Haven’t you secretly wished sometimes that you could just break out of your boring life for a while and go some place far away and really live? Take a vacation from responsibility and have a little wicked fun? That’s the premise of Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy of manners, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” which opens this weekend at Napa Valley College.

Jack Worthing, the play’s protagonist, is only 27 years old, but he’s is a pillar of the community in Hertfordshire. He is a major landowner and justice of the peace, with tenants, farmers and servants all dependent on him. He is also is guardian to Cecily Cardew, the pretty 18-year-old granddaughter of the late Thomas Cardew, who found and adopted Jack when he was a baby.

For years, Jack has pretended to have an irresponsible black-sheep brother named Ernest, who leads a scandalous life in pursuit of pleasure and is always getting into trouble that requires Jack to rush off to his assistance.

In fact, Ernest is Jack’s alibi, a phantom that allows him to disappear for days at a time and do as he likes. No one but Jack knows that he himself is Ernest. Jack’s plan works marvelously, until love walks in and complicates things — in earnest.

The play was an instant hit from it’s opening on Feb. 14, 1895, at the St. James’ Theatre in London. Today it remains one of the most popular and most performed comedies of the English language. It has been performed thousands of times and made into several films, including a 1952 version starring Michael Redgrave and Dame Edith Evans, and a 2002 production starring Colin Firth, Dame Judi Dench and Reese Witherspoon.

This is John Rustan’s first attempt at directing “Earnest.”

“I love this play,” he said. “It’s been done in a number of repertory companies I’ve been in.”

One of the challenges of directing Wilde, Rustan says, is his “paradoxical humor” and wit and making the actors aware of it.

“He sets up your expectations and then comes out with the opposite,” said Rustan.

Rustan holds a Ph.D. in Theatre Arts from the University of Oregon. He has been teaching theater and directing productions for Napa Valley College and Santa Rosa Junior College for the past four years. Recent directing credits include “Twelfth Night,” “The Learned Ladies,” “Appointment with Death,” and the NVC productions of “Master Harold … and the Boys,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “James and the Giant Peach” and “The Baltimore Waltz.”

Rustan, himself the author of four plays currently published by Samuel French Inc., said a director’s first impulse is to add visual elegance to the play.

“But the play is so well written that you realize your main effort should be to not clutter it up. Just get out of the way and emphasize strong, clear vocals,” he said. “I think we’ve done that in this production.”

Vocals are one of Rustan’s strengths. He has served as dialect coach for many Bay Area productions. In this case the dialect is the mannered tones of upper class Victorian English.

Rustan lives in Petaluma with his wife, Leisa, and son, Thomas.

Performances of “The Importance of Being Earnest” will be held Oct. 13, 14, 20, 21, at 8 p.m. and Oct. 15 and 22 at 2 p.m. at Napa Valley College Theater, 2277 Napa-Vallejo Highway. Tickets are $12 general admission, and $10 for seniors (60+) and students. For information call 259-8077.