A parody of entertainment TV, the scene sets up the notion that Wilde was the Madonna of his day, a celebrity who pushed against the contemporary boundaries of decency and changed them forever. It's also the first instance the play lets us stand back and take a look at this baffling historic figure. Here the themes of Wilde's life are put into a 20th-century perspective.
The limp-wristed academic directly asks the questions that Wilde's behavior still invokes in us: Why did Oscar Wilde deny in court that he was a homosexual? Did he even consider himself a homosexual in the first place? And what made Wilde -- a man of considerable intelligence and savvy -- think he could allow his decadent lifestyle to undergo scrutiny in the prudish atmosphere of a Victorian courtroom in the first place?
Gross Indecency, by Venezuela-born, New York-based playwright Moises Kaufman, is one of three high-profile dramas about Wilde that have recently appeared. A witty, engaging play, its shortcoming is that -- while it may come closer to examining the real Wilde than the other two biographies -- it never really brings into focus the provocative ideas it presents. Wilde may indeed be the very model of a modern homosexual -- at least as popularly imagined by many -- but by play's end, no new portrait of the artist has emerged.
Are we supposed to think of Wilde as a self-destructive dandy? Was he the first artistic martyr of the 20th Century? Although he's generally acknowledged as one of the first homosexuals of our era to be "outed," is he a figure with whom contemporary gays still identify? And, even if this is so, is he -- as Gross Indecency faintly suggests -- a personality whose historic role is due for revision? Despite the energy and humor of the drama, it's impossible to figure out just what the playwright is getting at.
Which is not to say that Wilde's life isn't fascinating -- and marketable -- in itself. The other two works are Wilde, the movie starring Stephen Fry, which emphasizes Wilde as a genius and a trendsetter; and David Hare's play The Judas Kiss, recently staged in London and now on Broadway, where Liam Neeson stars as the Irish writer embroiled in a complicated love affair with the young Lord Alfred Douglas.
In contrast Gross Indecency, a New York Outer Critics Circle award winner for best off-Broadway play and an ongoing hit in New York -- where it's directed by playwright Kaufman -- closely looks at the writer as he takes up his famous libel suit against the Marquis of Queensberry. The play follows Wilde as he withdraws his case, only to be arrested for so-called "gross indecency" (the Victorian term for homosexual acts), is found guilty, goes to jail, and ultimately falls to ruin.
The play is set in 1895, the year that Wilde, then in his early forties, had two hits -- An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest -- in London's West End theaters. By this time the writer was the center of the artistic demimonde that also included Aubrey Beardsley (whose erotic drawings for Wilde's 1892 play Salome are used to decorate the set of Gross Indecency), the painter J.M. Whistler, and the French Symbolist poet Stephane Mallarme. Wilde's 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray had by this time introduced the then-shocking idea of "art for art's sake," a notion that went against the Victorian thought that a work of art should promote moral behavior rather than be judged on its own aesthetic merits.
Meanwhile, Wilde's public relationship with the 24-year-old Douglas, whom he had met in 1891, was flourishing. The romance was pushed to an unsettling climax, however, when Douglas' father (the same Marquis of Queensberry who standardized the rules for boxing) actively campaigned to end the friendship. Even Queensberry, however, could not have imagined the downward spiral that soon became Wilde's life.
As the play recounts, Queensberry's act of hostility wasn't the first time the aristocrat had bothered Wilde. He once showed up at Wilde's house, bodyguard in tow, to threaten the writer: "If I catch you and my son together again... I will thrash you," he reportedly said. To this Wilde, with characteristic aplomb, replied, "I don't know what the Queensberry rules are, but the Oscar Wilde rule is to shoot on sight."
In 1895, however, having been physically blocked from attending the opening of The Importance of Being Earnest, Queensberry arrived at Wilde's club and delivered a card on which he wrote "To Oscar Wilde, posing Sodomite." Wilde took him to court for libel. When it became apparent that Queensberry could indeed present witnesses giving evidence of Wilde's homosexual behavior, Wilde withdrew his suit. However, he was immediately arrested for gross indecency. This second trial ended in a hung jury, but in a third trial, Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to two years of hard labor.
Gross Indecency is perhaps less of a work of fiction than the other two contemporary Wilde dramas, because it's culled almost entirely from court transcripts as well as Wilde's letters and excerpts from his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his essay "De Profundis" (written while in prison), and his letters to Douglas. In fact, you might call it theater's answer to the documentary film. With the exception of John Felix, who plays Wilde, each of the nine actors in the cast plays multiple parts. This splitting up of duties allows a parade of talking heads to cross the stage, from George Bernard Shaw and Queen Victoria to the slew of working-class male prostitutes who, dressed in their underwear, give evidence against Wilde in court.
Likewise portrayed are various London journalists declaring Wilde's court experience as "the trial of the century," as well as the prosecutors, defense attorney, Wilde's wife (yes, he was married, with two children), his mother, and the man who procured boys for him. Douglas and Douglas' father are played, respectively, by Gordon Brode and Steve Wise, both deft performers who handle fewer secondary roles but bring memorable profiles to their primary characters. What also gives the play a documentary feel is the presence of narrators (also played by revolving cast members), who describe scenes as they occur.
While the play doesn't give us a new perspective on Wilde, the Caldwell production, directed by artistic director Michael Hall and designed by Tim Bennet and Thomas Salzman, is quite simply beautiful. From its design -- in which actors and abstract scenery alike are outfitted in a black-to-gray color scheme -- to its razor-sharp pacing, the show exults in its own artistic universe.
Unlike the play's dialogue, in which the juxtaposition of Wilde's writing and his court testimony never creates any friction, the staging uses conflicting moods to great effect. The contrast between the somber attitudes of the Old Bailey judges and lawyers and the provocative, near-obscene Beardsley prints that line the stage points up the palpable tension between Wilde and the society in which he lived.
Foremost, John Felix's performance gives us a glimpse of Wilde as a living, breathing genius -- and a sympathetic one at that. A rotund middle-aged man who looks and moves a bit like the Cowardly Lion dressed in a morning coat, Felix resembles the later photographs of Wilde, when he no longer looked the long-haired boulevardier we often think of when we envision Wilde. He seems vulnerable and human.
The academic in the play's talk-show scene suggests that Wilde, a brilliant and confident wordsmith, succeeded only when he was able to "control the discourse" around him. Up against the legal discourse of the court, he was bound to fail. Felix's performance evokes this idea. His Oscar Wilde seems genuinely bewildered that his own wit cannot save him. Gross indecencies aside, Felix and the rest of the Caldwell performers and technicians give us a show we can be Wilde about.
Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.
Written by Moises Kaufman. Directed by Michael Hall. Starring Gordon Brode, Matthew Coyle, John Felix, John Hansen, Mark Heimann, Kenneth Kay, Michael Warga, Joe Warik, and Steve Wise. Through August 16. Caldwell Theatre Company, 7873 N. Federal Hwy., Boca Raton, 561-241-7432 or toll-free 930-6400.
