![]() After they talk, he decides to return to sin in Alexandria while she discovers religion and chooses to remain in the desert. And the ping-pong of Wildean bon mots – that can, in bad productions of this work, make you feel as if you are witnessing as a collection of statues elocuting into a void – is played with real force of personality by a cast of de luxe performers including Eleanor Bron and Emma Fielding. The plot of the existing segment is as Myrrhina is an Alexandrian noblewoman who travels to the mountains to tempt Honorius, a Christian hermit, away from goodness with her beauty and wealth. By playing the central story for it enduring tragic truth and muting some of the more exclamatory attitudinising, Dromgoole brings an Ibsenite bite to the proceedings. To indicate the enduring relevance of the piece (hot now because of the Harvey Weinstein scandal), the director does not need to resort to any updating (Jonathan Fensom’s lovely country house designs root the show in its period). The great thing about Dromgoole’s revival of this earlier play is that, if the balance still seems a bit awkward, the production makes a signal success of both aspects. The received wisdom is that Wilde didn’t get the balance right between epigrammatic comedy and melodrama until he realised that the only thing to do with the latter was to mock it – which he achieved in his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest. ![]() Seven quotes from Oscar Wilde to put life into perspective. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |