The cast included Louis Edmonds as Algernon, John Irving as Jack, Leila Martin as Gwendolen, Gerrianne Raphael as Cecily, Sara Seegar as Lady Bracknell, Lucy Landau as Miss Prism, George Hall as Dr. Chausable, Christina Gillespie as Effie, and Alan Shayne as Lane.

She meets Cecily and finds her as a suitable wife for Algernon, especially when the amount in her trust fund is revealed.

Miss Prism reveals that, in a moment of distraction, she had placed the baby in a handbag and put the manuscript of a novel she had been writing in the perambulator.

When Jack produces the handbag in which he was found, it becomes clear that he is Lady Bracknell's nephew and Algernon's older brother.

The happy couples embrace, including Miss Prism and her clerical admirer, the Reverend Canon Chasuble ("Ernest in Love").

In his review of the original 1960 production, Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times wrote that "Everything has been done in the most impeccable taste...Lee Pockriss's music is deft and droll.

Ann Croswell's book and lyrics are clever...the whole performance radiates sly good nature.

"[2] Richard Watts, Jr. of the New York Post pronounced Ernest in Love "charming...a fresh and likable musical show..excellently played.

"[2] In the New York Herald Tribune, Judith Crist declared that "It has all the charm and pleasure of a spring bouquet.

"[2] In reviewing the 2010 revival, The Wall Street Journal theater critic Terry Teachout said Earnest in Love was "presented with bewitching finesse.

The Irish Rep's revival, the first of any significance ever to be mounted in New York, is so endearing that I can't help wonder why so delightful a show disappeared for so long."

Teachout stated that the writers "managed between them to put a fresh and personal spin on "Earnest": They shifted the emphasis from Wilde's epigrams to his pretty-young-things-in-love plot.

... No, it's not Wilde, but if you can keep from breaking out in a cheek-to-cheek grin when Jack Worthing ... launches into a neat little soft shoe in the first scene, you're just a sour old crock."