The Importance of Being Earnest with a modern Northern Rivers twist

TORN gowns and flood-soaked finery are setting the stage for Lismore Theatre Company’s latest production, as the troupe launches its 2026 season with a Northern Rivers reimagining of The Importance of Being Earnest.

First performed in 1895, the Oscar Wilde comedy pokes fun at the hypocrisy of the upper classes of the 19th century, but co-director Sharon Brodie said many of its themes remain relevant today.

“We are an amateur theatre company but we try really hard to be as professional as we can and this year we have a new artistic director John Rado, who is NIDA-trained and has produced and directed plays around the world,” she said.

 

“He’s come up with a number of different twists in how we’re interpreting The Importance of Being Earnest.

“Instead of just doing a traditional drawing room drama he’s really had us analysing the script and looking at how we can make this play relevant to 2026.”

Brodie said the production shifts the play’s setting closer to home, with London becoming Brisbane and Hampshire transformed into Bangalow.

 

“In 1895 in Lismore we had a flood, so we have tried to imagine how the upper classes responded to a flood. They would have ignored it and gone around in their finery,” Brodie said.

“We found historical photos from that time of people in floodwaters in Lismore in their top hats. Our set designer created a mud-affected drawing room and our costume designer has taken beautiful period costumes and muddied them and torn them.”

 

The cast includes familiar faces from the Rochdale Theatre stage, including Jenni Law, Junia Wulf, Vilma Giacomini, Audrey O’Donnell-Parr and Tim Bennett, alongside new performers Jason Wallace, who plays Earnest/Jack (the title role) and Michael Sharmon as Algernon.

The non-profit organisation has plenty more in store this year, with productions of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, David Williamson’s Family Values and The Diary of Anne Frank also planned for the 2026 season.

The Importance of Being Earnest is at Rochdale Theatre in Goonellabah until 21 March.

Tickets are available via Trybooking.