In January 1895 two plays were produced in London's West End, and the reactions of the theater going public was marked in both cases. The first was GUY DOMVILLE, a historical drama that was written by Henry James. James had spent the better part of a year writing this play, and it was to establish him (he hoped) as a great dramatist. It has never been revived (as far as I know) but it's opening night was a disaster. Despite being put into the hands of a leading actor manager (George Alexander), the play was considered so static and feeble that the audience was laughing at the actors throughout the performance. James, a nervous man, did not show up until the curtain was closing. In a moment of anger and meanness, Alexander (who had gotten his share of jeers that night) signaled the audience to be quiet, and said that it was his pleasure to introduce the author of the play. Poor James walked over to Alexander, imagining he would receive kudos of applause for brilliant work. Instead the audience jeered and laughed at him - and he fled the theater (and London). He never wrote another commercial play.
A few weeks later Alexander regained his audience by appearing as Jack Worthing in the second play of that month: Oscar Wilde's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. It was a hit comedy since that night, and though Wilde's personal disaster caused it to be closed prematurely it has remained (with LADY WINDEMERE'S FAN) permanently in world repertoire. But Wilde too, due to his legal disaster, never wrote another play for the British theater - he did write SALOME for foreign performances.
Due to the Wilde Scandal of 1895 his stories and plays were not performed on stage or in the movies in Britain for years. It was different in the U.S. THE CANTERVILLE GHOST (brought up to date) was a successful film with Charles Laughton, Robert Young, and Margaret O'Brien during the war. In the film FLESH AND FANTASY a version of LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME was in one of the episodes with Edward G. Robinson, Sir C. Aubrey Smith, and Thomas Mitchell. And finally (in 1945) a film version of Oscar's sole novel, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, popped up with Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, and Angela Lansbury.
Inevitably there was a softening of the censor rules for Wilde's comedies. And in 1952 Anthony Asquith did a lovely colored version of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. I think Asquith was copying the way he presented the film from Olivier's earlier HISTORY OF KING HENRY V (1944), where we see the production at the Globe Theater in the 1590s transformed into the actual locals in England and France (actually Ireland). Here we see a wealthy couple sitting in a theater box in London, and looking at the program, and the curtain rises. But the scene immediately is more like John Worthing's rooms at "the Albany" hotel in London, with his servants giving him a bath. Then the scene changes as we meet Worthing's friend Algy Moncrieff in the dining room.
Michael Redgrave is Jack, which is worth noting because Redgrave's film roles were usually dramatic parts, not comic ones. He is not the assured snob that John Gielgud played on stage (opposite Edith Evans), which one can still catch on recordings of his performance. But he is deft in his part, as the ultimate gentleman who is tragically bereft of normal parentage because he can only trace his ancestry to the handbag that he was abandoned in at Victoria Station.
Evans is the perfect Lady Bracknell (a "gorgon without a myth, which is quite sad", as Jack says). She is eminently supportive of the current status quo, willing to refuse Jack's desire to marry her daughter Gwendolyn (Joan Greenwood), while willing to accept his ward Cecily (Dorothy Tutin) for her relative Algy, as Cecily has a fortune of 130,000 pounds coming to her. Lady B is a snob, but a pragmatist. When asking Jack about his politics, he says he is a Liberal. She says that does not matter, at night she allows them to pretend they are Tories.
The two young woman are fine, especially in the scene where they think the other is trying to steal their boyfriend. Tutin's comments back at Greenwood are met with the approving gaze of the family butler (Aubrey Mather). But when both find their boyfriends are lying about their name, they suddenly reject both Jack and Algy, and call each other sister. Earlier Algernon had said that before women call each other sister they call each other by many other names - and he is shown to be right here.
One must also note the wonderful dual performance of Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism and Miles Malleson as the diffident Canon Chausable. Both are past the age of real passion, but both are also attracted to each other - but their idea of a tryst is a walk in a garden, or Miss Prism going to the Vicarage. And Redgrave's final moments with Rutherford, when the mystery at the center of the play is almost solved, is a wonderful send-up of Victorian melodrama like EAST LYNNE about illegitimate children or shamed mothers.
An elegant, amusing trifle to this day - and a hint of what Wilde might have given us more of had he not been wrecked by the law and his lifestyle.
A few weeks later Alexander regained his audience by appearing as Jack Worthing in the second play of that month: Oscar Wilde's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. It was a hit comedy since that night, and though Wilde's personal disaster caused it to be closed prematurely it has remained (with LADY WINDEMERE'S FAN) permanently in world repertoire. But Wilde too, due to his legal disaster, never wrote another play for the British theater - he did write SALOME for foreign performances.
Due to the Wilde Scandal of 1895 his stories and plays were not performed on stage or in the movies in Britain for years. It was different in the U.S. THE CANTERVILLE GHOST (brought up to date) was a successful film with Charles Laughton, Robert Young, and Margaret O'Brien during the war. In the film FLESH AND FANTASY a version of LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME was in one of the episodes with Edward G. Robinson, Sir C. Aubrey Smith, and Thomas Mitchell. And finally (in 1945) a film version of Oscar's sole novel, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, popped up with Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, and Angela Lansbury.
Inevitably there was a softening of the censor rules for Wilde's comedies. And in 1952 Anthony Asquith did a lovely colored version of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. I think Asquith was copying the way he presented the film from Olivier's earlier HISTORY OF KING HENRY V (1944), where we see the production at the Globe Theater in the 1590s transformed into the actual locals in England and France (actually Ireland). Here we see a wealthy couple sitting in a theater box in London, and looking at the program, and the curtain rises. But the scene immediately is more like John Worthing's rooms at "the Albany" hotel in London, with his servants giving him a bath. Then the scene changes as we meet Worthing's friend Algy Moncrieff in the dining room.
Michael Redgrave is Jack, which is worth noting because Redgrave's film roles were usually dramatic parts, not comic ones. He is not the assured snob that John Gielgud played on stage (opposite Edith Evans), which one can still catch on recordings of his performance. But he is deft in his part, as the ultimate gentleman who is tragically bereft of normal parentage because he can only trace his ancestry to the handbag that he was abandoned in at Victoria Station.
Evans is the perfect Lady Bracknell (a "gorgon without a myth, which is quite sad", as Jack says). She is eminently supportive of the current status quo, willing to refuse Jack's desire to marry her daughter Gwendolyn (Joan Greenwood), while willing to accept his ward Cecily (Dorothy Tutin) for her relative Algy, as Cecily has a fortune of 130,000 pounds coming to her. Lady B is a snob, but a pragmatist. When asking Jack about his politics, he says he is a Liberal. She says that does not matter, at night she allows them to pretend they are Tories.
The two young woman are fine, especially in the scene where they think the other is trying to steal their boyfriend. Tutin's comments back at Greenwood are met with the approving gaze of the family butler (Aubrey Mather). But when both find their boyfriends are lying about their name, they suddenly reject both Jack and Algy, and call each other sister. Earlier Algernon had said that before women call each other sister they call each other by many other names - and he is shown to be right here.
One must also note the wonderful dual performance of Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism and Miles Malleson as the diffident Canon Chausable. Both are past the age of real passion, but both are also attracted to each other - but their idea of a tryst is a walk in a garden, or Miss Prism going to the Vicarage. And Redgrave's final moments with Rutherford, when the mystery at the center of the play is almost solved, is a wonderful send-up of Victorian melodrama like EAST LYNNE about illegitimate children or shamed mothers.
An elegant, amusing trifle to this day - and a hint of what Wilde might have given us more of had he not been wrecked by the law and his lifestyle.