By Thomas Kilroy, Abbey Theatre
Playhouse, Victorian
Arts Centre, October 28, 29, 30, 31, November 1, 1998
Reviewer: KATE HERBERT
We all know of Irish-born Oscar Wilde, brilliant,
self-absorbed, razor-tongued, who wrote a swag of comic classics. Most know
nothing of his abandoned wife, Constance. Thomas Kilroy, with Ireland's Abbey
Theatre, has redressed this inequity with his play The Secret Fall of Constance
Wilde, here for the Melbourne Festival.
Oscar married bright, young Constance Lloyd in1884 only to
betray her soon after with innumerable young men. The steel-cold aristocratic
lad who eventually broke both their hearts was Lord Alfred Douglas, AKA Bosie,
the inter-galactically narcissistic son of the creep responsible for boxing,
the Marquis of Queensberry.
Bosie (Andrew Scott) describes himself as Oscar's
inspiration and Constance (Jane Brennan) as his peace. To Oscar (Robert
O'Mahoney) she is his lifeline to land and he blithely uses her as his life
raft, water wings, goggles and snorkel. Watching these three, one wants to warn
Constance, slap Oscar and strangle Bosie.
Director, Patrick Mason, has created a deceptively simple,
gloriously theatrical production blending visual, mimetic, and textual elements
with exceptional finesse. Images, language and emotions are heightened. Oscar
speaks in familiar epithets. He poses and parades while Bosie struts and
swaggers. The style tilts toward the mannered and teeters on the hyper-real.
The grand scale and sleek lines of Joe Vanek's set
exaggerate the puniness of Wilde in relation to his tragic fate. A terrifyingly
tall, narrow staircase is the site of Constance's mysterious 'fall'. Oscar is
whisked upward in his gaol cell and huge black screens slam shut like a rectangular
camera aperture.
Constance, Oscar and Bosie meet, greet and argue on a simple
round downstage but Mason has used the vast depths of the Playhouse to
accentuate the smallness of these lives by overwhelming them with enormous
puppet figures representing the Magistrate who convicts Oscar and Constance's
disreputable father.
His retinue of six attendants, disguised by fencing masks,
provide a silent chorus, a jury, a classless commentary. They establish
location, attitude, atmosphere with David Bolger's clean, crisp choreography
and are a sensitive counterpoint to the dense dialogue. They manipulate and
accompany the sweet, pale puppets, the Wildes' innocent sons.
The performances are uniformly inspiring. Scott, as the
dilletante Bosie, is suitably dissolute and despicable while O'Mahoney
pontificates and carps as Oscar. Brennan, in the most sympathetic character, is
dignified, vivid and tragic as Constance. If only we could have shouted a
warning down the ages: "Jump ship, Connie. He'll do you no good." Talent
is no measure of a man's worth.
Reviewer: KATE HERBERT
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