MOSES LAKE — A week before the opening night of Moses Lake High School’s production of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” the cast and crew were hard at work perfecting a most earnest performance.

Set in Victorian England, the Oscar Wilde play dramatizes a love triangle — or square — that bridges the worlds of London high society and the quietly idyllic countryside.

When the play opens, protagonist Jack Worthing (Kamden Kuykendall), a major landowner and pillar of the community in the countryside hamlet of Hertfordshire, has for years pretended to have to regularly save a roguish brother living in London named Ernest.

But, as is quickly revealed, Ernest is a phantom, a lie conjured up by Jack in order to excuse his prolonged absences to his rural fellows, and an alter ego which he assumes when visiting London. Complicating matters, Jack’s best friend Algernon Moncrieff (Zachary Zeller) has come to suspect that the man he knows as Ernest may be living a double life when he discovers a note from Jack’s ward, Cecily Cardew (Emily Kalmbach).

Jack is in love with Gwendolen Fairfax (Zoe Sterner), a young Victorian aristocrat, but when she accepts his marriage proposal, she reveals she has a particular fixation with the name Ernest, which she believes to be his name and which “inspires absolute confidence.” So strong is this fixation, that when Jack wonders aloud whether she could marry a man named, say, Jack, she laughs at the thought.

Trouble ensues.

The performance plays with concepts of perceptions versus reality, regimented sophistication versus natural beauty, and, truly, the importance of being E(a)rnest.

The show is a favorite for director Sabrina Haesche, and doubles as her master’s thesis project as she completes her theatre production degree at Central Washington University.

“I love this show; it’s very British, very funny, the costumes are amazing, and the era is just my favorite,” Haesche said.

The student actors have been hard at work since the beginning of December, memorizing their lines, becoming accustomed to the Victorian costumes and mastering light British accents.

Both costumes and accent come from Central Washington University, Haesche said, which lent period dresses and coattails, as well as Professor Michael J. Smith, the university’s head of performance, who teaches courses on voice and dialects.

The play runs for one weekend only, Feb. 13-15, with nightly showings at 7 p.m. and a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee. Nighttime tickets are $10 for the general population and $8 for members of the Associated Student Body; tickets for Saturday’s matinee are $9 and $7 respectively.

Tickets can be purchased at our.show/moseslakehighschool.

Emry Dinman can be reached via email at edinman@columbiabasinherald.com.