus on a more abstract visualization in line with Wilde’s love of beauty and the Aesthetic movement he was part of. The artwork of Aubrey Beardsley, a contemporary of Wilde and a key figure in the development of the Art Nouveau style, reflected Wilde’s love of beauty and had a large influence on set design, Wisely said.

“I’m not interested in recreating the idea of a museum-piece snapshot of this time period so much as bringing the characters that Wilde created [into the forefront and] focusing on the language,” Wisely said. “It’s supporting the language, theme and characters of Oscar Wilde. He does a lot of the work himself. You just can sit around and read it, and it’s funny.”

The lives of the idle rich represented in Wilde’s play are somewhat baffling to modern audiences. “It’s the kind of play you can’t set in modern times,” said Costume and Prop Designer Julia Kwitchoff. “It’s a very prim and proper era.”

It was a time when the rich didn’t work: they invited each other over for tea. No one went out without a hat, and a lady wasn’t a lady without gloves. Kwitchoff’s costumes represent a somewhat exaggerated version of period fashions, with huge collars and towering hats, she said.

“They were so caught up in their ways of doing things that they don’t realize how silly they look, which is kind of the farce of it,” Kwitchoff said. “It’s all about the manners and how you hold your tea cup. It’s all very important.”

For the most part, Kwitchoff designs around what the department owns and what she can find on a budget. She designed all the costumes for the production, but built four from scratch. The most difficult piece to find was a period-style tea set.

“How hard could it be to find a period-looking tea set? I just figured I’d go to a thrift store and find it, but I didn’t,” Kwitchoff said. “I finally got one on Craigslist. The guy gave me a discount when I told him it was for the JC.”

Kwitchoff had four students working with her to make costumes and props in what is largely a student-made play. Student designers also handled set design, lighting, sound design and hair and makeup for the production.

Second-year student Cheryl Cary designed the sets. “They try and put that out there to have students design, which is really nice,” Cary said. “A lot of times you don’t get that kind of opportunity in undergrad at all.”

Cary has been a student employee with the department for two years and studied set design last year. Over the summer she designed the sets for a friend’s production at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma, but “Earnest” is her first chance to design sets for Theatre Arts.

“Being a designer for the first time, time management was difficult because you have to plan out how you do projects,” Cary said. “I have gigantic fabric drops in the play, and in order to create those it took about two weeks taking up the entire shop space, so we couldn’t build anything else.”

Cary drew material from Beardsley, the Art Nouveau movement and early 1900s architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh to create minimalist sets that move away from the typical detailed, Victorian-style sets.

“Although it was written to make fun of the pretensions, superficiality and hypocrisy of society in 1898—unfortunately, little has changed,” Wisely said. “The language is witty, intelligent, and full of clever quotes like: ‘The truth is never pure and rarely simple,’ as well as the observation that ‘more than half of the modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.’ It’s fun, it’s silly, it’s like eating cotton candy—fluffy, yummy [and] puts a smile on your face.

“The Importance of Being Earnest” opens March 11.