The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest is riddled (lightly) with references to 'Lord' this and 'Lady' that, ' Honorable' and 'Sir' and so on. A fairly typical element of a 'comedy of manners' is that it deals with at least a few cha racters of the 'upper class', and your standard modern historical romance has invented a Duke (they're the most popular, currently) or at least an Earl. So what is all this snooty upper-crusting about? Allow me to explain. No, there is too much - let me sum up. The British aristocracy consist of peers/nobility and their families. Traditional rights included inherited positions in Parliament’s House of Lords, designation in the formal order of precedence, and the right to certain titles (or collection of titles). Also traditionally, these titles included land ownership and income from the rents on these lands. The given titles, in order of precedence, are: Duke (Duchess), Marquess (Marchioness), Earl (C...

Dear Cast of The Importance of Being Earnest , I hope you're proud of yourselves. I really do, because I TOTALLY AM! It's like you've solved the mystery of the pyramids! Only not, since this is only a 120-year-old play, and those have been around for millennia. But you did DISCOVER a mystery that no one else seems to have noticed in over a century! Although I guess it's not really that mysterious. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME AND YOU BROKE MY BRAIN. (But I'm fine now.) So the first question I got from y'all was about that weird little timeline issue in the first act where Lady Bracknell gets all up in Jack's bid'ness (does anybody still say that anymore? No? OK then) and then storms out with a frosty 'Good morning!' even though it's actually somewhere between 5:30 and 'nearly seven' in the evening. I was pretty excited - these nit-picky little research questions are MY bread and butter (bless you, Gwe...