"An Ideal Husband," Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage Theatre, Long Beach, CA

In this sparkling story of blackmail, ambition, and that oxymoron, political honor, you could close your eyes and still enjoy the lapidary wit of Oscar Wilde’s comedy An Ideal Husband, directed by Phyllis B. Gitlin for the Long Beach Playhouse’s Mainstage Theatre.

If you did, however, you’d miss Andrew Otero’s truncated columns and levitating cornices and Donna Fristsche’s gorgeous Victorian dresses and suits.

Gitlin serves up the lushness of Wilde’s language and social class in which he set his story. There are scenes that don’t advance the story but certainly advance the eloquence of the English language: brilliant asides on politics, on the sexes, and on morality.

It’s a rout of an evening; it’s literate and sassy: we sup on smart talk along with bon mots, epigrams, and repartee. The plot is shuttlecock whimsical and the dialogue is funny beyond measure; and there’s a moral: anything ideal is not only not worth the effort, it’s highly impractical.

The story takes place in 1895, in Grosvenor Square, the posh bit of London. Sir Robert Chiltern (Kevin Deegan), rising political star, seemingly ideal husband of Lady Gertrude (Brenda Kenworthy) is being blackmailed by Mrs. Cheveley ((Stephanie Schulz), schoolmate and arch enemy of Gertrude, on account of some insider trading he did a couple of decades ago that made him wealthy. He’s kept the secret from his adoring wife.

Through the offices of his ne’er-do-well but loyal chum, Viscount Goring (Bill Peters), scorned in perpetuity as a bum by his father the Earl of Caversham (Peter Stone), and after some soul searching with his wife about the vagaries of ambition, honor and love, he double-crosses the double crosser.

This was an exceptional ensemble performance.

Stone’s Caversham was venerable in stature as befits a statesman and peeved in manner as befits a father with high standards. Teri Ciranna’s Lady Markby and Geraldine D. Fuentes’s Mrs. Marchmont were priceless as the bookends of frivolity and incisive commentary.

Although Nakisa Aschtiani’s Harriet the Maid didn't have many lines, her Mona Lisa smile suggested that she knew more than she let on: this, of course, proves the comic value of English maids and butlers: observance and discretion.

Lisa Perez’s Mabel Chiltern, sister of Sir Robert, infused a Valley Girl “Oh my God!” breathlessness and the insouciant eye flutter of a fin-de-siecle coquette into a quintessential English rose to great effect; and her simmering pouts and scowls were acts unto themselves.

Bill Peters made Viscount Goring delightfully flippant and hedonistic; but it was when he stepped up and assumed the mantle of Loyal Friend that he shined, simply because it seemed such an unlikely transformation.

And Deegan’s Sir Robert ran the gamut from stolid to shattered and back to stolid. He was the dramatic anchor of this witty armada; he kept the piece from disintegrating into a hurricane of hilarity.

Performances are 8 pm, Friday and Saturday, 2 pm, Sunday. The show runs until June 16. Tickets are $20-22. The Playhouse is located at 5021 E. Anaheim Street. For more information, call 494-1014 or visit www.lbph.com.