The Importance of Being Earnest

Good friends Algernon and Jack use the same alter ego-Ernest-to pursue the innocent Cecily and Gwendolen who insist on marrying a man named Ernest. Gwendolen's mother, the formidable Lady Bracknell, forbids the match. Using wit, puns, farce, mistaken identity and a handbag, Wilde's "Trivial Comedy for Serious People" satirizes the superficiality of England's aristocracy and the hypocrisy of Victorian morality.