There's a lot to like about The Importance of Being Earnest. Oscar Wilde's fizzy drawing-room comedy puts Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival actors on stage at the Taft Theatre in two Children's Theatre-produced performances at 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday.

        Earnest is a romp about Jack Worthing (Jeremy Dubin), who has invented a rapscallion younger brother (Ernest) to use as an excuse for frequent trips to London. There he falls in love with Gwendolyn (Anne E. Schilling), a woman who knows what she wants.

        Her cousin (and Jack's nonsensical chum) Algie Moncrief (Nick Rose) discovers Jack's charade, immediately borrows his alias and travels to Jack's country estate. There Algie promptly falls in love with Jack's romantically inclined ward Cecily (Corinne Mohlenhoff). She of course has heard such hair-raising tales of Ernest's badness that she is already madly in love with him.

        The end? Indeed not. Merely the beginning of a giddy farce which, unfortunately, director Terrell Finney and company insist on pushing over the edge about once every 15 minutes. Apparently, they believe that the brilliant Mr. Wilde needs to be improved upon with the occasional goosing.

        But what's good is very, very good, and what's bad is horrid.

        The two sets of silly young lovers are enormously engaging, all elegantly outfitted (and color-coordinated in spring-like shades for the garden scene!) by Cathy Ziegler. Mr. Rose was particularly delicious in the first act, I wish he'd maintained his puckish interpretation for the second.

        The ensemble frolics in Jay Depenbrock's delightful settings, first Algie's London bachelor digs then the plant-filled arbor of a country manor.

        Ready to throw a wrench in the romances is Gwendolyn's gorgon of a mum Lady Bracknell, splendidly executed by Giles Davies, not hindered at all by a wheelchair. Lady Bracknell is most offended that Jack has lost his parents (in Victoria Station, Brighton Line).

        Lady Bracknell is traditionally a drag role. In this production, starchy governess Miss Prism puts actor Brian Isaac Phillips in skirts for a big, blustery performance straight out of Benny Hill. It's one drag too many.

        At final dress rehearsal on Wednesday, the performance was miked to the hilt, with actors audible if hollow-sounding in the back row. In the first rows of the theater Mr.Phillips' performance was deafening. Hopefully, sound levels will be solved by tonight.

        Mr. Phillips does what he's doing very well. What's puzzling is why he's doing it. For anybody who remembers Dale Hodges in the role at Playhouse ihn the Park a few years ago, doing it as Wilde intended is funnier.

        The same is true of the role of Miss Prism's fond companion, Rev. Chasuble. Drew Fracher, who perfectly enacts the perfect butler in the first act and then returns as the rector in the second sporting a speech impediment that has him sounding like a British Elmer Fudd. The gag gets stale fast.

        Then again, the show is aimed at attracting high school audiences and maybe they'll like it. I hope Mr. Finney is underestimating their ability to be charmed by the real thing.

       Reservations: 569-8080, Ext.10.

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