“The Importance of Being Earnest” has been called the most perfect comedy ever written, and there are few greater pleasures in theater than watching its aristocrats’ dazzling repartee fly back and forth across a drawing room. With wonderfully robust characters and an ever-escalating plot, Oscar Wilde’s 1895 comedy seems nearly indestructible.

But if it’s hard to do a bad production of the most perfect comedy ever written, it’s nearly impossible to do a perfect one. Modern actors often wrestle with Wilde’s stylized delivery; there simply isn’t much room for them to make a character their own. The dialogue is so mannered that it must take place within a hermetically sealed bubble.

And Wilde’s masterpiece remains a stubborn period piece, highly resistant to the kind of updating that directors often attempt. But Sir Peter Hall’s new production, now playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, does well by “Earnest.” Mr. Hall maintains the pace and rhythm of those volleys, builds suspense during the longer points, and lands each parting shot to a roar of approval. His “Earnest” is a merry, vigorous one, guaranteed to delight firsttime viewers and satisfy aficionados.

For two hours, we eagerly follow the machinations of the plot – in which two young men (who have invented imaginary friends to get them out of social obligations) find that their lies are creat ing obstacles in their quest for wives. But for all the merits of Mr. Hall’s production, his impulse to freshen the play while giving it the classic treatment results in a muddling of the two.

So the indolent Algernon’s banging on an offstage piano is piped in with digital clarity, while the drawing room set looks as if it might have been taken out of deep storage from a production 50 years ago.Old-fashioned propriety is taken seriously here – which is why it seems foolish to insert a gratuitous amount of modern snogging whenever the script calls for an embrace.

Likewise, the actors may be stuck in the same sealed space, but their interpretations run the gamut. The idle, dandyish Algernon is given a pitch-perfect, old-fashioned interpretation by the excellent Robert Petkoff. On the other hand, Bianca Amato’s modern interpretation of Gwendolen Fairfax is somewhere between a jaded Beatnik, a liberated flapper, and a bored Victorian.

This blending of classic and contemporary interpretation comes to a head in the much-anticipated performance of Lynn Redgrave as Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen’s dragon lady of a mother. Ms. Redgrave adds a warm, bouncy quality to Lady Bracknell. Clad in beige with a loud feathered hat, dripping with diamonds, she looks like a woman who had a pretty good time in her day. Where other Lady Bracknells have relished their role as a killjoy, this one seems to fulfill the function as a matter of duty, not pleasure.

In contrast to Ms. Redgrave’s hybrid performance stands a rip-roaring traditional one by the marvelous Miriam Margolyes as the governess, Miss Prism. Working in the high theatrical style, Ms. Margolyes makes a meal of what Wilde gives Miss Prism. She reminds the audience that,despite all the verbal pyrotechnics, there is just as much physical humor in “Earnest” – if an actor seeks it out.

Like most directors attempting “Earnest,” Mr. Hall winds up with a few lumps in his souffle.The sets are charming, but too capacious and brightly lit to feel cozy.The choreographed, stagey bits feel unnecessary and campy – the girls don’t need to slink off in unison, and plaster doesn’t need to fall from the ceiling when Jack is in the attic.

But he also gets a great many things right.There is a warm rapport among the fine cast, which also includes James Waterston as Jack, Charlotte Parry as Cecily, and Terence Rigby as Chasuble.There are many fine touches – the delivery of asides is grand, and the stagings of the battle over the muffins and the two girls’ violent tea party are first-rate.

Mr. Hall’s production ignores the most problematic aspect of presenting “Earnest” – its homosexual overtones. Just days after “The Importance of Being Earnest” was first produced in London, Wilde, then married with two children, found himself embroiled in the legal case that would send him to prison for his homosexual affairs. Seen in this light, the idea of going out to the country to visit one’s fictional friend “Bunbury” and get away from society and one’s wife takes on quite a different cast.

Yet I find Mr. Hall’s decision a wise one.To propose an explicitly gay Algernon (or Jack) is to tinker with the “age of surfaces” that is the comedy’s irreducible setting. And the lifeblood of “Earnest” is the rule set forth by Gwendolen: “In matters of grave importance,” she reminds us, “style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.”

Until May 14 (651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100).