THE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE. To 16 November.

Glasgow

THE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE
adapted by Jon Pope

Citizens' Theatre Stalls Studio To 16 November 2002
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat 9 November 3pm
Runs 1hr 25min One interval

TICKETS 0141 429 0022
www.citz.org.uk
Review Timothy Ramsden 23 October

An often-told piece of history is refreshed by selective emphasis.Silly, silly Oscar. Stupidly over-confident: a believer in his own self-publicity. Accusing his boyfriend's dad of libel: not for anything published to an astonished world, but for a private ,misspelt missive. And when the libel failed,the libel note gained the force of legal truth, and became widely known. Jon Pope's stylised re-telling throws a keen focus on key points in the initial trial and the two criminal cases brought subsequently against Wilde.

The irony's pointed at the start: James Duke's Oscar begins by saying he's bringing the prosecution. He ends, the most eloquent speaker of his day,silenced. Between, Duke's Oscar is ever-confident and full-voiced when it comes to literature and art, but it's evident he has less to argue, more to assert about life and society. His chief weapon is to steer questions away from the prosecution's questions about public interpretations, on to his familiar aesthetic patch.

It's risky, and he goes at it head-first, like an over-confident contestant in the old 'Yes-No' quiz-show device (where the asim was to avoid answering 'Yes' or 'No' to a torrent of questions). Wilde's moment of breakdown - is when, in the interrogative rush, he tosses away the idea he had physical relastions with a young man, beccause he was plain-looking. The voice falters, the head sinks into a hand as the ever-vigilant prosecution picks up the implications of trhis admission.

While the material (mostly from trial transcripts, but with imagined insertion of censored passages) highlights both the flavour of the period and the political implications (Wilde's adversary, the Marquess of Queensberry, was already onto a senior politician's relationship with one of his sons and saw in Wilde a ready and more susceptible figure on whom to unleash his fury). Amazingly, a whol;e string of male prostitutes and occasional renters wgave evidence with seeming impunity: when the Establishment has a victim in its sights, it will make any amount of compromises to hit its target.

And the snatches of music from Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, the famous popular parody of aestheticism ('As you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your intellectual hand'), point up that Wilde's self-conscious wit and elegance, with his outre manner made him a prime fear and hate figure for English philistinism.

The confined, low-roofed Stalls Studio is perfect for the intense courtroom conflict: or, Pope has found a form that suits the narrow, space. A long table, fills most of the performance area: in diagonally-opposed corners stand the antagonists. Anne Marie Timoney is excellent as various imperturbable Counsels, thoroughly briefed and never for a split-moment discomposed by Wilde's responses. They must have expected some nonsense from him, even if they did not know precisely what: his replies, many times, were clearly discounted, the next piece of evidence or probing question already prepared.

The performers play multiple roles; occasionally they move around the space, whisper procedural points: exposing the Byzantine complexity of the British legal labyrinth.

There are some mildly irritating touches from the stockroom of modernist production: modern props,such a a plastic bothtle of mineral water, at one point Wooster Group-derived speaking in flat quietness into microphones (Timoney's voice seems to curl round the table-mike along with her tobacco smoke). Generally though, this is a keenly theatrical restatement of an event with implications that remain as relevant to public trials today - something picked out in the video inserts from a 21st century street for the evidence of hotel servants and other potential tabloid 'buy-ups'.

Cast:
James Duke, Anne Marie Timoney

Director/Designer: Jon Pope
Lighting: Michael Lancaster
Music: Adrian Johnston

2002-10-27 18:09:31