My favourite Oscar Wilde quote?! How can one possibly choose just one gem from such a rich treasure trove of wit?! It’s hard to beat:’I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train’. Coming a close second is, ‘I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing one should do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.’ This quote comes from Oscar’s evergreen 1895 play AN IDEAL HUSBAND, currently playing at Sydney’s intimate, inner city venue, the Genesian Theatre.
Lady Gertrude Chiltern adores her husband, Sir Robert Chiltern, a leading politician who holds the position of Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the House of Commons. She sees him as a model of virtue, above reproach, a pillar of society, as the play’s title says, an ideal husband. Imagine her horror, and this is what the play turns on, when she finds out that her husband has feet of clay and has succumbed to blackmail.
In the early days of his public life Sir Robert came into a fortune that set him up for life. The fortune was the result of him selling state secrets, and the play’s villain and blackmailer, Mrs Laura Cheveley,(worse still, a school colleague of Lady Chiltern’s), has, in her possession, documentary evidence of this fraud. Mrs Cheveley has blackmailed Sir Robert to agree on supporting the Argentine Canal scheme, a scheme in which she has heavily invested, and which Sir Robert has previously bitterly opposed in Parliament.
Timothy Bennett’s production for the Genesian Theatre Company serves this classic satire well.In his second role in an Oscar Wilde play, having last year played Algernon in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST for Hunter’s Hill, Andrew O’Connell impresses in the role of the embattled Sir Robert as does Faran Martin as his wife Lady Gertrude who has to subsequently see her husband with somewhat maturer eyes.
Melanie Robinson makes for a nasty, conniving piece of work as the viperous Mrs Cheveley. There’s a good chemistry displayed between John Willis-Richards as Lord Arthur Goring and a glowing Jodie Lee Behrendorrff as the vivacious Mabel Chiltern. Gary Esmonde Woods impressed as the distinguished Earl of Caversham whose main battle is in trying to make a real man of his son, Lord Goring.
This is a warm, entertaining night at the theatre. Oscar Wilde’s wit reigns supreme! I can’t resist (alack I’ve never been good with temptation!) just another zinger before I go! ‘Morality is the attitude we take to people we personally dislike’.
Timothy Bennett’s production of Oscar Wilde’s AN IDEAL HUSBAND opened at the Genesian Theatre, 420 Kent Street, Sydney on Saturday 30th October and plays until Saturday 10th December, 2011.
(c)David Kary
2nd November, 2011
Tags: Oscar Wilde, AN IDEAL HUSBAND, Jodie Lee Behrendorff, Gary Woods, Faran Martin, Melanie Robinson Andrew O’Connell, John Willis-Richards,Timothy Bennett.
