Where The Wilde Things Are

Please excuse the awful pun but I dragged the Scottish one to the theatre for the first time in many years, certainly for the first time in our acquaintanceship, and I think it might take us both a while to get over the experience. The chosen play was Salome, I have a soft spot for Wilde and when I saw this was in town I wanted to go to it. The posters I might add where seductive, and as I missed the ballet version of Dorian Grey earlier in the year I was determined to see this.

I like the theatre, generally in quite an unsophisticated ‘entertain me please’ sort of way. I can handle a bit of symbolism and have no particular problem with a modern dress version of pretty much anything (though I prefer some proper dressing up if I’m given the choice), ‘contemporary’ doesn’t put me off, but sometimes I have to wonder why. In this case it was over the beer I felt compelled to feed the Scottish one to make up for a show that really wasn’t his thing.

So now I’m going to ask am I wrong to think that Wilde is about the language and manners and a certain amount of subtlety? Twentieth century decadence was the tag line, which in this case meant a set composed of mud and gravel with a Middle Eastern militaristic aesthetic and almost constant groping and furtling on the part of the cast. Which might have worked if Salome had not been interpreted as a petulant adolescent, the words suggest a young women confident in her sexuality, but in this case the actions were of a girl without any real sense of her desires or desirability. At least the last ten minutes were as chilling as could be hoped for, and the thing is I had one of the best evenings out in Leicester for a long time.

This is what I love about live theatre, a couple of hours in the pub pulling the play to pieces (because clearly being such an expert and all I could do a much better job) is easily as satisfying as watching the most polished and sympathetic performance. It’s been timely because I’m missing the country life at the moment and one of the great compensations of living in a city – even a fairly provincial one – is the chance to engage with this sort of thing (and to have a choice of beer venues at the end of it). On the other hand it might be another three years before I get the Scottish one in a theatre again...

Wilde - The Complete Short Stories

The first play I remember being taken to see was Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, one of the first classics I remember buying (rather than pinching from my mother) was ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. I went through my teenage years happy to declare nothing but my genius and then mostly grew out of it (although I still have a love of silk pyjamas fostered by Oscar Wilde and Peter Whimsy in equal parts, and green carnations which are pure Wilde). I even had a birthday drinking champagne in the Cadogan Hotel (where Wilde was arrested) – a day of Sloane Square fantasy away from the reality of work. I was there as a chaperone for my mother who was being entertained by a wealthy American who had designs on her virtue. She foiled him with me – as his manners on that occasion were impeccable he gracefully gave in, plied us with champagne and dinner and watched us leave – a clearly frustrated man. I would feel sorry for him if it hadn’t been such a good birthday and I like to think Oscar would have found the situation amusing.

I had a missed parcel note in the post a few days ago which was intriguing because a surprise, when I went down to collect it the parcel turned out to be a copy of the complete short stories kindly and unexpectedly sent by Oxford University Press. I read these as a child, and periodically since, but haven’t seen them for a few years. Reading them again over lunch hours made me realise how deeply embedded some of these stories are in my imagination. ‘The Happy Prince’, ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’, ‘The Selfish Giant’ ‘The Birthday of the Infanta’ and ‘The Star Child’ especially are all better remembered than I expected and yet have lost none of their impact. Nearly all of them will make me feel unreasonably emotional (and when not in the staff canteen are more than able to bring a tear to the eye).

They are wonderful children’s stories, full of beauty, cruelty and injustice – good things for the young to understand if they are to grow up well. They are also simply wonderful stories. Adult reading convinces me that Wilde is at his best just here; the plays are wonderfully elegant and fragile confections, very amusing but not really stirring. I’ve enjoyed the stories so much that I’ve got out both the copies I now own with the express intention of running a bath, filling it with something decadent in the way of unguents and reading through both introductions. If I ever was to make a list of books not to be without Wilde’s short stories would most certainly be on it.