Overfurnished production of the Oscar Wilde farce: so much artifice does not require so much circumstantiation. And the jaunty, jazzy musical score is meddlesome at best, muffling at worst. (In any case it has not remedied the play's sag in the second act.) But the good lines are plentiful, and people such as Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Judi Dench, Anna Massey, and Edward Fox know well how to put them over. Not so much, however, Frances O'Connor or a lightly accented Reese Witherspoon, whose shared strategy relies on elevated eyebrows. Directed by Oliver Parker. (2002) — Duncan Shepherd
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