 For a 1913 revival at the same theatre the young actors Gerald Ames and A. E. Matthews succeeded the creators as Jack and Algy . John <unk> as Jack and Margaret <unk> as Lady Bracknell headed the cast in a 1923 production at the Haymarket Theatre . Many revivals in the first decades of the 20th century treated " the present " as the current year . It was not until the 1920s that the case for 1890s costumes was established ; as a critic in The Manchester Guardian put it , " Thirty years on , one begins to feel that Wilde should be done in the costume of his period — that his wit today needs the backing of the atmosphere that gave it life and truth . … Wilde 's <unk> and complex verbal <unk> go ill with the <unk> and the short skirt . " 
