Tag Oscar Wilde society

Oscar Wilde’s 170th birthday dinner

Laurel Lindström 1 Comment

Guests at Oscar’s 170 th birthday bash shimmered and shone. They were stars in Oscar’s very own firmament, mingling together for delicious pre-dinner snacks and generous quantities of fizz. And it was real champagne, not the dreaded Prosecco! Robert Whelan (Deputy Chairman, Editor of ‘The Wildean’) welcomed us and James Liu performed “Serenade (for music)” a piece with Oscar’s lyrics and FH Cowen’s music. This wonderful song is a early plea from Paris to Helen to flee with him across the Aegean to Troy. She declines, preferring instead to let Paris abduct her sometime later. Much more fun. After the song, there followed more champagne, more snacks and glamorous hobnobbing. We were a small riot of sparkling colours, feathers and sequins, offset by just the right amount of two tone penguin formals.

Midmingle our Hon. President Gyles Brandreth made a very special welcome and presentation to Joan Winchell, thanking her for supporting the newly published collection of selected articles from The Woman’s World. He pointed out that “if it wasn’t for her this wouldn’t be happening …” adding that “without her we would not have had this book”. He reminded the happy crowd that it had been an ”exciting Oscar Wilde week for many of us, culminating in this evening”. As he handed over the gift to Joan, Gyles explained that, “we are all about to bow or curtesy to you … it’s a British tradition …[you have] been a true friend to us and to the memory and to the genius of Oscar Wilde”. Joan responded with gracious acceptance of the lovely photo and an invitation for Gyles to blow a kiss from her to the crowd. The crowd happily accepted and returned kisses of their own in number.

From the grandeur of the National Liberal Club’s (non)Smoking Room, some 100 + guests moved to the equally auspicious David Lloyd George Room for dinner. Properly warmed up with predinner drinks and canapés people took their seats in keen anticipation of what came next, having no real idea of what that might be. Anticipation is everything, bringing to mind Oscar’s observation that ‘the suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.’

We didn’t have to wait too long for Vanessa Heron (Chairman and Editor of ‘Intentions’) to extend her own warm welcome to everyone, especially those who  had travelled long distances to this dinner. And Vanessa tipped an appreciative nod to her predecessor, Don Mead (Hon. Vice President), “who has almost certainly attended more of these dinners than anyone else”.

Merlin Holland, Oscar’s grandson and archivist, then proposed the toast to to his grandfather. Merlin describes himself as the “keeper of [his] family flame”, and shared family memories touching on what his grandmother Constance had gone through after Oscar’s fall. She faced “an appalling social problem” so horrible that she had to distance herself and her children from all things Wilde, and she did so by changing her name. The change of name was wise, because Oscar never did listen to advice or try to avoid notoriety. He particularly ignored the many requests to keep away from Bosie. Sadly or maybe not, he welcomed Bosie back into his life to sow yet more sorrow and disharmony. Merlin explained that “only this time it happens in slow motion which is worse”. Oscar’s view was that he needed “an atmosphere of love … I need to love and be loved … I still love him, how could I not love him, he wrecked my life?”

In De Profundis Oscar explains that he “was no longer the master of my fate, the captain of my soul” (the reference is to William Ernest Henley’s 1875 poem Invictus). Merlin reminds us that with these lines in De Profundis Oscar had recognised the depths of his collapse and could begin to “come up out of the depths”. He ended his toast preliminaries with a quote from Frank Harris’ 1916 biography of Oscar Wilde where he relays a conversation Frank once had with Oscar. With considerable prescience Oscar had predicted that “a hundred years hence, no one will know anything about Curzon …  whether [he] lived or died will be a matter of indifference to everyone; but my comedies and my stories and ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ will be known and read by millions, and even my unhappy fate will call forth worldwide sympathy.” How right he was about this and so much more. We shared Merlin’s toast: “my grandfather at this, his 170th birthday”. Happy birthday Oscar.

Guests then tucked into three courses of lovely food and more wines. Conversation flowed in a glittering, joyful, sometimes unexpected and definitely noisy torrent. We clearly all shared the unmatched joy that is love of Oscar Wilde, the man, his life and his amazing achievements. Oscar would’ve loved it.

Eleanor Fitzsimons (Hon. Patron) rounded off the evening with a few profiles of the contributors to The Woman’s World. The likes of Elisabeth of Wied, first Queen of Romania, Marie Corelli the English novelist, and Dr Mary Marshall, who along with six other women was forced to campaign to be allowed to graduate as a medical doctor. Wilde championed many women of ambition, ability and courage, using The Woman’s World to give them a platform and visibility. Copies of the book were available for sale at the dinner, but did not last long. The moment for purchasing a copy passed too fast, and like the evening the moment was over much too soon. Drifting home sleepy on the train, I am certain that over us all Oscar’s bemused spirit was surely smiling.

© Laurel Lindström 2024

Welcome to the Oscar Wilde Society

The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Theatre Royal Haymarket – a review

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The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde’s only novel. When its initial version came out as a story in Lippincott’s Magazine in 1890, the critics were not kind. It was declared an immoral book to which Wilde responded in the preface to the book version of The Picture of Dorian Gray that, “there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.”

In its presentation at the Theatre Royal Haymarket The Picture of Dorian Gray has a curious morality, an honesty resonant for our times. Sarah Snook stars in a one woman presentation of a novel that has never previously transferred well to the stage. There’s not much of a plot or structure and the brilliance of The Picture of Dorian Gray is in its intermingling of the witty dialogue for which Wilde is so justly famous, and the inner contortions we all suffer as we try to live the lives expected of us, while dealing with inner secrets and our quotidien moral dilemmas.

The basic story of Dorian Gray is not lost in this stage version: artist Basil Hallward paints the portrait of an exceptionally beautiful 20 year old man. His friend, the hedonistic Lord Henry Wotton, admires the painting and is keen to meet the sitter. Gorgeous Dorian arrives at the studio dripping innocence and very soon is fascinated by Henry Wotton’s talk of youth and beauty and the tragedy that is aging, amongst much else. Dorian’s first sin, vanity, comes on quickly and enthralled by Lord Henry’s quips and chat Dorian promises his soul, if he could remain ever youthful. In return for Dorian’s soul his aging will only be evident in the portrait which no one will ever see. Basil doesn’t ever want to exhibit the picture because “I have shown in it the secret of my own soul.” The portrait ends up in Dorian’s attic where its beauty soon starts to deteriorate.

Wilde put much of himself and his philosophy for life into The Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s his personal manifesto of sorts and this added layer of intimacy makes it even harder to present the story on stage. But at the Theatre Royal director Kip Williams, artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company, has managed it in spades. He does so by using unconventional methods: videography and what I suppose are film or television cameras and a single actor, Sarah Snook. Five cameras buzz about the stage throughout the two hour performance. The picture of Dorian Gray is a giant screen in portrait orientation hanging centre stage with constantly changing images of the book’s characters, according to who’s doing what. We never see the deteriorating painting. Snook plays all 26 characters, with the less central ones prerecorded. The main characters are filmed live on stage as Snook changes wigs, facial hair and clothes with the assistance of the people doing the filming, to shift from one character to another and talking all the while. It’s an extraordinarily powerful and demanding performance.

The Picture of Dorian Gray connects ideas about influence and individualism to Dorian’s vulnerable innocence, with pretty sorry results. On stage the drawing of this link is all a little chaotic and unsettling. This is precisely the point: identity and sense of self is fluid, a little chaotic and unsettling. Numerous screens convey the characters as Snook narrates the story, sometimes in competition with herself, as more than one character overlaps to tell the tale. Oscar’s gorgeous words dominate throughout; so much of the presentation is him that Oscar’s almost there, an unseen adjunct to the cast. It’s wonderful.

As Snook narrates the story she works with the cameramen and works with her own image on a mobile phone. As she describes what’s going on, she uses image filters to share different versions of her face as Dorian, projected onto the larger screens. It’s a brilliant mimicry of the ridiculous online clichés of beauty, with the huge pouty lips, the superhigh cheekbones and the perfectly arched brows drawn on skin as taut as a drum. And there are the hideous distortions when things go very wrong. Very funny, but also very disturbing.

Wilde’s awareness of the nature of influence, obsession with youth, constant reinvention of oneself and the need to be seen, is just so current, so contemporary. For Wilde all influence is immoral. He says in the novel (and Snook as Lord Henry says on stage) that to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul, instead of letting a person be themselves. Influencing is immoral because the aim of life is self-development, not allowing others to tell you who to be. In an age where influencers are recognised as a sort of profession, Wilde’s reminder is profoundly reassuring. Only about 1% of influencers are self-supporting, so maybe enough people understand that they should be their own person and that the whole influencer thing is an invention to drive advertising and product sales.

Dorian soon falls in love with actress Sybil Vane, but Sybil is too distracted by her love for Dorian to perform well when Lord Henry and Basil are in the audience. In the Theatre Royal production, Sybil’s performance takes place on a tiny model of a stage filled by some filmic wizardry, with Snook’s head and a mass of golden curls covering the tiny stage. Sybil gurns and squints, alternatively mumbling or rattling off her lines whilst constantly glancing at Dorian, almost blowing kisses. Dorian is horrified at her poor performance and, declaring that he is no longer in love with her, ends the relationship. Days later Dorian’s feeling lonely and plans a reconciliation with Sybil, but Lord Henry arrives to tell Dorian that Sybil is dead. She has taken her own life. In taking solace in his own image Dorian notices the first changes in the portrait: “cruel lines around the mouth”. It all goes downhill from there with Dorian committing murder and living a life of inimitable corruption and yet never aging a day. His face belies no sign of the dreadful life he leads. Read the book if you want to know the rest of the story.

Oscar Wilde’s life, philosophy, his defiance of convention, his platforming, it’s all there in the book and miraculously on the Theatre Royal’s stage. Sometimes it’s a bit lost in a surfeit of production cleverness, which can leave the audience slightly numb and disengaged. But maybe that excess is deliberate: just like Dorian as he progresses to ever deeper depths of depravity and all around nastiness we the audience start to feel slightly deadened, alienated.

What happens in this amazing stage version is an extraordinary exposition of modern individualised egocentricity. Murderous stabbing with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons loud in the background. Donna Summer’s I Feel Love booming out in an opium den with Dorian and his gross friends. In every screen on the stage we see different aspects of Dorian’s corruption, his selfishness, vanity, greed, envy, all of it relentlessly engorged in vicious dissolution. Individual expression is taken to horrible extremes in this production, and there are reminders that much of what is in The Picture of Dorian Gray foretells the life and tragic downfall of Oscar Wilde himself. In Dorian’s ultimate demise we have an early whisper for The Ballad of Reading Gaol: each man kills the thing he loves. And Basil reminds us that we “shall suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly”. Somewhere in the book and somewhere in the chaos of screens and rapid fire narration on stage Wilde tells us that genius lasts longer than beauty. This astonishing production and Snook’s fantastic performance are proof that whatever beauty Oscar crammed into his life, his genius is what endures.

Constance Wilde’s Autograph Book edited by Devon Cox

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Constance Wilde, born in 1858, was the wife of Oscar and the mother of his two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. Two years after her marriage to Oscar Wilde in 1884, Constance started an autograph book for which she continued to collect entries until 1896. There are 62 in all, mostly provided by invited contributors during Constance’s At Home events. But by 1896, her husband was in prison having been convicted of ‘gross indecency’ and Constance was in exile in Italy. After Constance died in 1898, two years before Oscar, the whereabouts of the autograph book were unknown. 

It resurfaced at auction in 1987 and Mary Hyde bequeathed it to the British Museum in 2003. The British Museum kindly gave the Oscar Wilde Society permission to produce a facsimilie reproduction of the book. Joan Winchell, a longstanding member of the society, donated funds to make possible the book’s production. Devon Cox managed the project.

Constance’s autograph book is an unparalleled window into manners, behaviour, expectations and the nature of celebrity in late nineteenth century London. Constance was very considered in her invitations to contribute to her autograph book, so it has entries from a diverse group of men and women, from Prime Ministers and actors to musicians and spiritualists. And it has some interesting omissions, such as Oscar’s soon to be growing group of male friends.

The entries range from the profound to the peculiar. G. F. Watts painter and sculptor put “our greatest happiness should be found in the happiness of others” and “you did not promise to be her mother-in-law” is playwright Elizabeth Merivale’s rather odd contribution. And although her husband’s renown was obviously helpful in gaining signatures, the autograph book clearly reflects Constance’s independent values, spirit and aspirations. Oscar’s entry, the second in the book following that of Oliver Wendell Holmes, is unsurprisingly the most intimate of all. It reads: “from a poet to a poem” and although Oscar has used this line elsewhere in his work, it is no less touching an expression of his respect and admiration for his wife. At least at the time, when she was still the love of his life.

So why should we care about the autograph book of a woman long dead and buried, who died tragically young and whose life was so overshadowed by her glamorous husband? Isn’t this little autograph book just an elaborate form of name-dropping, of literary showing off? Yes, it is an exercise in name dropping, but these names are not just collected, Constance Wilde has deliberately curated them and this is part of the fascination of the book. The names so assiduously gathered, reflect some sliver of Constance’s spirit and values. Artists and poets feature heavily, as do actors including Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt.

In the beginning of their marriage Oscar’s fame and notoriety dominated Constance’s life, and then shame and notoriety were ascendant. They forced Constance to leave the country and change her and her children’s names. First glamour and then misery. But somewhere in that glorious and successful phase of Oscar’ life, first as a heterosexual man, then as a bisexual one and then homosexual, Constance was in love and happy. Oscar too was in love and happy. The autograph book was mostly created during this period of their lives, when Constance was emerging as a socially and politically independent woman. A woman sufficiently confident and bold to hold her own in Oscar’s orbit, albeit fleetingly.

Constance was his soul mate and lover, intellectually for a little while and briefly physically. But Oscar was a serial explorer both intellectually and sexually, so it never was going to last long. Apart from their two boys, there are very few expressions of Constance in Wilde’s life. Her autograph book gives us a small shred of insight into the woman and her life with one of the world’s greatest authors. With contributions from artists such as James Whistler and William Morris, from politicians such as Gladstone, through to authors including Mark Twain and George Meredith, the book reflects Constance Wilde’s life and times but also her eclecticism. It’s a wonderful thing indeed. 

Devon Cox has overseen the production of the project and even if you don’t fancy reading all the musings in the book, his introduction alone is worth the purchase. You can buy it here: https://oscarwildesociety.co.uk/autograph-book/

PS Is it just me or is there a striking similarity in looks between Constance and Bosie?

Oscar: A Life by Matthew Sturgis (not a review in the end) – if you want to know more about Oscar Wilde go here:

Laurel Lindström 3 Comments

https://oscarwildesociety.co.uk

Dear Oscar,

My hero.

I am writing to tell you about the latest big fat biography of yourself, you, Oscar Wilde. You’ve probably already read Oscar: a Life by Matthew Sturgis, but if not do. It’s a vast catalogue of your life, a huge collection of facts all gathered together in a single volume and narrated with lively enthusiasm by historian Matthew Sturgis. Even for people not inclined to read or to learn more about your sainted self, it’s an easy page turner. Like you, the book is an astonishing achievement, exhaustive, charming and compelling, and only minorly flawed by the publisher’s sloppy production.

The book tracks the timeline of your life with immense detail. Your upbringing in Ireland and time at Portora School are carefully documented, along with masses of skinny on your relatives, family, friends and contemporaries. Your brilliance and sometime (fleeting) sportiness are shared, as are the details of your move to Trinity College Dublin and thence to Oxford. It was at Oxford that your identity as an artist started taking tangible shape, along with your previously under-developed abilities to command attention, involvement and direction. You’re soon drawn to London and its fashionable society, a larger and more demanding stage where you continued to thrive rising slowly through the soup. But you had no readily accessible means of earning a decent living, despite winning the Newdigate Prize for Ravenna in 1878 and publishing Poems in 1881. Transition was needed from poet, to performer, author and playwright, and was soon in motion.

The brilliant idea of an American tour was almost a disaster following your first performance in New York City in 1882. D’Oyly Carte had wisely hedged his gamble with only a single booking for the preening society aesthete with unproven oratory skills. Subsequent tentative dates were only to be confirmed following responses to the initial outing. Despite a rough start, the lecture and the jokes worked out and you grew over the coming months into a polished and popular performer.

It was clear from the outset that Oscar Wilde’s outwardly shifting persona would respond to the demands of audience as it did throughout the 1882 US tour. But persona and audience morphed in tandem throughout your life. Aspiration and vanity, victories and collapses, your evolving sexuality from heterosexual, bisexual to homosexual, shaped your identity and presentation. A pattern in others’ of cautious or bold risk-taking, mirrored your own mercurialism. It traces across your life: diminished risk to publish or stage your work as your reputation grew; increased risk to commercial ventures of your notoriety and attendant outrageousness. No rules. 

Mr Sturgis presents a clear picture of your obvious brilliance and magic, and also of your vulnerability to flattery and beauty. No surprises there. And throughout his work Mr Sturgis energetically corrects errors in literary critic Richard Ellman’s definitive biography, published after Ellman’s death in 1987. But the huge numbers of typographic errors publisher Head of Zeus has allowed in Oscar: a Life rather undermines one’s confidence in these corrections. I am sure someone has already pointed them out, but throughout the text’s 720 pages there is barely a chapter without mistakes: your funeral was on the 3rd December, not the 3rd November. Is it Salomé or Salome? And shouldn’t pronouns and verbs agree? 

We learn that intellect untamed searches always for innovative ideas, insights and perspectives no matter how grungy their habitats or philosophy (remember the Decadents?). Pushing the ideas of others to their limits, challenging social convention and expectations whether in poems or fashion or home décor began with you, you, Oscar Wilde. And it’s what all of us now aspire to. Aesthetic traditions, their particularities, expression, are conversely universal and unique, for individuals are simultaneously ordinary and exceptional. Whatever the green eyed James Whistler charges, your aesthetic persona and expression are more than a reworking of someone else’s philosophy. Thankfully this comes through in Oscar a Life.

It’s also clear that your genius morphs with your humanity, kindness and individualism subverted, or glittered, with vanity and ego. The emergence of the Oscar Wilde persona began early, grew as your genius became apparent, was amplified by fame and then started to distort. But never, ever did your brilliance, underlying decency and generosity of spirit diminish. Throughout the public scenes, trials and imprisonment, consideration for others was always there. It too often got lost in the torrent of passion for Bosie and his evil influence and subculture corruption. Denial and shame made you spiteful sometimes, as guilt and embarrassment periodically trumped kindness. This was particularly and horribly evident in your dealings Constance and others whom you should have trusted more. But you know this.

Knowledge, carnal or otherwise, was always your fuel but sadly wisdom too often lingered a little too long, as it does for most of us. Our shared frailty is why people still read and enjoy your work, why love for Oscar Wilde is spread so far and wide. You are not forgotten and your influence persists, variously cloaked in notoriety and hero worship. It’s acknowledged by those who know you. It’s obviously unacknowledged by those who are unknowingly beholden to you, but they are many.

You show us the origins of much that distresses modern life: performance and identity, the need for audience and attention, the desire to be heard and taken seriously, understanding what it is to be as one and as one of many. The paradoxes in which you so delight are clear in both biographies. Truth and lies, male and female, brutality and gentleness, hypocrisy and faith, the secptic and the trusting, mirrors all. But the paradoxes are clearest in your works. They veil our ugliest traits, our vanities and deceits, ignorance and denials. In the darkly radical The Picture of Dorian Grey and the evanescent humour of The Importance of Being Earnest our own hypocrisies are played out.

You were not self-destructive (too vain for that), but rather caught in a vortex of events, shocked and horrified at your own reversal, that your gainsayers really did mean it. That this time there was no chance of rebounding. You knew disaster was coming but instead stood fast, brave, and faced it. It was a matter of honour and truth, of the artistry of life in black and white and of your own integrity in the dock. You stood on a stage of your own construction and were not cowed when enemies tried to dismantle it. Not then, not now.

Ever yours,

– A Woman of Even Less Importance.

PS “…No longer now shall Slander’s venomed spite 
Crawl like a snake across his perfect name, 
Or mar the lordly scutcheon of his fame. …”