Oscar Wilde at his wittiest best
When a husband behaves badly, should a wife always stand by her man? The quest for power and ambition finally catches up with a much-admired politician one night at an elegant party when a past misdeed is revealed by a beautiful stranger. The options are clear – public scandal or the loss his trusting wife – but how to choose? Wilde’s play about infidelity and life in the political area remains witty and utterly relevant more than a century after it was first performed in 1895.
Tickets
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Directed by Moya O’Connell
Produced by United Players Vancouver
About the Playwright
“Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.” -Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 to wealthy and well- connected parents. He attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen and Trinity College, Dublin. In 1875 he won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he soon acquired a reputation for wit, charm, and conversational ease and went on to gain a first class degree. The young Oscar travelled briefly before settling in London, where he established
himself amongst fashionable circles as a poet, art critic, and journalist. He became famed for his ‘dandy’ dress, wearing velvet coats, knee-breeches, and cravats. He proclaimed himself an aesthete, a popular movement of the time which believed in beauty and greater awareness of it through the eyes of the artistic world.
In May 1884 he married Constance Lloyd and they had two sons. Wilde worked as a journalist to support his family, for a while taking over the editorship of the popular magazine Woman’s World. It was The Picture of Dorian Gray which first brought Wilde both critical praise and unwanted public attention. First published as a novel in 1891 it was immediately banned by several booksellers.
That same year he met the young aristocrat Lord Alfred Douglas, (Bosie), who was a student at Oxford. By this time Wilde was a practicing homosexual and his marriage was under some strain. He and Douglas became lovers. Wilde’s first play The Duchess of Padua was produced in New York and in February 1892 Lady Windermere’s Fan opened to an all-star audience in London. The reviews were mixed but Wilde soon followed it up with the highly acclaimed A Woman of No Importance which consolidated his reputation as a popular playwright of considerable talent.
Oscar’s life was soon overtaken by his passion for Bosie. After Bosie had departed for Egypt following a series of arguments with Wilde, the playwright completed An Ideal Husband. In April 1894, Bosie returned to London and the shadow of scandal grew. Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury, did not approve of his son’s relationship with Wilde. He sent Wilde an accusatory card. Wilde charged Queensberry with criminal libel. The case was tried and Queensberry was acquitted in two days. Wilde was immediately arrested and charged with “acts of gross indecency with other male persons.” Homosexuality was a criminal offense in English law at this time. He was refused bail and was taken to Holloway Prison to await trial. Bosie visited him frequently. On the advice of friends, Bosie left England before the trial began to avoid being called as a witness. Queensberry forced a bankruptcy sale of all Wilde’s possessions to cover the costs of the libel trial. The jury failed to reach a verdict. Wilde was released on bail pending a second trial. Friends and his wife Constance urged him to leave England immediately. Wilde refused. He was convicted in his second trial and sentenced to two years, hard labor. Bosie deserted him throughout his imprisonment. Constance initiated divorce proceedings but cancelled them in the hope of a restored family life on his release.
So ended Wilde’s career. His plays were immediately closed down and would not be produced again in the West End until the next century. Wilde was released in 1897.
Alone and broke he lived in France until his death in 1900. He was 46.
–from the Shaw Festival archive
