![]() ![]() I loved Peter Finch’s, but, like Stephen Fry’s, his leaned toward the family-values version of Oscar.” Liam Neeson, who brought The Judas Kiss to Broadway, while “a brilliant actor,” was “a heavyweight Oscar, and you need a lightweight to move fast across the ideas.” Robert Morley’s was one of the great ones. “In the cinema they were all favorites of mine, for different reasons. Liam Neeson as Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss Photo by Ivan Kyncl I haven’t gone to seed that much.”Īdd some false teeth, a flowing wig, stoop posturing and vintage costumes, and voila! it’s the Oscar of old-certainly, closer than others who’ve played the part. “Well, this helps,” he trumpets late in the interview, pulling down his bulky sweater to reveal a chest of foam rubber. What went on there, why didn’t he leave-those are riveting, historical questions.”Įverett, who was one year old when Morley and Finch were in movie houses waging the Wilde war that here is fought during intermission, isn’t the same dashing and strapping matinee-idol who Broadway-debuted seven years ago in Blithe Spirit. If you’re any kind of die-hard Wilde fan, that April afternoon in the hotel is an iconic moment. “It’s a beautiful and very moving and very intuitive portrait of a character-a prose poem about Oscar Wilde. “I love this play,” admits Rupert Everett, who stars. Act Two finds him broken into bits by prison, resuming his affair with the unfaithful and unworthy “Bosie” in a rundown hotel near Naples. It’s something of a Before/After snapshot.Īct One finds Wilde holed up at a swank suite in London’s Cadogan Hotel, awaiting arrest, waving away the advice of his former lover and loyal friend, Robbie Ross, to flee the country while he can. This is where David Hare begins his 1998 play, The Judas Kiss, now being revived at the BAM Harvey Theatre through June 12. The Marquess of Queensberry, livid that his son (Lord Alfred Douglas, hereafter referred to as “Bosie”) had a sexual relationship with Wilde, left his calling card at Wilde’s club, the Albemarle, inscribed: “For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite.” Reacting with righteous (if massively misguided!) indignation, Wilde sued Queensberry, who had only to threaten to produce a few male prostitutes in court to prove the truth of his charge and get Wilde sentenced to two years of hard labor in prison for “gross indecency.” The premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest on Valentine’s Day of 1895 made him the toast of Londontown. Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was a 19th century Irish playwright, novelist, essayist and poet-a torrent of brittle, urbane, witty words that elevated Victorian society-so it’s ironic that the one word that brought him down was misspelled. Homosexuality appears to have been discovered in May of 1960 when, thanks to a suddenly relaxed Movie Production Code, two quite reputable British films rushed into the marketplace huffing and puffing and telling the same sad story- Oscar Wilde, starring Robert Morley, and The Trials of Oscar Wilde, starring Peter Finch. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |