In the drawing rooms of London and the gardens of Hertfordshire, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff maintain elaborate fictions—Jack's dissolute brother Ernest and Algernon's invalid friend Bunbury—that grant them freedom from Victorian propriety. When both men pursue romantic engagements under the name Ernest, their deceptions entangle Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew in a web of imaginary courtships, diary-recorded fantasies, and name-based devotion. The comedy unravels through Lady Bracknell's formidable interrogation, a handbag's improbable provenance, and the final recognition that fiction has been fact from the start.
Merriman announces a visitor: Mr. Ernest Worthing has arrived from the station with his luggage. Cecily trembles at the prospect of meeting a truly wicked person, fearing he will look ordinary. Algernon enters, gay and debonair. “He does!” Cecily exclaims. She confronts him as her wicked cousin Ernest, and when he protests that he is not really wicked, she accuses him of inexcusable deception. Hypocrisy, she declares, would be pretending to be wicked while being good all the time. Algernon hastily claims to have been rather reckless in his own small way. Cecily is pleased.
The conversation turns dangerous. Cecily innocently reveals that Uncle Jack has gone to London to buy Ernest’s outfit for emigration—to Australia. Algernon responds with horror: Australia! He would sooner die. The act closes with Algernon trapped in his assumed identity, facing exile to a continent he has no intention of visiting, while Jack remains in London planning to eliminate the very brother whose name Algernon has stolen. The machinery of comic collision is fully wound.
Algernon continues his pursuit of Cecily under the borrowed name of Ernest, unaware that Jack is returning to the country with mourning clothes and plans for a funeral. The collision of their separate deceptions draws near.
Algernon continues his flirtation with Cecily in the garden, pleading with her to reform him so he may lead a new life. Cecily agrees to his self-reformation on the condition that he maintains regular habits, providing him with a pink rose to wear before they go inside for tea. Left alone in the garden, Miss Prism lectures Dr. Chasuble on the dangers of celibacy, arguing that a single man acts as a permanent public temptation, while Chasuble clings to the Primitive Church’s preference for the unmarried state. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Jack, who appears dressed in deep mourning. Jack announces the tragic death of his brother Ernest in Paris, attributing the cause to a severe chill. Miss Prism views the event as a moral lesson, while Chasuble offers his condolences and suggests adapting a flexible sermon on manna for the funeral service.
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