Ever Yours Oscar: Stratford Shakespeare Festival
Actor Brian Bedford Reads Letters of Irish Playwright Oscar Wilde
Aug 20, 2009
Perfect Companion Piece to Wilde's Earnest
For those who still appreciate the eloquent beauty of the hand written letter, and the genius of Oscar Wilde, Ever Yours, Oscar, now playing at The Tom Patterson Theatre, is an elegant complement to this Irish playwright’s beloved period comedy The Importance of Being Earnest. Brian Bedford is doing his usual double stage duty, directing and acting in the current Avon Theatre production of Earnest.
Bedford plays Lady Bracknell. In Ever Yours Oscar, he looks dapper as Wilde would have in his day, Bedford offers audiences a glimpse of Wilde, as he says “we find nowhere else.” He’s right. A giant portrait of Oscar Wilde at his dandified best oversees this theatrical event. Delivering these missives from a simple podium, Bedford’s impeccable diction and vocal intonation serve as the perfect instrument, shining through the literal brilliance, reckless passion, and infinite wit of Oscar Wilde.
A Lifetime of Letters to Friends, Lovers, and Tax Collectors
In this 90-minute performance, Bedford reveals an intriguing paradox though Wilde’s lifetime of letters as he takes the audience on a journey through the pages and postscriptums of Wilde’s tumultuous life, masterfully compiled by Peter Wylde. There are letters to Mama or "Speranza", during Wilde’s early school days, flirtations with Florence Balcombe or Florrie, brazenly asking her to return a little gold cross or trinket he had given her because she had become engaged to someone else.
Wilde wrote long letters to his wife Constance Lloyd, whom he described to ladyfriend Lillie Langtry as "a grave, slight violet-eyed Artemis," and joyous reports to children Cyril and Vivyan of his visit to see Edgar Allan Poe.
Bedford delights the audiences with Wilde’s epistles of anecdotes from his famed 1882 American lecture tour to his friends back home “..writing to you from the uttermost end of the modern world...” or retorts to income tax inspectors, “I wish your letters were not so agitating. 50 pounds sounds like medieval torture.”
The Woman's World, Robert Baldwin Ross, Lord Alfred Douglas
Wilde writes suggestions to his superior during his three years as editor of The Woman's World, the only full time job Wilde ever had ...“it is too feminine and too womanly. Artists have genders, but art has none. It needs a new cover, a new name, a new cache. Music in a magazine is somewhat dull.”.. and rebuttals to The Scotsman review of his only published novel The Picture of Dorian Gray ..“illiterate classes read newspapers, not books.”
Wilde wrote many letters of his life’s joy and sorrow to close friend / literary executor Robbie Ross (Robert Baldwin Ross) while asking theatre manager George Alexander for a $150 pound advance regarding Earnest outlining its fledgling plot ..“the charm of the play is in the dialogue.” Countless letters and observations abound about Wilde’s lover Bosie – Lord Alfred Douglas – a ne’er do well Adonis - “Bosie is so tired. He lies there like a hyacinth on the sofa, and I worship him.”
Reading Gaol and Exile to France
Bosie’s father, Marquess of Queensbury, thinking Wilde influenced his son, was determined to ruin Oscar Wilde and the “love that dare not speak its name,” publicly denouncing him as a “posing sodomite” which eventually led to Wilde’s conviction of gross indecency and imprisonment at Pentonville London, and Reading prisons.
The attrocities of prison life greatly changed Wilde and moved by the Reading Gaol's treatment of children and “stupidity of cruelty” he appealed to the editor of The Daily Chronicle, to pardon a kindly warden for giving biscuits to child inmates – an Ever Yours highlight.
In his final days, fresh from receiving the Pope’s blessing in Rome, and back in Paris, sans the gold-digging Bosie, Wilde is depressed, but his wit is forever in tact. “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has to go.”
Bedford and Wilde had the audience LOL.
Ever Yours Oscar, starring Brian Bedford, with six added performances, continues to Aug 29 at The Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford Shakespearean Festival Ontario,Canada.
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