Oscar Wilde and His Legacy: British Commercial 1892-1930

by

Sharon Louise Klassen

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Drama, and Performance Studies University of Toronto

© Copyright by Sharon Louise Klassen, 2019

Oscar Wilde and His Legacy: British Commercial Comedy

1892-1930

Sharon Louise Klassen

Doctor of Philosphy

Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies

University of Toronto

2019

Abstract

Oscar Wilde’s successful 1890s works were something new within Victorian comedy. He reinvents a theatrical comedy tradition dominated by a combination of and French-inspired well-made plays, creating more psychologically complex characters than the usual stage types, repeatedly adjusting or blending comic forms to disrupt audience expectations, and emphasizing forgiveness and reconciliation over revenge or poetic justice. This dissertation considers how

Wilde’s unique approach to comic writing is both reflected and adapted in plays from 1900-1930 by St. John Hankin, Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward, revealing shifts in what it means to behave badly when values are rapidly changing. The analysis considers how these plays were affected by contemporary conditions of theatrical production, which are often neglected in scholarship on the plays as texts. The first chapter considers Wilde’s shrewd assessment of the consequences of courtship practices and the double standard beneath a veneer of manners and cleverness in Lady Windermere’s Fan , and . The work continues with an examination of The Importance of Being Earnest , particularly its ii connections to Wilde’s stories for children, the form of farce and recent scholarship about play.

The third chapter considers how Hankin reworks comic expectations in a Wildean way to build layered characters, accurately portray their actions, and provide satisfactory, unconventional endings through plays such as The Return of the Prodigal and The Charity That Began at Home.

In the fourth chapter, the connections between Wilde and several of Maugham’s better known is examined, as Maugham continues Wilde’s witty discussion of the place of women, the requirements for a good marriage, and the effects of too much leisure time. This work concludes by contemplating the influence of Wilde’s comedies on early plays by Coward, revealing how his characters reject not only etiquette and decorum, but the need for any manners at all.

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Acknowledgments

After such a long road, there are many people I would like to thank.

A number of U of T faculty have contributed to this project, including Frederick Marker, Leslie Thomson, Edward Chamberlin, Stephen Johnson and Nancy Copeland. In particular, I would like to acknowledge Ronald Bryden, who introduced me to a number of the plays and playwrights, and Alexander Leggatt, who guided me through the early part of the project. I am exceptionally grateful to Lawrence Switzky, who patiently advised and encouraged me through the final years of this work, shaping it into a coherent package.

I would like to thank Dorothy Hadfield, Douglas Loney and Michel Pharand, who read and edited later drafts. Their contributions were invaluable.

Redeemer University College has assisted this project, not only by providing time, funds and materials, but also by providing me with the opportunity to teach a number of these plays.

I feel beholden to the Shaw Festival, which has produced so many of these plays over the years, enabling me to not just read about but enter the world of Victorian and Edwardian drama.

I want to acknowledge my extended family and friends, who have steadfastly believed and prayed that I would someday finish. There will be a party.

To my wonderful daughter Miranda and my longsuffering husband Bruce – it’s done. Thank you for your patience, for going away on trips so I could work, for doing chores, for loving me when my mind was more on Wilde, Hankin, Coward and Maugham than on dinner.

I regret that my parents, Walter and Cathleen Klassen, did not live to see me complete this work. Without their belief in me, and their years of financial and emotional support, I would have given up long ago. Thank you, Mom and Dad.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge The Book of Lists , which piqued my interest in Oscar Wilde while I was still in high school because so many celebrities included him on lists of people from history they would like to have at a dinner party.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments...... iv

Table of Contents ...... v

Introduction...... 1

1.1 Why Wilde? ...... 1

1.2 The Social Backdrop ...... 3

1.3 Wilde’s Times ...... 5

1.4 Wilde’s Surprising Legacy ...... 6

1.5 Defining Influence ...... 7

1.6 Wilde and Homosexuality...... 8

1.7 Trends in Oscar Wilde Studies ...... 9

Wilde’s Social Comedies: Setting the Stage Through Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband ...... 15

2.1 Introduction ...... 15

2.2 Wilde’s Popularity ...... 16

2.3 Wilde and the Actor-Managers ...... 17

2.4 Reworking the Past ...... 18

2.5 Wilde’s Comic Innovations ...... 22

2.6 Conversation as Action ...... 25

2.7 Using Staging to Develop Character...... 27

2.8 Wildean Women: Puritans, Dowagers and Fallen Women ...... 31

2.9 Dandies and their Masks ...... 39

2.10 Gender Roles and Marriage ...... 45

2.11 Parents and Children ...... 48

2.12 Change and Forgiveness ...... 50

2.13 Consequences and Endings ...... 52

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2.14 Conclusion ...... 55

The Importance of Being Earnest : Adults at Play ...... 57

3.1 Introduction ...... 57

3.2 Wilde’s Stories for Children ...... 59

3.3 Farce and Play ...... 60

3.4 Defining Farce ...... 61

3.5 Earnest as Farce ...... 64

Oscar Wilde and St. John Hankin: Truly Happy Endings ...... 73

4.1 Introduction ...... 73

4.2 Hankin and Wilde ...... 74

4.3 Hankin’s Technique ...... 77

4.4 The Two Mr. Wetherbys ...... 80

4.5 The Return of the Prodigal ...... 86

4.6 The Charity that Began at Home ...... 95

4.7 The Cassilis Engagement ...... 102

Oscar Wilde, Somerset Maugham, and the Idle Classes ...... 112

5.1 Introduction ...... 112

5.2 Maugham and Wilde ...... 112

5.3 Maugham and the ...... 114

5.4 Maugham’s Technique...... 116

5.5 ...... 123

5.6 Smith ...... 129

5.7 Home and Beauty ...... 133

5.8 ...... 136

5.9 ...... 144

5.10 ...... 155 vi

Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward: The End of Manners ...... 160

6.1 Introduction ...... 160

6.2 Coward’s Context and Technique ...... 162

6.3 The Vortex ...... 168

6.4 Easy Virtue ...... 172

6.5 ...... 178

6.6 ...... 183

6.7 Conclusion ...... 187

Conclusion ...... 189

Bibliography ...... 191

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Introduction. 1.1 Why Wilde?

Oscar Wilde’s early theatrical writing provided little sign of his eventual success as a playwright. By 1892, he had published a variety of essays, reviews, short stories for children and a novella, The Picture of Dorian Gray , but his first play, Vera, or the Nihilists , had an unsuccessful New York run in 1883, while (1891) was written for an American actress, Mary Anderson, who turned it down ( Complete 1247-8). Salomé , written in French for Sarah Bernhardt, was refused a license by the Lord Chamberlain in 1892. But with Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Wilde reinvented himself as a successful, sophisticated comic playwright . His plays were produced by respected West End actor-managers in large, reputable, commercially successful , St. James’s and the Haymarket, with an affluent, politically powerful, socially active audience. Wilde often took known plots (Powell Oscar Wilde 11), but modified them to play with a variety of genres, delighting his audience with less formulaic comedies than the and adaptations of well-made plays that were common at the time. He reinvented that inheritance, creating more substantial characters than the usual character types, repeatedly blending or adjusting comic forms to disrupt audience expectations, and emphasizing forgiveness and reconciliation over revenge and poetic justice. Wilde asked questions about identity, the value of innocence and gender expectations, but as he developed as a playwright his message was stronger, the stakes became higher and the questions were riskier. He introduced characters who wield political power, such as Lord Illingworth and Sir Robert Chiltern, probed the corruption of such men, and asked whether they can be redeemed. He repeatedly exposed Society as a masquerade, showing the private identities beneath the masks. If, as Michael Gelven suggests, “comedy confronts corruption” (35), Wilde confronted political, sexual, gender and social corruption, while sustaining a veneer of decorum alongside the epigrams. In his review of An Ideal Husband , Bernard Shaw suggested that Wilde “plays with everything: with , with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre” (qtd. in Tanitch 255). By repeatedly taking the known and making it unfamiliar, Wilde played with comedy to question prevailing ideas about morality, gender, marriage, status and family relationships, creating new options for later playwrights, especially St. John Hankin, W.

1 2

Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward, to write clever but astute plays for sophisticated audiences.

Rather than choosing to write for the more avant-garde or independent theatres that are now seen as foundational to the development of modern drama, Wilde made a place for himself in commercial London theatre, working within its restrictions. It is difficult to judge how progressive popular theatre was in the 1890s, but it seems some ideas treated as enlightened on stage were behind the times. Plays such as The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893), “whilst appearing to be progressive, … was successful because it was not too far ahead of public opinion and consequently not too offensive to the audience or the actor-manager” (Clarke 11). George Alexander, who played Lord Windermere in Lady Windermere’s Fan , as well as Aubrey Tanqueray, could not risk losing his theatre or his reputation. Rather than trying to present a clear moral agenda, Wilde asked a more fundamental question: “What is it to behave badly?” (Worth 18). As Society, power and morality shifted during the period covered here, Hankin, Maugham and Coward used similar techniques to examine audience assumptions about behaving well, and badly, in a rapidly changing world.

Beginning with Lady Windermere’s Fan , Wilde created something new, and while his plays certainly affected other works in the 1890s, they remained unique. They seem less dated than plays by Arthur Wing Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones or Sydney Grundy, possibly explaining why only Wilde’s works, a few early works by Shaw and ’s Charley’s Aunt (1892) are still produced (Jackson 165). Michael Booth writes, “Wilde’s essential comic style is certainly new in the Victorian drama, consisting largely of enigmatic flippancies about life, Society and the men and women both inside and outside that sacred domain” ( Theatre 178). Peter Raby also sees something exceptional in Wilde, suggesting that he “created a particular form of comedy in which to display his mocking imitation of England, a form which satisfied his audience, and which seemed, by its adroit resolutions, to suggest that all was well with Society” (“Wilde’s Comedies” 159). When modern critics consider the possibility of his influence on later playwrights, they often focus on surface similarities, applying the term Wildean without defining the label. He wrote popular comedies that made audiences laugh but also think, creating space for the thoughtful but entertaining comedies of Hankin, Maugham and Coward. These works are truly Wildean, not merely because of their epigrammatic wit or glossy

3 characters, but because they look beneath the surfaces to expose and explore the differences between private and public behaviour.

This work will examine the possibility that Wilde’s four major comedies prompt a sequence of plays that disrupt comic techniques, skillfully convey information about characters through staging techniques and production details and depict surprisingly round characters for the genre, while questioning the appropriate consquences for inappropriate behaviour. More specifically, we examine the depth of Wilde’s reworking of the comic genre; how his new techniques potentially influenced the playwrights who followed, especially Hankin, Maugham, and Coward; and how Wilde’s influence helped shape in general between 1892 and 1930 (from Lady Windermere’s Fan to Private Lives ).

1.2 The Social Backdrop

The era’s social setting – the makeup of Society, the importance of country houses, and the laws governing marital breakdown – is a vital part of Wilde’s plays, especially if one wants to decode what the original audience of these would plays have understood from certain lines of dialogue, stage directions, and descriptions of costumes and sets. This work tries to recapture some of this context to show how Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward use such details to comment on their characters. “Society,” as Wilde used the term, referred to a very specific social group within Britain: the affluent, fashionable, leisured, upper classes, and while the other playwrights sometimes focus more on the middle classes, all were affected by the need to carefully portray this distinct, powerful social group. Leonore Davidoff explicitly distinguishes “Society” from society, explaining that “Society is a self-defined status group based on communal lifestyles” (37), and that the term applies from the 1820s through the 1950s (14). She estimates that approximately 4,000 families were involved in Society by the end of the 1800s (61), when Wilde began writing his plays. Davidoff describes Society as monitoring itself by socializing in private homes to restrict access and adhering to strict rules of etiquette and conduct, rules Wilde explores through the carefully screened guests who attend parties at the Windermere’s and Chiltern’s homes. The reward for retaining or gaining a place in Society was “access to political power, economic position and the accumulation of capital” (17). While the power of Society as a distinct group was waning by the 1920s, both Coward and Maugham explore the way their standards of etiquette continued to affect behavior. Pearl in Maugham’s Our Betters (1923), uses

4 her skills as a hostess to gain status within Society for herself and her family. Whether set within Society or just outside it, the power of this social group affects most of the plays considered here.

The plays in this study carefully depict and critique the workings of Society. A number of the plays, including A Woman of No Importance , The Cassilis Engagement (1907), The Circle (1921) and Easy Virtue (1925) are set in country houses, popular, sequestered sites of Society entertaining. F.M.L. Thompson explains that for the upper classes the country house was “the grand theatre in which rituals of display and hospitality were enacted” (152); visitors judged the size, style, location and architecture of these houses, a gauge Coward astutely employs in his set descriptions. The playwrights also explore how access to private spaces, inside or outside London, was strictly controlled by married women, the “semi-official leaders but also as arbiters of social acceptance or rejection” (Davidoff 16). These socially powerful women enforced strict rules around social rituals such as calling, or using a “cut” to avoid unwanted social interactions, as Wilde shows in Lady Windermere’s Fan . Although Society waned in importance after the war, the later playwrights continued to focus on the actions, beliefs and practices of characters with enough wealth and status to avoid having to work for a living. For all the playwrights, depicting Society and its influence accurately would both cater to and critique affluent theatregoers while also entertaining those who wanted a glimpse into their world.

The complex regulations concerning separation and divorce also warrant some consideration, as Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward all consider the consequences of marital breakdown in this period. The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 simplified earlier practices, which had required successful judgments in two courts, the approval of Parliament, and a payment of about £1000,1 ensuring that divorce was essentially available only to wealthy men. But the new Act perpetuated an expensive, complicated and sexist system. Adultery by one spouse, but only one, remained essential and was enough for a man wishing to divorce his wife. Allen Horstman explains in Victorian Divorce that until 1923, a wife seeking to divorce her husband required additional grounds such as “incest, bigamy, rape, sodomy, bestiality, cruelty, or desertion for two years” (79). Legislators wanted the system to be adversarial, and “connivance, condonation, mutual guilt, and collusion” could prevent the granting of divorce (79). Though only about one

1 Approximately £100,000 today.

5 out of every twenty petitions was denied because it was believed the couple had colluded (102), plays such as Maugham’s Home and Beauty (1919) and Shaw’s Getting Married (1908) generate out of the ways that couples conspire to end their unions. A great deterrent was publicity because divorce cases were reported in not only the local but also the national press (83), and the details of a famous divorce case would be remembered for decades, as shown in Maugham’s The Circle . Despite calls to limit the publicity surrounding divorce, it was not until 1926 that a Bill was passed to limit the publication of evidence from a divorce case (168). Separation Deeds were a popular, private alternative to divorce, (152), particularly for couples that separated without adultery, as in Hankin’s The Two Mr. Wetherbys (1903). They were not permanent, and they did not allow either party to remarry, but by 1900, 8,000 of these orders were made per year (152), while only three out of every 20,000 couples sought a divorce (110). Children likely prompted parents to stay together, both on stage and in reality, as “in 1871, 40 per cent of the suits involved childless couples, a marked contrast with the rest of Victorian society” (104). As shown in a number of plays considered here, any form of marital separation lowered a women’s social status and income, and likely ruined a man’s political career. The number of divorced and separated couples depicted on stage during the period is, however, possibly unrealistically high. But because both the characters on stage and those seeking relief from bad marriages in the courts were likely to be from the wealthier classes, the percentage may be more accurate than we might assume.

1.3 Wilde’s Times

Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward depict characters who are capable of change, an important trait of comedy. They also ask their audiences to reconsider some of their assumptions and values, reflecting the substantial economic, political and social changes of the period covered here. Political power, property and economic order, class structures, social policies, religious practice, morality, divorce, etiquette, family life and the role of women were all in flux from the 1890s to 1930. Perhaps these playwrights could ask audiences to alter their attitudes and values because there was a general acceptance that change was inescapable (Harris 222). For example, the plays accurately depict the declining role of the Church, which “[ceased] to be a dominant social force” during the 1900-1914 period (165). While Wilde employs overtly Christian language to change or challenge his characters’ behaviour, the Church and characters connected to it gradually fade, or become symbols of hypocrisy like the Whittaker women in

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Easy Virtue , as the playwrights become more concerned with the tension between appropriate or moral behaviour and self-fulfillment.

Another significant social change considered by all four playwrights is the shifting status of women within their class, families and the wider culture. Women, especially wives, gradually claimed more freedom and political power, along with the vote during the period, but remained legally ‘less’ than men. Women had specific social obligations, and Davidoff describes how women from the upper-middle and aristocratic classes, especially those born into Society, were trained from birth to perform in a “’Status Theatre’” (Davidoff 51). They maintained their position partly through fashion, as “every cap, bow, streamer, ruffle, fringe, bustle, glove and other elaboration symbolized some status category for the female wearer” (93); Wilde exploits Society’s awareness of these nuances through his characters’ gowns and accessories. The lower classes likely lacked the resources to be as concerned about clothing, but women of all classes were responsible for the bearing and raising of children, and “the indispensability of the housewife and full-time mother was reflected in the pre-1914 adulation of the maternal ‘instinct’, which assumed the character of patriotic crusade among the upper classes” (Gillis 253). This emphasis on the importance of mothers seems to support the attention paid in various plays to women who fail in this role.

1.4 Wilde’s Surprising Legacy

Of the two major playwrights who emerged in the 1890s, Wilde and Shaw, there is no question that Shaw was ultimately the more prolific and that his work has had a more lasting impact. Shaw focused on different, often more economic questions, however, and his plays took some time to find their place in commercial theatres. Arms and the Man (1894) considers what makes a good man or husband, but it is set in Bulgaria, well away from London Society. The Philanderer (1893) and Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1893) consider the roles of men and women inside and outside marriage, but are set in a lower class than Wilde’s Society works and were not produced in the 1890s. You Never Can Tell (1896), Shaw’s most overtly Wildean work, is set outside England and focuses on characters that are part of the professional middle class. While the works of Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward are usually set in recognizable wealthy, upper-class homes, Shaw’s settings are often more fantastic – an Ibsen Club, Eastern Europe, the Roman Empire, a laboratory full of strange devices used by a professor of phonetics, even a

7 home where a plane crashes through the roof! Russell Jackson notes another difference, that Shaw’s works “never let the audience lose sight of a purpose” (173). Where Wilde replaced action with conversation, Shaw replaced it with argument. While Shaw examines characters who mask themselves in Heartbreak House , he seems more interested in characters like Andrew Undershaft who refuse to maintain an appropriate public persona. Other playwrights active in the 1890s, such as Arthur Wing Pinero and Henry Arthur Jones, also set some of their plays in the world of London Society, but preferred the form of the problem play and are now rarely produced. The witty language in their works, often provided by a raisonneur figure, is overwhelmed by argument, such as the discussion of “a man’s life” in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. Their problem plays contain some comic relief, but they lack Wilde’s sustained humour or sense of fun.

Wilde’s legacy extends well beyond 1930, but Hankin, Maugham and Coward worked in a similar theatrical world and best exemplify how his method could be adapted in the three decades following Wilde’s death because: (1) they use comedy to ask questions about behaviour and morality; (2) their plays were commercially successful, with long initial runs and/or multiple revivals; (3) they wrote numerous comedies prior to 1930; and (4) they focus on the wealthy, leisured classes. J.M. Barrie wrote some memorable comic works in the period and shares some traits with Wilde, but plays such as The Admirable Crichton (1902) and Quality Street (1901) rely too heavily on contrived plots and have more unusual settings, like a deserted tropical island. Harley Granville-Barker, Githa Sowerby and John Galsworthy all wrote innovative plays during this period, but their works use a more realist, rather than comedic, approach in exploring social issues. The comedies of Frederick Lonsdale and the farces of Ben Travers reflect some Wildean traits, but they ask fewer questions and lack the round characters of Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward. Other suitable playwrights, including Terrence Rattigan, begin their careers after 1930. Thus there is potential to expand this discussion of Wilde’s legacy beyond the historical scope of this dissertation.

1.5 Defining Influence

Analysing Wilde’s potential effects on later writers requires the use of terms like influence and legacy, but such effects are difficult to measure, especially within a constantly collaborative process like theatrical production. While Hankin, Maugham and Coward all acknowledge an

8 awareness of Wilde’s works, Harold Bloom’s Anatomy of Influence argues that influence is there whether the author acknowledges it or not. Bloom focuses on poetry, but his basic ideas could apply to writing drama. He sees authors as being in a “revisionary relationship” (12) as they struggle to keep what comes before from taking over. For Bloom, this process is always competitive, and he draws on the agon central to Greek Old Comedy, describing influence as “agonistic” (12-13), a battle of words. Earlier writers are seen as rivals, who must be defeated because “a strong poet seeks not simply to vanquish the rival but to assert the integrity of his or her own writing self” (13). This relationship may be less direct or defined, however, within the cooperative practice of theatre-making. There are plays by Maugham and Coward that seem to be replies to Wilde’s work, for example the way the potential elopement in The Circle parallels Lady Windermere’s Fan. More often, however, the relationship between plays and playwrights is subtler, a better fit with Bloom’s assertion that “The structure of literary influence is labyrinthine, not linear” (14). Implied or obvious, some of what Hankin, Maugham and Coward do in their work seems inspired by Wilde, and for Bloom, “in practice inspiration means influence” (14). The strength and implications of Wilde’s influence on these playwrights will be explored in detail in later chapters.

1.6 Wilde and Homosexuality

Exploring the effects of Wilde’s sexual identity on his work might seem essential for research that also considers the work of Maugham and Coward, but because the focus here is on plays in performance and their reception between 1892 and 1930, Wilde’s sexual orientation seems less relevant to our discussion. Openly depicting same-sex relationships on the popular London stage was impossible in this period, not only because homosexual sex was a criminal offence, but also because actor-managers wanted to retain their respectable status and audience, and all plays were strictly censored. Maugham and Coward, who might have sympathized with Wilde’s sexual identity, likely distanced themselves from this part of his legacy to retain their audience and avoid conflicts with the censor. Robert Calder considers Wilde’s downfall in relation to Maugham:

The effects of the Wilde trial on British public attitudes were deep and long lasting. No longer could homosexuals count on general ignorance or tolerance to ensure an environment

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in which their opinions, tastes, and practices, however discreetly they might be expressed, would be accepted. (40)

For Maugham and Coward – the first a married man with a child during the period considered here, the other a box-office draw as a heterosexual leading man – some distancing from this part of Wilde’s legacy may have been a deliberate strategy. Ronald Firbank, another playwright of the 1920s, openly depicted homosexual relationships, but his plays were ignored in their day and are largely forgotten now. The Princess Zoubaroff (1920), a comedy which tells the story of newlyweds more attracted to someone of the same sex, was not produced until 1951. The play also includes an older man with a younger male companion, generally seen as inspired by Wilde and his lover, . In short, playwrights who wanted to work in London’s West End needed to explore other themes and characters.

While some modern critics have provided queer readings of Wilde, these underlying messages were not identified in early reviews of the plays, before or after his trials. Christopher Craft’s “Alias Bunbury: Desire and Termination in The Importance of Being Earnest ” examines Wilde’s work through the filter of his largely hidden sexuality. Joel Fineman makes direct links between Wilde’s homosexuality and The Importance of Being Earnest , although Alan Sinfield rebuts some of his conclusions, including Fineman’s reading of the term “Bunburying,” arguing that the “bun” did not refer to buttocks until well into the twentieth century (“’Effeminacy’” 35). Although Wilde’s sexuality and story are important considerations for scholars of his work, it is likely that such sexual messages were carefully concealed. Wilde’s works would not have been successfully produced in their day with overt homosexual content and would not have been so quickly revived after his sexuality was made public, and notoriously so, by his trials. 2

1.7 Trends in Oscar Wilde Studies

Writing about the works of Oscar Wilde is problematic. His personal story, his persona, even his myth, loom over his life, his work, and everything written about him. He is a complex, contradictory figure whose public downfall and subsequent imprisonment must be taken into

2 Wilde was tried and convicted of gross indecency in 1895.

10 account. There has been a significant increase in critical studies on Wilde since the 1990s (likely tied to the centenary of his trial in 1995) and they take a wide variety of perspectives. Some critics seem to address the issue of Wilde’s complexity by adopting a heavily biographical approach – linking events and people from Wilde’s life directly to his works. For these critics, Wilde is always an outsider. Sometimes the problem is his Irishness, explored by authors such as Jarlath Killeen and Noreen Doody. Sometimes, as in Jonathan Dollimore’s Sexual Dissidence , Wilde’s blending of individualism and socialism is linked to his sexual orientation. Sinfield, Fineman, Craft and others consider the possible effects of his sexuality on interpretations of his work. For Regenia Gagnier, Wilde’s true outlook is always controlled by his need to conform to market forces. In his chapter on “Religion” from the Palgrave volume on Wilde, Patrick O’Malley suggests that Wilde’s faith is too often ignored. Richard Ellmann’s work, including his comprehensive biography Oscar Wilde , draws many clear links between events in Wilde’s life and his works, but sometimes relies on speculation to fill the gaps in our knowledge of Wilde. These works are important, reflecting both a long literary tradition of biographical criticism and a variety of responses to Wilde’s paradoxical nature. However, they highlight at least two problems for critics trying to analyse Wilde’s plays biographically: 1) he is a truly complicated figure, causing trouble for modern critics because he is too comfortable with his own apparent contradictions to resolve them; 2) the collaborative nature of theatre makes it difficult to draw decisive conclusions about Wilde’s intentions from his plays, especially those in performance. With the exception of Ellmann, who provides helpful information about the first productions of Wilde’s works, critics with a more biographical approach had less influence on this work, which is more concerned with plays and productions in their historical contexts than the lives of their creators.

This exploration of Wilde’s influence does, however, consider him as a man of his time, as a writer for a particular theatrical context, as a creator of detailed portraits of Society characters, as a playwright who understood how to communicate with his audience through theatrical design. Various works by Sos Eltis, especially Revising Wilde: Society and Subversion in the Plays of Oscar Wilde , as well as a broader work, including criticism of Maugham and Coward, Acts of Desire: Women and Sex on Stage 1800-1930 , enhanced the present study by providing both a social and theatrical context for a number of plays, as well as examples of how this kind of analysis can be done well. Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell’s work on the

11 relationship between theatre, social history and fashion, Theatre and Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes , provided not only valuable information, but also another model for discussing play texts in conjunction with details from early productions. Wilde’s source material is chronicled by Kerry Powell in Oscar Wilde and the Theatre of the 1890s , which identifies a number of plays reworked by Wilde. The inclusion of William Lestocq and E.M. Robson’s The Foundling (1894) in the chapter on The Importance of Being Earnest , hereafter Earnest , was inspired by Powell’s work. Wilde’s wider context is also explored by Sinfield, who provides an understanding of how homosexuality was perceived in British culture both before and after Wilde’s trials. His work complements readings of Wilde’s reception by Joseph Bristow, as well as Bristow’s work on Wilde’s dandies. Both stress that male dandies were perceived as heterosexual through most of the period under study here, particularly within the more affluent classes. Katherine Worth’s thorough overview, Oscar Wilde , was a gift because she refuses to dismiss the emotion in Wilde’s plays as cynical, and takes his characters at their word – the approach employed in this study. She contrasts some of the critics discussed above, including Gagnier, who see Wilde as generally cynical and his audience as excluded from the .

This work is also informed by a number of social history texts. Leonora Davidoff’s concise and comprehensive The Best Circles: Society, Etiquette and the Season was most helpful. She repeatedly shows, from an historian’s perspective, that success in Society required attention to detail and an element of performance. Allen Horstman’s Victorian Divorce succinctly explains the complexities of legal marital breakdown in the period that inform so many plays but which are easily missed by modern audiences. Clive Aslet’s The Last Country Houses decodes the language of country house design and architecture, enabling the analysis of how these playwrights, especially Coward, use stage directions about rooms or decoration to comment on the wealth and status of their characters. While Michael Booth argues in Theatre in the Victorian Age that audiences in the period are difficult to define, this work relies on the presence of spectators from Society, and focuses on productions and playwrights from well-known theatres that attracted Society and upper-middle-class theatregoers. An affluent, observant, reasonably educated audience, able to interpret subtle details of staging and the witty, often quick dialogue, was critical for the success of Wilde and the playwrights who followed his lead. His audiences also needed to be in on the joke, so to speak, because those in Society or the upper- middle classes would not have come to the theatre just to be mocked. Though the working

12 classes likely also attended some of these productions, they are conspicuously absent, not only on stage as characters other than servants, but also in accounts of the audience response to these plays.

One significant indicator of status that seems to be missing from both descriptions of early productions and from later criticism of the plays is any reference to accents. In a world where small distinctions make an enormous difference, accents are rarely mentioned in stage directions, accounts written about the production of plays, or in reviews. Maugham’s Lady Frederick is described as slipping into Irish brogue when it suits her purpose, but she is an exception. When the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, produced Hankin’s The Return of the Prodigal in 2001 and 2002, they used accents to distinguish between the public-school-educated son, Eustace, and Henry, who had stayed with the family; Henry sounded “northern,” like the rest of the family, while Eustace had an upper-class accent. Such choices are not often noted, but seem likely to have been featured in the production history of the plays covered by this dissertation. This may be an area worthy of further research.

Productions of Wilde’s plays continue to succeed because he broke with the structure and norms of dated nineteenth-century comic conventions to create something with more staying power, providing a model for other playwrights who wanted to create thoughtful, modern comedies. Stephen S. Stanton’s and John Russell Taylor’s work on the well-made play, in Camille and Other Plays and The Rise and Fall of the Well-Made Play , respectively, acknowledge some of Wilde’s innovations as they consider the form’s effect on nineteenth- and early-twentieth- century theatre. Stanton’s methodical approach to these plays reveals how Wilde adapts their withheld secrets and late point of attack, while rejecting other aspects of the genre. Susan Snyder’s explanation of how comedy works in The Comic Matrix of Shakespeare’s Tragedies is about Shakespeare, of course, but also illustrates some of the ways a play can disrupt audience expectations. Another important part of Wilde’s legacy is the way he breaks with comic tradition, highlighting the artificiality of quick engagements, abrupt changes of heart and dénouement scenes, creating space for deeper, more lasting relationships to be explored in comedy. Eric Bentley’s work on farce in The Life of the Drama provided another framework to analyze Wilde’s work, especially Earnest, helping to uncover the ways Wilde uses this genre to foreground questions of identity. Analyses of farce by Leslie Smith and Jessica Milner Davis

13 were also helpful, providing context by comparing Wilde’s farce to works by Pinero and W.S. Gilbert.

In addition to the well-made play and farce, this work also explores the links between Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward and Restoration and eighteenth-century playwrights such as William Congreve, Aphra Behn and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Some of the best work examining this connection, along with general overviews of comedy in the period, can be found in Alexander Leggatt’s English Stage Comedy 1490-1990 and Christopher Innes’s Modern British Drama: The Twentieth Century. Both scholars understand comedy, genres within comedy, and the place of not only Wilde but also Maugham and Coward within the period. These works do not explore the agonistic aspects of influence, but examine trends in comedy and how they are adapted, adopted or rejected by those who follow.

As stated earlier, there has been renewed critical interest in Oscar Wilde since the early 1990s, including some work considering this legacy. While these studies may mention Coward and Maugham in relation to Wilde, Hankin is generally forgotten, and the focus is more often on later playwrights such as Joe Orton and Tom Stoppard. In fact, when Richard Cave considers Wilde’s legacy in “Wilde’s Plays: Some Lines of Influence,” he omits Hankin and seems to dismiss the connection to Maugham and Coward (which I explore here): “These writers tend to toy with the witty, epigrammatic surface of Wilde’s drama, rather than seeking to develop his experiments with technique to broaden his means of subverting audience expectations” (229). There is not only minimal work available linking this quartet of playwrights, but less has been written about Hankin and Maugham in general than one might expect. P.P. Howe’s 1913 article, "St. John Hankin and His Comedy of Recognition," links Hankin with Wilde, and provides a sense of Hankin’s early reception. The present study makes a case for including him with Wilde, Maugham and Coward, in spite of his unconventional style and limited exposure in London. William H. Phillips’s Edwardian Mephistopheles is a more recent examination of Hankin’s oeuvre, one that tracks the success of his plays in cities like Birmingham, although Phillips does take literally lines that likely should be read ironically. More surprisingly, while Maugham’s novels have been critically examined, there is a shortage of studies on his plays. A few of these, particularly The Circle and Our Betters , are referred to in overviews of the period, including work on theatrical censorship, but again the present study will contribute to the available criticism. Ronald E. Barnes’s work, The Dramatic Comedy of William Somerset Maugham , is

14 carefully written, intelligently groups the plays, and also includes a detailed history of first productions. Laurel Brake’s “Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband and W. Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife : A Dialogue” explores how Maugham updates the earlier play to tell the story of a modern wife. Willie: The Life of Somerset Maugham by Robert Calder is, like Ellmann’s work on Wilde, a scholarly biography that includes fascinating details about the creation of Maugham’s works alongside the events of his life. The renewed interest in Wilde seems to have prompted more scrutiny of Noel Coward’s works as well. An excellent collection of essays, edited by Kaplan and Stowell, is Look Back in Pleasure: Noel Coward Reconsidered. Jean Chothia’s “Playing With the Audience” identifies how Coward’s characters are often on the move. Because he foregrounds the importance of charm and manners in Coward, John Lahr’s Coward the Playwright proved more useful than Frances Gray’s Noel Coward. There is still considerable room for additional work on Coward, however, particularly based on close readings of individual plays. As clearly indicated by the gaps outlined above, this work will provide new insights into Wilde’s legacy in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century British commercial theatre, one that reveals the line of his inheritance in Hankin, Maugham and Coward.

This work relies on a close reading of plays, but also includes many references to primary sources such as reviews, accounts of the creation of productions and plays, letters and production pictures. It also draws on insights gained through seeing productions of many of these plays by various professional and amateur companies, particularly the Shaw Festival. It brings together Wilde and Hankin, Maugham and Coward to show the strength of Wilde’s legacy and bolster his assertion that he accomplished something unique: “I took the drama, the most objective form known to art,” he writes, “and made it as personal a mode of expression as the lyric or the sonnet, at the same time that I widened its range and enriched its characterisation” ( Complete 1017). Drama as a form of both expression and communication, shared with an audience through well-developed characters and enriched by the careful use of production details, is a hallmark of Wilde, carried through his works and passed on to Hankin, Maugham and Coward.

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Wilde’s Social Comedies: Setting the Stage Through Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband 2.1 Introduction

Wilde reinvents the theatre of the 1890s, creating a new kind of comedy that permitted greater character development, disrupted audience expectations about the genre, and emphasized forgiveness and reconciliation. Critics rarely consider the works of Oscar Wilde, St. John Hankin, Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward together, but comparing them highlights the legacy of Wilde’s innovations for these later playwrights. Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan , A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband demand more from the genre, using wit and round characters to examine a variety of social issues without overwhelming the plays with argument. While Earnest is Wilde’s best-known play, it takes a different approach and will be dealt with separately in the next chapter to highlight the way he reworks farce. The best works of Hankin, Maugham and Coward appear to take Wilde’s lead by both entertaining and considering what it means to behave badly in a changing world. This chapter will show how Wilde insightfully reworks comedy to achieve new goals, as well as examine his possible connection to later playwrights who also chose to work in the popular theatre.

Wilde consistently surprises, and his audiences were entertained by the way he sets up an established pattern – the well-made play, melodrama, the comedy of manners, a well-worn plot – then deliberately fails to follow through. He takes from the Realists the growing awareness of how environment and dress contribute to understanding character, and subtly uses stagecraft to create and to critique the world of his plays. He modifies common nineteenth-century character types like the fallen woman and the dandy, and also creates some of his own. Wilde’s method has two major elements: he skilfully manipulates the traditions of comedy, adding depth to comedic characters, and he carefully explores social mores, especially issues of morality and gender roles, appearing to wittily compliment the elite while subtly critiquing their values. He gently uses comedy’s ability to correct behaviour to show the harm caused by the double standard, and the problems caused by loving ideals instead of imperfect people. Gelven suggests that Wilde’s approach works subversively, and this also seems to be true for the best work of Hankin, Maugham and Coward: “in celebrating our folly, comedy is far more dangerous than

16 tragedy” (37). Rather than mocking his flawed characters, or exposing them to public disgrace, Wilde allows some secrets to be kept, giving them the chance to move on to something better – another technique adopted by Hankin, Maugham and Coward. Wilde moves beyond new matches between young lovers to explore different kinds of lasting love – within existing marriages, within families, between friends, between middle-aged adults – expanding the possibilities for comic endings. While the later playwrights may not share Wilde’s willingness to link virtues of forgiveness and love with Christianity, they all explore the requirements for a good marriage, the need for honesty, and the conflict between self-determination and social expectations.

2.2 Wilde’s Popularity

Wilde’s experiments with genre and character were successful; he is one of the few playwrights active in the 1890s whose works remain popular. Yet during his lifetime, only Lady Windermere’s Fan had a long enough London run to be a confirmed hit. Wilde could guarantee himself aristocratic and politically powerful spectators by working with actor-managers such as George Alexander at St. James’s, but he needed to ensure that he did not too deeply offend his chosen audience. Wilde found the balance between critique and with Lady Windermere’s Fan. Ellmann writes about the play’s initial reception: “The crowds came. The Prince of Wales approved. And Alexander noticed that the pit galleries were as full as the stalls and boxes” ( Oscar Wilde 347). Critics also noted the quality of the work, and A.B. Walkley credited Wilde in Speaker with “at least one fresh and piquant study of character” (qtd. in Beckson Critical Heritage 120). This play confirmed that Wilde’s approach to comedy could lead to profits at the box office, and Wilde’s insistence on payment relative to the success of the production, rather than a flat fee for the play, proved wise.

Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance was less successful . His demands on actors are not as rigorous as for some early Realist works by Ibsen or Strindberg, but this play requires both comic dexterity and more range in acting than many other comedies of the 1890s. To distinguish between the characters’ public and private personas, actors would need to show more psychological depth than would be required for the character types of a comedy of manners, nineteenth-century melodrama or farce. In a letter to Elizabeth Marbury, his agent in New York, Wilde provides notes on how he would like to see characters played:

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Lady Stutfield is very serious and romantic – she must play as if she was playing the heroine of a romance. Lady Hunstanton is genial, lovable and kind; Lady Caroline hard and bitter: the girl simple and direct: the boy must be charming and young: as for the mother, Agnes Booth must play it. Lord Illingworth requires great distinction: the finest touch and style (Holland and Hart-Davis 550).

The stage time this play provides for groups of women is also unusual for its time, although we see similar scenes where women converse without men in Hankin and Maugham. A Woman of No Importance is considered Wilde’s least successful play, with a mere 113 performances in the initial run, well below the 300-400 Henry Arthur Jones considered a hit (Powell Oscar Wilde 55). It has also received the fewest revivals. The attention paid to women, along with Wilde’s critique of the double standard and the idle upper classes, may have gone too far for his original audiences, a potential lesson for later playwrights. Wilde’s career, however, does not end here.

The initial popularity of Wilde’s last two plays is impossible to assess accurately. An Ideal Husband opened at the Haymarket on January 3, 1895, before an audience that included “the Prince of Wales, Balfour, Chamberlain, and many government ministers” who enjoyed the play enough to “call for the author” (Ellmann Oscar Wilde 404). The original production was drawing large audiences when its initial run was cut short by Wilde’s arrest on April 5, 1895. The Haymarket, like St. James’s Theatre, which was enjoying a successful first production of The Importance of Being Earnest , initially tried removing Wilde’s name from the front of the theatre, but finally had to withdraw the play prematurely (430). The issue was clearly the notoriety of the author. Although Wilde remained infamous, his plays were attractive enough to actor- managers to prompt frequent revivals, beginning with one in 1901 in London. The first of these did not mention Wilde’s name (Tanitch 103, 261), but the plays became an important part of the performance canon during the Edwardian period, providing multiple opportunities for later commercial comedic playwrights to see them.

2.3 Wilde and the Actor-Managers

Wilde could play with audience expectations about comedy and character, but for his plays to be granted a license, produced or attended, he had to follow strict rules about what he could portray.

Wilde’s four comedies were suitable for production in respectable West End theatres for indefinite runs, unlike Ibsen’s plays and the early works of Shaw, which were restricted to

18 private, independent theatres. As Sos Eltis writes, “To challenge society’s sexual mores openly on the Victorian public stage was impossible” ( Revising 61). All the writers studied here had to accommodate theatrical management and audience tastes, and Maugham and Coward also had some struggles getting their work licensed, as did Wilde with Salomé . The theatre in the 1890s was ruled by actor-managers who, as Ian Clarke writes, wanted “nice plays, with nice dresses, nice drawing-rooms, and nice people” (5), including roles for at least six actresses in fashionable gowns (6). An actor-manager also wanted a suitable higher-class character to portray (6), to sustain or enhance his own social and professional reputation. In Carriages at Eleven , Alexander MacQueen-Pope notes that before World War I, actor-managers were seen as hosts by their patrons and audiences expected consistency and service because “in his theatre he sold branded goods” (9). George Alexander commissioned Wilde to write a play that would fit with his image, the reputation of St. James’s and the needs of his audience, and Lady Windermere’s Fan met all these requirements. Peter Raby suggests that Alexander’s St. James’s Theatre provided the perfect setting for Wilde’s play, particularly for the party in Act II: “This was the playground, or stage, of the wealthy and well-connected, the power structure of English society well-known at first-hand to Alexander’s audiences, and through the newspapers and popular literature to everyone else” (“Wilde’s Comedies” 197). While the demographics of Victorian audiences are difficult to define (Davis and Emeljanow 93), the upper classes attended, kept separate within the theatres through the cost of tickets (106). Wilde knew that Society spectators would be present in the theatre to receive his message of forgiveness and reconciliation.

2.4 Reworking the Past

Wilde was particularly adept at reworking plots and forms from earlier plays and periods, making them his own, to create a new way to write comedy. He is frequently accused of taking his plots from other plays, and all four of his comedies have links to earlier works, such as Earnest ’s connection to William Lestocq and E.M. Robson’s The Foundling . While such borrowing is a common practice in theatre, Wilde does it in a unique way. The strength of his borrowings is how he uses them to lead the audience to anticipate one outcome, and then deftly overturns their expectations. Kerry Powell links A Woman of No Importance to an 1891 play by Henry Arthur Jones and to Le Fils naturel (1858) by Alexandre Dumas, fils ( Oscar Wilde 57). Both Jones’s and Wilde’s plays were staged at the Haymarket, with Herbert Beerbohm Tree playing a role with some connection to Illingworth (61, 63). The way Wilde plays with known

19 plots is also noted by Eltis. She writes that “ Lady Windermere’s Fan is heavily indebted to other contemporary plays, yet Wilde did not simply borrow material but inverted and subverted it to produce a considerably more complex and revolutionary play than those of his predecessors” (Revising 93). Wilde also uses various stock comic devices in this play – only to undermine them. As Donald H. Erickson writes, “true identities are never revealed, the ‘long-lost child’ is really a long-lost parent, and the encounter with the other woman never really takes place. All these devices create suspense, but Wilde often fails to fulfill his audience’s expectations” (132). Wilde’s approach is unique because of the way he replaces suspense with surprise. When Wilde uses reworked plots and plays with familiar devices, he both surprises his audience and questions conventions, such as the standard fallen-woman play. He presents flawed, morally imperfect characters, and asks audiences to think about them in a new way. Wilde does not, however, anticipate later works by Maugham, who eventually coerces his audiences into accepting that apparently morally objectionable acts could be right in this instance.

In addition to reworking known plots, Wilde masterfully builds on comedic forms familiar to his audience, then fails to follow any genre completely. He shows how a comic playwright can adapt the well-made play and farce, while also returning the comedy of manners to the English stage. He also uses melodrama, particularly in A Woman of No Importance , but this genre fades in importance in his final two plays and is less apparent in the works of the other playwrights. The social comedies illustrate or adapt many of the qualities that Stephen S. Stanton identifies as typical of well-made plays, such as the comic works of Eugène Scribe and Victorien Sardou (vii- viii). Wilde’s plays have a late point of attack, beginning at a moment of crisis in a longer story that is prompted by the arrival of a character from the past like Mrs. Cheveley. Well-made plays, Wilde’s Society comedies and some of Ibsen’s Realist works share this trait, such as Eilert Lovborg’s return to town prompting the action of Hedda Gabler (1891) . It provides an effective way, borrowed from ancient Greek drama, 3 of quickly drawing the audience into a story. These plays also unfold swiftly, generally within no more than thirty-six hours – not quite within real time but close to the requirements for the unity of time. An Ideal Husband contains a typical well-made quid pro quo scene, where Lord Goring and Sir Robert have one conversation about

3 Many Greek tragedies use a late point of attack, such as Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, Sophocles’s Antigone and Euripides’s Hecuba .

20 two different women (viii). Well-made plays were also notorious for plots that turned on misplaced letters or small properties like fans or handbags, and Wilde uses these freely (Raby “Wilde’s Comedies” 144, Symons 75), often to great effect. Wilde does not let these devices take over, though, and diminishes the importance of props that in other plays would have driven the action between protagonist and antagonist. Again, in An Ideal Husband , from Sir Robert to Baron Arnheim sets up much of the play’s action, but has remarkably little stage time. 4 Wilde also surprises his audience by deflating the suspense created when Lady Chiltern’s pink letter to Lord Goring – “I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you” (554) – is stolen by Mrs. Cheveley at the end of Act III. She immediately “sees how a highly sexual gloss may be put upon this document, one that would suggest that Lord Goring is committing adultery with the Puritan Wife” (Bristow “Dowdies” 64), but then Wilde employs dramatic , delighting spectators when Sir Robert enters with the letter in hand, thinking it was written for him (575). Wilde also repeatedly creates dramatic irony through hiding, eavesdropping and misunderstandings, all common devices within well-made plays.

Wilde’s comedies also include a withheld secret (Stanton vii), such as the identity of Mrs. Erlynne or the true relationship between Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Arbuthnot. Wilde adapts the use of secrets as well, however, by revealing the withheld secret of An Ideal Husband in the first act, as part of Mrs. Cheveley’s attempt at blackmail. Moments when the audience shares knowledge that is kept from most characters on stage are used by all the playwrights considered here, often to great effect, although the later playwrights rely less on letters and other potentially clichéd devices. Wilde’s final amendment to the well-made play is his refusal to end his plays with the form’s standard dénouement scene, instead always allowing some secrets to be kept. His plays never end with everyone knowing everything.

All the playwrights considered here are linked to the comedy of manners of the Restoration and eighteenth century, employing its wit, aristocratic settings and emphasis on etiquette in their own ways. Lady Windermere’s Fan also confirms this connection through its third act, generally seen as inspired by Sheridan’s The School for Scandal . Both plays have a scene where an honourable

4 Compare for example the letter in Sardou’s well-made A Scrap of Paper , which is repeatedly seen, hidden, discovered, lost, and found again. The scrap proves remarkably hard to dispose of.

21 wife hides from her husband in the rooms of a bachelor. In Wilde’s version, Lady Windermere begins Act III alone in Lord Darlington’s rooms. Mrs. Erlynne arrives and convinces her to go home, but they do not exit quickly enough. Wilde builds on the Screen Scene in Sheridan’s play when the men arrive and the women hide, allowing for some superb dramatic irony. Lord Darlington talks vaguely of Lady Windermere as the only good woman he has ever known with both Windermeres in the room, and the audience shares a sense that Lady Windermere is perhaps less good than she seemed to be earlier in the day. In both works a woman’s presence in the room is revealed, but while in Sheridan’s play the scene leads to both reconciliation and humiliation for the Teazles, in Wilde Mrs. Erlynne reveals herself to save her daughter, and Lady Windermere’s visit to Lord Darlington remains a secret. Whether directly inspired by Sheridan or not, Wilde’s recovery of the earlier genre provided a means for Hankin, Coward and especially Maugham, who considered some of his plays comedies of manners, to explore what it meant to behave badly in a world where manners were essential.

The third act of An Ideal Husband , set in Lord Goring’s house, anticipates the pacing and silliness of Earnest while also opening up possibilities for the other playwrights by combining farce with other comic genres, and it uses more theatrical tricks than any other act in the Society comedies. The setting required is almost the chambre à quatres portes used by Molière; the action takes place in a library with doors to the hall, the smoking room and the drawing room. The act moves quickly, as Lord Goring tries to keep a series of unwanted guests from meeting each other. He puts his meddling father in the smoking room, leaves Mrs. Cheveley in the drawing room (believing she is Lady Chiltern), and keeps Sir Robert in the library. Wilde also adds a witty comic exchange to the action, adding humour but also slowing down the pace and disrupting the expectations of an audience used to the relentless speed of farce. Instead of a mother like Lady Bracknell controlling the romantic choice of her children, Lord Goring and his father have a witty discussion about marriage more typical of fathers and sons in comedies of manners.5 Lord Caversham tells his son to get married because “Bachelors are not fashionable nowadays” (555), almost equating a wife with a clothing accessory. Mrs. Cheveley’s unexpected arrival at Lord Goring’s house sets up a number of comic staples from the well-made play, such

5 As when Sir Anthony Absolute tries to arrange his son’s marriage in Act II of Sheridan’s The Rivals.

22 as eavesdropping, the quid pro quo scene mentioned above, a misdirected letter and mistaken identity, as well as the use of a prop to defeat her without lasting damage to Sir Robert. The device of the brooch-bracelet to thwart Mrs. Cheveley may appear clumsy, but Wilde successfully weaves it through two acts. In Act II, Lord Goring takes the brooch from Mabel, and implies he has some prior knowledge of it, yet it is clearly not his. Wilde misdirects us skillfully here; Lord Goring gave it to someone once, and it was in Mrs. Cheveley’s possession, but it was not given to her (531). Lord Goring eventually traps her in the brooch/bracelet she stole long ago from his aunt, and retrieves the letter that would destroy Sir Robert. Lord Goring appears willing to manhandle her to obtain the pink paper described above, until Mrs. Cheveley cleverly rings the bell for Phipps; he does not feel required to treat her like a lady, but he will not be physically rough with any woman in front of a servant. Wilde plays not only with the well- made play and other comic genres in this act, but also with ideas about gender and class. Along with Lord Illingworth, Lord Goring illustrates an option for Hankin, Maugham and Coward to explore: the gentleman who does not always behave like a gentleman.

2.5 Wilde’s Comic Innovations

Wilde’s approach to comedy sometimes follows, frequently adapts, and occasionally rejects norms familiar to his Victorian audience, creating space for character development. One specific example of a trait from both the well-made play (Stanton vii-viii) and melodrama (Booth Theatre 159, Brockett and Hildy 304) that Wilde avoids is the use of strong curtains and climactic moments at the conclusion of each act. These endings are designed to build momentum and leave spectators wanting to see what happens in the next act. Because Wilde shifts the emphasis from plot to character, his plays rarely use them. While Wilde is sometimes criticized for writing weak curtains (Laver 22), St. John Hankin felt the lack of curtains was a strength, particularly of Earnest (“Collected Plays” 186-7). Symons comments on the lack of curtains in Lady Windermere’s Fan , but he does not perceive them as a problem in the play (69). To illustrate, Act I of Lady Windermere’s Fan ends with Lord Windermere alone on stage, after arguing with Lady Windermere about his connection to Mrs. Erlynne. “I dare not tell her who this woman really is. The Shame would kill her” (432), he says, before sitting in a chair with his face in his hands. This act , Act II of A Woman of No Importance and the first three acts of An Ideal Husband all end with a character alone on stage trying to make facial expressions dictated by the stage directions.

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Sometimes Wilde creates an opportunity for a strong curtain, but then deflates it by drawing the scene out. Instead of ending Act II of An Ideal Husband on Sir Robert’s abrupt exit, Lady Chiltern is given the following directions: “Pale with anguish, bewildered, helpless, she sways like a plant in the water. Her hands, outstretched, seem to tremble in the air like blossoms in the wind.” The act ends with her burying her face in the sofa, crying “ like a child” (553). The strongest curtain in the early comedies should be Act III of A Woman of No Importance, after Lord Illingworth tries to kiss Hester. Mrs. Arbuthnot’s “Stop, Gerald, stop! He is your own father!” (503), is memorable enough to be played with by Coward in Hay Fever (1925) . Rather than a brisk curtain leaving the audience wondering if Gerald will follow through on his threat to kill his father, Wilde has Hester leave the scene, Gerald looks at his mother, she falls to the floor, he lifts her up and they exit, leaving Lord Illingworth on stage alone. Wilde’s intent is not explicitly stated, but he may be trying to use these moments where characters are alone on stage for psychological character development. The difficulty is that Wilde expects actors to reveal their thoughts and emotions without any strong actions or dialogue; they are expected to portray large emotions without anything “actable” to do or anyone to interact with. Weak curtains also become part of the dramaturgy of Hankin, Maugham and Coward. Although they can be unsatisfying for spectators, weak curtains seem to suit the emphasis on conversation and the slowly building action of many of these comedies, while potentially encouraging deeper character development.

Another Wildean technique used by Hankin, Maugham and Coward is the creation of interest in a “fallen” woman by ensuring she is talked about at some length before she appears on stage. The woman who appears always differs significantly from the one who has been discussed. Pinero does something similar in Act I of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray , when the men discuss Aubrey’s new wife; however, Paula fits their description rather than refutes it. Wilde uses this method to introduce Mrs. Erlynne, as The Duchess of Berwick and various guests at Lady Winderemere’s party speak about her. Mrs. Arbuthnot is also spoken about before she appears, creating a sense of presence for a character who is not in Act I, entering about a third of the way into Act II and saying little at first. The method also contributes to Wilde’s approach to character because these women break with stereotypes. The timing and circumstances differ, but Hankin uses a similar technique with Ethel in The Cassilis Engagement (1907), Maugham with Lady Kitty in The Circle , and Coward perhaps most effectively with Larita in Easy Virtue.

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Wilde’s unique approach to withheld secrets is another important aspect of his dramaturgy. Kept secrets become one of the greatest strengths of his comedies, facilitating the growth of characters, creating layers of dramatic irony, enabling forgiveness and changes of heart, and perhaps inspiring other playwrights to avoid the dénouement scenes still employed elsewhere in the period. Wilde follows both the writers of well-made plays and Ibsen by understanding that a withheld secret, such as the identity of Mrs. Erlynne or Sir Robert Chiltern’s past dishonesty, makes for good theatre and can drive the plot. With the exception of the farcical and potentially ambiguous scene at the end of Earnest , his plays do not have dénouement scenes where all is revealed to most of the primary characters in the play. Allowing characters to keep both their secrets and their social and political positions is a significant contribution to the genre, and a technique adopted by Hankin, Maugham and Coward. Wilde’s refusal to subject any of his characters to public humiliation is likely also a reflection of his belief in the need for privacy. In “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” Wilde writes that that the public might have a desire to know, but “the private lives of men and women should not be told to the public” ( Artist 277). Wilde avoids retribution because he understood that forcing the resignation of a generally moral politician like Sir Robert because of an indiscretion would do neither the country nor Sir Robert any good.

Wilde may keep secrets, but he also plays with them to keep his audience guessing, creating scenes where someone is nearly told something before a conversation is interrupted. In Act IV of Lady Windermere’s Fan , Lady Windermere almost tells her husband about her adventure in Lord Darlington’s rooms, Lord Windermere almost tells his wife his true opinion of Mrs. Erlynne, and Mrs. Erlynne almost reveals her true identity to her daughter. Wilde also sometimes combines untold secrets with unanswered questions about the past lives of his characters. Contemporary reviewers do not refer to the issue, but at least some audience members must have wondered about Lady Windermere’s background, particularly the status of her father. Given the enormous publicity surrounding divorces in the U.K., it seems unlikely she was worthy of entering Society and marrying a lord unless her parents’ divorce was worth reporting in the national press. Perhaps they were never divorced, but Lord Windermere calls Mrs. Erlynne “a divorced woman, going about under an assumed name” (458). If the divorce had been reported as per the norm, it is hard to imagine that Lady Windermere would have escaped the knowledge of her parents’ marital breakdown. Wilde seems to know when an explanation is required, and when some

25 mystery makes characters more interesting. Hankin and Maugham limit disclosure in a similar way, but the technique is perhaps used most effectively by Coward in Easy Virtue , when Larita asserts her right to privacy, deflating the power of secrets that would have ruined women in earlier plays.

2.6 Conversation as Action

Wilde’s substitution of conversation as action for the elaborate plots of most nineteenth-century forms is an important part of his technique. Some of the best examples of Wilde’s use of conversation to replace plot are found in A Woman of No Importance , where the confined country house setting helps Wilde use repeated scenes between groups of women to both portray and discuss the rituals of Society. He gives these women more psychological depth and more distinct identities and stories than one might expect from a comedy. Worth links the women of Act I back to The School for Scandal (101), but believes these women are unique, with “idiosyncratic” voices (102). The three scenes in A Woman of No Importance where three or more women converse at some length without the presence of men are more reminiscent of scenes in Aphra Behn’s The Rover or George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer than other plays of the late Victorian period. The way Wilde explores social issues through conversation rather than argument is an important part of his legacy, and also provides a strong contrast to Shaw’s plays. Shaw’s comedies, including Getting Married and Major Barbara (1905), rely on extended arguments with little action, and because Shaw wants to present multiple sides of the same issue, a clear message often eludes us. Shaw’s most overtly Wildean play, You Never Can Tell , has more action and less argument. Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward, in contrast, rely more on story within conversation to illustrate the view they hope an audience will adopt. In The Circle , for example, the parallel but differing stories of Lady Kitty and Elizabeth become the argument, and Maugham makes a clear case for the union of Elizabeth and Arnold to end.

Wilde provides not only space on stage but also a voice for women, employing conversation as action to comment on the values of both his characters and his audience. What keeps the scenes from getting too static or slow is Wilde’s epigrammatic wit. When Lady Stutfield suggests that “The world was made for men and not for women,” Mrs. Allonby wittily rebuts her, saying “We have a much better time than they have. There are far more things forbidden to us than are forbidden to them” (468). Worth emphasizes the significance of silences and omissions: this is

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“an English country house party where the conversation is mannered and oblique, hidden sexual relationships are hinted at and there is a fascinating gap between what is said and what might be meant” (100). She praises for being more astute than many other critics because he “was one of the very few (then or later) to recognize that the ‘talking’ was drama” (105). Looking forward, Hankin, Maugham and Coward sometimes create complex plots , but more often replace action with dialogue, until eventually Coward is able to replace a conventional plot in Hay Fever with a series of events linked by conversation.

Wilde held the attention of his audience during long conversations through the strength of his epigrammatic wit, but this use of wit is more significant than it first appears. His characters are rounder, and their wit carries more wisdom than the sententious figures of the comedy of manners, because “Flippant remarks often carry the weight of considerable import” (Bristow “Dowdies” 61). Because of their tone, comments worth consideration are sometimes lost in laughter, or dismissed as part of the nonsense of comedy. Wilde carries some scenes to the brink of becoming preachy, such as the confrontation between Lord Windermere and his mother-in- law in Act IV of Lady Windermere’s Fan , then abruptly shifts tone with a line like Mrs. Erlynne’s: “a heart doesn’t suit me, Windermere. Somehow it doesn’t go with modern dress” (460). The later playwrights, especially Maugham and Coward, build on Wilde’s use of wit and epigram to keep long conversations engaging without being overwhelmed by argument. Their best lines, however, rely on context more than many of Wilde’s most memorable quips. Wilde provides witty, often epigrammatic lines for a number of characters in each play, but some of these lines could be spoken by any one of a number of characters; moreover, others are used in more than one play, such as the statement that women’s tragedy is that they become like their mothers while men’s tragedy is that they do not, which appears in both A Woman of No Importance and Earnest. When Hankin, Maugham and Coward employ wit to sustain conversation, they reject Wilde’s transferable epigrams, replacing them with equally pithy phrases that are enhanced by their context.

Wilde’s wit is one of the supreme joys of his plays, although the relentless banter was not appreciated by some contemporary reviewers. William Archer accuses Wilde of using wit to cover the stage in “soap-bubbles” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 145) in his review of the opening night of A Woman of No Importance in 1893. He liked An Ideal Husband, but felt the “epigram- factory” took away from the substance of the play (174-5), appearing to agree with Clement

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Scott who was also unimpressed by all the epigrams (179). Wilde’s use of wit, however, both breaks the norms of comedy and adds complexity to some of his characters. Rather than portraying battles of wit between potential couples, he seems to depict contests to prove who is the dominant dandy in a play. In Lady Windermere’s Fan , Lord Darlington makes a series of witty, epigrammatic remarks in Act I, identifying himself as a dandy, but Cecil Graham takes control of Act III with his wit and emerges as the leading dandy in this play. By Maugham’s Lady Frederick , a number of characters seem to compete to be the primary wit. The reviewers also failed to acknowledge how Wilde uses epigrams and wit to hide the depth of a character like Lord Goring. Because of his flippant and fashionable exterior, Lord Goring’s wisdom comes as a surprise. In contrast to other reviewers, Shaw valued Wildean wit, as shown in his review of An Ideal Husband in the Saturday Review of 12 January 1895:

They protest that the trick is obvious, and that such epigrams can be turned out by the score by any one lightminded enough to condescend to such frivolity. As far as I can ascertain, I am the only person in London who cannot sit down and write an Oscar Wilde play at will” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 176).

Ultimately, Wilde’s use of wit and epigrams is playful and pleasurable, enhancing the conversations, character development and social critique in the plays.

2.7 Using Staging to Develop Character

Another important way that Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward develop round characters is through their skillful use of various aspects of staging – especially costumes, settings, props and stage business – as a form of theatrical shorthand. These specific production details convey unsaid information that would be read by many in the audience, telling part of their characters’ stories. The stage directions may not be as layered as the carefully created environments of the early Realists, but the descriptions of Wilde’s Society homes, Hankin’s country houses, Maugham’s London flats and Coward’s living halls all say much more about the people who live in them than did the more generic rooms of earlier comedies. Wilde was a skilled self-fashioner who understood the meaning of fashion and interior design long before he became a successful playwright. He lectured on “The House Beautiful” during his American tour in 1882, wrote an essay on Shakespeare and costume in 1885, and edited magazines for women, all before his first

28 successful play opened in London. 6 He defends his attention to production details in a letter to Alexander about Lady Windermere’s Fan : “Details in life are of no importance, but in art details are vital” (Holland and Hart-Davis 514). Wilde also believed costume designers should work with set designers because “the essence of artistic effect is unity” ( Intentions 430). By combining set and costume with care, he depicts a world that is detailed and nuanced, recognizable by his Society audience but also suited to his characters.

Wilde also demonstrates an awareness of the power of design in his 1885 essay “The Truth of Masks: A Note on Illusion,” explaining that theatrical attire works as a form of communication. He argues that Shakespeare “saw how important costume is as a means of producing certain dramatic effects” (409). Wilde is in favour of the archaeological staging of mid-nineteenth- century productions, such as Charles Kean’s Macbeth at the Princess’s Theatre using deer skulls on the wall to recreate a Scottish hall, because only theatre can combine the real, in this case historical, and the artistic (419). He understood that costume not only sets the scene in terms of time, place and status, but also implies how characters should behave. “Costume is a … sign of the manners, customs, and mode of life of each century” (427). He also knew that costumes must suit the needs of the production, the actors’ bodies and the physical action required by the play (430). This awareness of how costume builds character aligns Wilde with nineteenth- century costume reformers such as the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, who wanted actors to dress for the part rather than to appear fashionable on stage, but also looks forward to scenes like Act III of Easy Virtue , where Larita declares her defiance of the Whittaker women through a stunning but inappropriate dress and too much jewelry. Wilde’s focus on fashion in his productions coincides with the attention Society women paid to dress, but also shows that Wilde understood how costume choices would be a code understood by many in his audience. His depictions of fallen women, for example, allow some to be rehabilitated in part by dressing well, while Mrs. Cheveley’s costumes mark her as unfit for good company, especially her “green and silver” gown in Act III of An Ideal Husband , described as “Lamia-like” (557). Dressing well is generally linked to behaving appropriately.

6 See Introduction.

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Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell’s Theatre and Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes begins with Wilde in part because of his thoughtful and effective connections between costume and character. They explore the links between fashion, costuming and theatre from the 1890s to the 1920s, including the relationship between Wilde and Mesdames Savage and Purdue (10), the Society dressmakers responsible for many costumes at St. James’s Theatre. Many West End plays were scrutinized not only by theatre reviewers, but also by fashion writers. While less work has been done on the relationship between Hankin, Maugham and Coward and the fashion press, all three playwrights create women who are memorable partly because of specific notes about their dress, including Hankin’s Mrs. Borridge, Maugham’s Lady Frederick, Pearl and Lady Kitty, and Coward’s Florence Lancaster and Larita. In Lady Windermere’s Fan , Mrs. Erlynne’s apparel shows that she is something new, as dressing well was unheard of for women of her type. Her bonnet with real pink roses was worthy of imitation, unprecedented for “a woman with a past.” Some of the costumes worn in A Woman of No Importance were also depicted in the press (Kaplan and Stowell 23). Wilde is able to provide some sustained commentary on these women through their dress because they would need at least two to three costumes each to meet the expectations of a country house party – one for Act I, evening dress for Acts II and III, and something for Act IV the next morning for Mrs. Allonby, Lady Hunstanton and Hester, the wealthy orphan from Boston ( A Woman 470). Wilde repeatedly links women’s financial and social worth to their clothes, and Hester’s value is connected to her fashionable dress. Lady Hunstanton states, “I have great esteem for Miss Worsley. She dresses exceedingly well. All Americans do dress well. They get their clothes in ” (470). Kaplan and Stowell report that Mrs. Arbuthnot wore severe black gowns in the first production, and “the result was an elegant form of anti-fashion,” with a deep neckline and fitted bodice (26). Mrs. Arbuthnot’s clothing seems appropriate to her character, but also helps set her apart, perhaps implying to a Victorian audience that she was mourning a loss. The elaborate codes of fashion that Wilde employs show how Society plays an adult game of dress-up, but also enable him to undermine Mrs. Erlynne’s and Mrs. Arbuthnot’s status as fallen women and imply that they belong.

Wilde also considers how actors contribute to the stage picture, recreating the world of the London Season as he comments on its practices. The second act of Lady Windermere’s Fan , for example, fills the stage with a variety of Society figures; while we see some of the men again in Act III, many of the characters, including Lady Jedburgh, Lady Plymdale, Lady Stutfield and

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Mrs. Cowper-Cowper, appear only in this act. Adding in the eight guests announced by Parker who should appear on stage but are not included in the cast list, the act contains a remarkable number of “throwaway” characters who help to create the play’s world of privilege, fashion and gossip without contributing meaningfully to the action, although they are on stage to react to Mrs. Erlynne’s entrance. Wilde employs no scenes on this scale in any subsequent play, and such large party scenes are rare, likely because they would be expensive to stage well. Coward has a comparable scene in Easy Virtue, depicting Larita’s break with the Whittaker family. In both plays, a woman with a past makes a dramatic entry into the scene, watched by the other guests, allowing the playwright to explore how characters react to her arrival.

The costumes and staging of An Ideal Husband reflect Wilde’s growth as a playwright, showing that he could depict the world of his characters with less. He creates the Society party in Act I with a mere eight fashionably and expensively dressed guests, far fewer than for Lady Windermere’s party. Kaplan and Stowell suggest that Wilde undermined Lady Chiltern’s stern outlook through the rich fabrics and bared arms, throat and shoulders of her fashionable gowns (28). In contrast to Mrs. Erlynne, Wilde costumes Mrs. Cheveley within the conventions for fallen women, and the descriptions in the published version of the play are milder than Kaplan and Stowell’s account of the first production. The green dress with the six dead, stuffed swallows Mrs. Cheveley wore in Act I (32) marks her as inadmissible to Society, and the fashion press told readers to avoid such taxidermical garments (33). Wilde is using costume to reveal the true character of these women, even before the action proves that Lady Chiltern can be flexible and that Mrs. Cheveley is beyond redemption.

Wilde continually creates social worlds for his characters through sets, rather than providing the bare minimum for the action, focusing on small details generally ignored in comedies. An Ideal Husband is the best example of how Wilde uses a detailed setting to provide exposition and also insight into his characters, creating the “painted scene” (537) referred to in the dialogue. Wilde may have added the detailed, visual stage directions for publication, after his release from prison, (Kaplan and Stowell 27), but they are still worthy of consideration. The play opens in the Octagon room of the house in Grosvenor Square, “ brilliantly lighted and full of guests ” (515). There is to be a “ great chandelier ” (515) and Wilde adds an eighteenth-century French tapestry, “from a design by Boucher ” of “ The Triumph of Love ” (515). The size and importance of the home and its owners are reinforced by the remaining details – a quartet heard from the unseen

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Music Room, implying other rooms offstage, and the Louis Seize sofa (515). For Hankin, Maugham and Coward, Wilde presents a model of how staging can be used to help create a specific social world while also introducing characters to the audience. Some of their scenes, including the Jacksons’ drawing room with the plant in the fireplace in Hankin’s The Return of the Prodigal (1905), and Arnold’s carefully placed antique chair in The Circle , provide character exposition without dialogue. Just as Wilde explores the link between clothing and worth, he also uses onstage environments to comment on what his characters and audience value. He again disrupts audience expectations of comedy by contradicting rather than supporting his audience’s beliefs through costumes and staging, and this method of both depicting and critiquing the world of Society becomes one of the most innovative parts of his dramaturgy.

2.8 Wildean Women: Puritans, Dowagers and Fallen Women

Wilde devised more complex characters than one generally finds in well-made plays, farces or melodramas, enhancing their portrayals through careful staging, yet he still often relied on character types. Wilde reveals options for other playwrights, however, by either adapting common nineteenth-century character types in his own way, or inventing new ones. His creations often fall into one of four distinct types: Puritans, fallen women, older ladies (dowagers), and dandies. To begin with the Puritans, Wilde takes a comic staple from Renaissance theatre but recreates it for the Victorian age, refusing simply to mock them as hypocrites as Ben Jonson does with Zeal-of-the-land Busy in Bartholomew Fair . Wilde is less interested in revealing hypocrisy than in confronting moral absolutes through the plays’ three self-described Puritans: Lady Windermere, Hester Worsley and Lady Chiltern. Why Wilde resurrects this particular term is unclear; it is not commonly used in plays between the Restoration and 1892. He may be trying to make a direct link between these women and the “puritanical morality” promoted by some feminists at the time (Powell “Wilde Man” 127). Rather than encouraging the freeing of women from the double standard, or increased sexual freedom for women, they advocated “raising the standard of conduct for men” (130), demanding near-perfect conduct from everyone. Wilde explores the cost of setting too high a standard. According to Ellmann, “Puritanism, as Wilde never tired of showing, produces its viciousness as much as debauchery. Thoughtless goodness is as self-destructive as evil and becomes what it despises” ( Oscar Wilde 343). Hankin and Coward also include ruthlessly pure women in their work, but they do not use the term “Puritan.” They are also less charitable towards rigid

32 characters, especially the women in the Whittaker family in Easy Virtue . These Puritans seem an odd choice for a comic writer, as they add little to the wit of the plays, but they fit within the genre because of the way Wilde has them change. They are forced to confront their judgmental natures, adopt a nuanced, forgiving outlook, and are part of the reconciliation that ends each play, an important distinction between Wilde’s plays and works by Jones and Pinero. 7

The first of Wilde’s Puritans, Lady Windermere, tells Lord Darlington in Act I that she believes life would be “much more simple” (423) if everyone followed her rigid moral code. She rejects the double standard because she believes strongly in holding both men and women to the same narrow code for sexual conduct, a reflection of the late Victorian purity agenda rejected by Wilde. Lady Windermere gradually loses the assurance of her Puritanism in Act III when she is alone in a bachelor’s flat late at night and realizes she may lose everything she loves. Wilde uses the potential consequences of her overreaction to her husband’s alleged affair and her realization that Mrs. Erlynne is more than she appears to shift Lady Windermere’s belief in a rigid world of fixed rules. She may epitomize a Wildean character type, but she is also a round character, capable of change. Lady Windermere is not able to let go of her ideals completely, however, creating a link to an unexpected character in Maugham’s Our Betters , Pearl’s older benefactor, Fenwick.

In An Ideal Husband , Wilde shifts his focus from sexual purity to Victorian ideas of men’s honour – honesty in political and financial dealings. Lady Chiltern, the Puritan of the play, says: “One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged” (532), unaware that her own husband has a dishonourable past. Like Lady Windermere with her mother, she has allowed a person to become an ideal, telling him, “All your life you have stood apart from others. You have never let the world soil you” (533). Initially, her love depends on that ideal because “we women worship when we love…” (534), making her husband almost a god. Later in the play, Sir Robert tells Lord Goring that he sees his wife as too perfect to forgive. “She stands apart as good women do – pitiless in her perfection—cold and stern and without mercy” (561). Lady Chiltern requires outside guidance from Lord Goring to come to a kinder view of herself

7 Unlike Ellean in The Second Mrs. Tanqeray , they are able to learn compassion before there are tragic consequences.

33 and her husband by the end of the play, but her transformation shows Wilde’s willingness to let such women grow.

Wilde uses the Puritan in A Woman of No Importance differently . Hester Worsley is the spokesperson for the purity agenda. She tells the other women in Act II, “You shut out from your society the gentle and the good. You laugh at the simple and the pure” (483). When the guests discuss an aristocratic man known for behaving badly with women, Hester has no sympathy for those he has caused to fall, but also rejects the double standard, saying, “Don’t have one law for men and another for women” (483). Most contemporary reviewers simply disliked Hester or found her boring, but The Candid Friend comments on her as a faulty portrayal of an American: “She is not even a woman, let alone a typical woman, and certainly is not typical of any phase of womanhood known in America” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 157). Wilde seems to draw on some of his own observations about American girls when creating Hester, described in a short essay entitled “The American Invasion” and published in 1887 in the Court and Society Review . “American girls have a wonderful charm, and, perhaps the chief secret of their charm is that they never talk seriously, except to their dressmaker, and never think seriously, except about amusements” ( Complete 965). Hester seems to be more of a type than the other Puritans, but Wilde saw her as a strong character. After seeing a performance of the play in Jersey in 1893, Wilde complained to H.H. Morrell that “The Hester Worsley wants decision, and strength. She is not strong enough in Act IV, but she is very pretty and sweet” (Holland and Hart-Davis 571). Wilde created Puritans who could change, but in this play he also wanted one who could think for herself. While Lady Windermere and Lady Chiltern require guidance to change their viewpoint, Hester is able to change her view of fallen women more through relationship and observation.

Wilde balances his seemingly humourless Puritans with a character type that provides much seemingly unintentional wit: powerful older ladies. He acknowledges their enormous social power, then shows how their lack of self-awareness can make them appear foolish. Wilde’s use of dowagers is special, as they are not common in Restoration comedies which seem to have far more fathers than mothers or aunts, and they are an unacknowledged part of his legacy. Wilde’s Duchess of Berwick, Lady Markby and Lady Caroline, for example, are less contrived than the older women in Sheridan’s plays, and their humour seems more spontaneous. Mrs. Candour in The School for Scandal and Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals provide humour mainly through the

34 comic trick indicated by their names. Mrs. Candour states that she never gossips, all the while sharing much dubious information about characters seen and unseen in the play, while Mrs. Malaprop, described by another character as “quite the queen of the dictionary” ( The Rivals ), freely employs big words out of context. Wilde’s older women, in contrast, work so well as characters because they are examples of the aristocratic women Davidoff says controlled access to Society. The Duchess of Berwick in Lady Windermere’s Fan is clearly a caricature of Society mothers, but she also monitors entry – Lord Darlington may be “wicked” (424), but he is allowed in, as is Mr. Hopper from Australia because in England, “we know your value…” (433). His value is monetary, or he would be excluded. Lady Caroline in A Woman of No Importance also makes preposterous statements with an air of authority, saying “I believe I am usually right” (471). Lady Markby, the dowager in An Ideal Husband , delaims opinions likely shared by some in the audience, then provides ludicrous rationales for her beliefs. In Act II, she argues against higher education for women because “high intellectual pressure” causes large noses – “And there is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose; men don’t like them” (530). Like the Duchess and Lady Caroline, she is unintentionally funny, contrasting with the carefully constructed witticisms of the dandies in these plays. Mrs. Cheveley’s assessment that Lady Markby “talks more and says less than anybody I ever met” (550) might apply to all three of these women. They anticipate Lady Bracknell in Earnest , who in turn likely inspires a number of older women in the works of Hankin and Maugham. Wilde is taking dowagers, some of the most powerful, fearsome characters in Society, and making them a recognizable source of fun.

Wilde’s greatest innovation is likely his portrayal of three distinct fallen women, another common character type. Eltis lists an abundance of plays about fallen women by Jones, Pinero, Wilde and Shaw, although Lady Windermere’s Fan is the earliest (“Fallen” 225) and seems to create new possibilities for the type on the London stage. Wilde anticipates later works such as The Second Mrs. Tanqueray and Jones’s Mrs. Dane’s Defence (1900) by asking whether fallen women can fit into Society, but he does not corner, kill or isolate them; Wilde’s women each find their own way to thrive. He follows the usual conventions to an extent: “…for Wilde, only women prefaced with ‘Mrs.’ and never ‘Lady,’ are the fallen ones…” (Daniel 57), but you cannot always tell when a woman is fallen (Eltis “Fallen” 226). Writing to Alexander, Wilde stresses that Mrs. Erlynne, for example, “is an adventuress, not a cocotte” (Holland and Hart- Davis 515), a distinction supported by her fashionable clothes. The other playwrights considered

35 here continue to portray and critique Society’s attitudes to fallen women, until Maugham and Coward in the 1920s are able to explore the effects of sexual freedom for women with more candour than was possible for Wilde.

Wilde initially seems to question the validity of Society’s practices by showing how Mrs. Erlynne manipulates them to gain access to Lady Windermere’s party and social circle. Lady Windermere controls access not only to her home but also to Society by carefully screening her guests. She is behaving appropriately for a woman of her class and outlook when she refuses to send a card to the dubious Mrs. Erlynne. In 1892, Lord Windermere sending a card to Mrs. Erlynne in Act I on his wife’s behalf was a shocking breach of social rules. Such an invitation usurped her role as hostess and also implied that Lady Windermere supported Mrs. Erlynne’s entry into their social circle. The Duchess confirms this tacit approval in Act II, telling Lady Windermere, “Of course she must be all right if you invite her” ( Lady Windermere’s Fan 440). The audience sees, however, that when Mrs. Erlynne initially attempts to greet Lady Windermere, she “bows coldly” (436), not quite a cut but a clear sign of disapproval. To regain entry, Mrs. Erlynne needs connections to Society women. She tells Lord Windermere: “I am afraid of the women. The men I can always manage” (436). Wilde cleverly uses the comic figure of Lord Augustus to voice Society’s priorities when he asks Lord Windermere about Mrs. Erlynne’s family, seeking assurance that she will be able to gain access. Lord Augustus seems unwilling to discard many of his prior acquaintances, as Aubrey Tanqueray does in order to marry Paula. Before the end of the act, the divorced but well-dressed Mrs. Erlynne uses the implied approval of Lady Windermere to gain introductions to several Society women, showing how an adventuress could use the rules of etiquette to obtain entry.

Through Mrs. Erlynne, Wilde reinvents the fallen woman for the 1890s stage, creating a round, interesting character who defies the theatrical norms of the day. He also carefully uses her motherly feelings to ensure the audience will side with her by the end of the play. It is easy to forget that Mrs. Erlynne is blackmailing Lord Windermere; she has managed to live a scandalous life without becoming notorious, and we are told nothing of her life in the years between leaving her husband and child and contacting her son-in-law. We also do not know why Mrs. Erlynne seeks her daughter at the end of Act II, but the parallels created by Lady Windermere’s letter cause her to intervene in her daughter’s life. Wilde explores the mothering instinct as the motivation for action more sentimentally than do later plays like Coward’s The Vortex. After

36 following Lady Windermere to Lord Darlington’s flat in Act III, Mrs. Erlynne tells her, “To save you from the abyss into which you are falling, there is nothing in the world I would not dare, nothing in the world” (446). Failing to anticipate that Lady Windermere would assume her husband was having an affair is the one time this consistently smart woman seems remarkably stupid. Lady Windermere insults her mother, saying women like her are “bought and sold” (447), but Mrs. Erlynne perseveres, reassuring Lady Windermere that her husband loves her (447). She also forces her daughter to think about the future, saying: “You don’t know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at – to be an outcast!” (447). Wilde depicts a fallen woman on the verge of returning to the security of Society, then has Mrs. Erlynne sacrifice her own happiness when she steps out from her hiding place in Lord Darlington’s flat, allowing Lady Windermere to escape. Where Lord Goring dismisses self- sacrifice, she embraces it, but for a child, not a friend.

Wilde’s rejection of the usual outcome for fallen women is revolutionary. Powell identifies plays that use similar plot devices – young wives who believe their mothers are dead, misdirected letters, daughters who follow the mistakes of their mothers, mothers returning in disguise, etc., but in these plays the deserting mothers are all punished ( Oscar Wilde 17-20). He explains, “Nothing, however, atones for their having transgressed the most basic precepts of a woman’s duty. They may repent – and usually do – but justice demands they die, with or without medical cause, or enter a convent at least” (16). Mrs. Erlynne explicitly rejects the conventional theatrical outcomes for fallen women. She tells Lord Windermere: “That is stupid of you, Arthur; in real life we don’t do such things – not as long as we have any good looks left, at any rate” ( Lady Windermere’s Fan 460). Mrs. Erlynne refuses to repent and, as Eltis writes, “Wilde’s fallen woman not only leaves the stage in perfect health, impervious to the moral strictures which demanded her repentance and conversion, but also ends the play in possession of a husband” ( Revising 78). Mrs. Erlynne is one of the few fallen women who successfully rehabilitates herself through marriage, 8 and the audience likely saw her engagement to Lord Augustus as her reward for protecting her daughter. At least some critics at the time appreciated Wilde’s approach. Walkley wrote, “And thank goodness she doesn’t repent – stage repentances

8 Mrs. Cheveley is unsuccessful, Mrs. Abuthnot says no, Paula Tanqueray’s marriage destroys her, and Mrs. Dane’s potential match is thwarted.

37 are tedious! No, she retires laughing from the scene, a true demi-mondaine to the last; and with the reconciliation of husband and wife the play ends” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 123). The only character wise enough to carry the secrets in this play is the fallen woman. Through Mrs. Erlynne, a new kind of fallen woman who is smart, witty and fashionable enough to reenter Society, Wilde is also able to both portray and critique some of the flaws in Society’s rules regarding access and moral acceptability.

Wilde continues to expand the possibilities for fallen women in his next play, A Woman of No Importance. This time, he uses his character to investigate the long-term effects of the sexual double standard. Mrs. Arbuthnot is different from Mrs. Erlynne and Mrs. Cheveley because she is not a dandy, although she is a complex character. Mrs. Arbuthnot also contrasts other theatrical fallen women of the era because one sinful period did not lead her into a life of sexual misadventures. She aligns herself with the 1890s purity agenda, supporting Hester’s call for equally high standards for men and women. Lady Hunstanton describes her as “very feminine … and so good, too” (474), doing much charitable work in the parish. Wilde again leaves Mrs. Arbuthnot’s story incomplete; she has the manners required to pass in country society, and enough money from some source to bring up Gerald without working herself and losing her respectability, yet her elopement was not widely known. After the pregnancy, she was seen as a viable match by Illingworth’s father, but not by his mother (489-90). Where Mrs. Erlynne seems immune to judgement, Wilde’s second fallen woman condemns herself. Her past sins have not cornered her like Paula Tanqueray, but Mrs. Arbuthnot still feels their weight. Wilde asks the audience to think about how heavy that weight should be.

Because of the way Wilde plays with his audience’s expectations of comedy and various nineteenth-century genres, the central conflict of this play is not revealed until Mrs. Arbuthnot joins the country house party in Act II and Lord Illingworth realizes Gerald is his son. Secrets drive the action of this play, as Wilde carefully sets up the battle for Gerald and then seems to ask the audience to choose between his mother’s devotion and his father’s status. For much of Act III, it seems Lord Illingworth has gained a son, until his attempt to fulfill Mrs. Allonby’s challenge to kiss Hester drives Gerald back to his mother. Wilde’s final repudiation of the double standard occurs in Act IV. After Gerald tells his mother that he has written to Lord Illingworth to demand that his father marry his mother, Mrs. Arbuthnot makes it clear that she will not wed her former lover:

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I will not. You talk of atonement for a wrong done. What atonement can be made to me? There is no atonement possible. I am disgraced; he is not. That is all. It is the usual history of a man and a woman as it usually happens, as it always happens. And the ending is the ordinary ending. The woman suffers. The man goes free. (506-7)

Wilde is showing his audience another way for a fallen woman to rehabilitate herself: through a virtuous life. Mrs. Arbuthot has raised her son in a moral household, embodying Respectable ideas about being of use to the community, maintaining a clean life after her elopement. She describes her life as “the price I paid for you – the price of soul and body – that makes me love you as I do” (509), atoning because she felt guilty about not feeling guilty enough. Archer asked: “Why does Mr. Wilde make her such a terribly emphatic personage? Do ladies in her (certainly undesirable) position brood so incessantly upon their misfortune?” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 146). He preferred Mrs. Arbuthnot in Act IV, when she rejects Lord Illingworth. By presenting a fallen woman who is a dedicated mother living on her own terms within country society, Wilde offers another option for such women, while also asking the audience to consider whether there should be consequences for the men who lead them astray.

Wilde takes a far different approach in An Ideal Husband, presenting an unlikable, unrepentant fallen woman, Mrs. Cheveley, whose fashion choices and onstage behaviour confirm her status rather than contradicting it. Lord Goring describes her as unafraid of gossip, saying “Oh, I should fancy Mrs. Cheveley is one of those very modern women of our time who find a new scandal as becoming as a new bonnet, and air them in the Park every afternoon at five-thirty” (540). In spite of her reputation, Mrs. Cheveley has sustained an acceptable façade, enabling her connection to a social force like Lady Markby. Both Lord Goring and Lady Chiltern reveal past connections to Mrs. Cheveley. This fallen woman is not welcome in Lady Chiltern’s home, because life “has taught [her] that a person who has once been guilty of a dishonest and dishonourable action may be guilty of it a second time, and should be shunned” (550). Mrs. Cheveley is not treated as fallen because of a past sexual indiscretion, but because of her own repeated refusal to follow basic moral precepts. In Act III, Mrs. Cheveley unexpectedly tries to rehabilitate herself through marriage, following Mrs. Erlynne, Paula Tanqueray and other fallen women, but in her own self-serving way. She tries to reconnect with Lord Goring, explaining that she wants the status and stability of being a Society wife, but also that “… I knew you were the only person I had ever cared for, if I ever have cared for anybody” (564). The “if ever” is

39 telling, as Lord Goring refuses her in part because he believes she is incapable of love. Mrs. Erlynne may manipulate Lord Augustus but there is some hope of genuine affection between them. Mrs. Cheveley, in contrast, wants to coerce Lord Goring into becoming her husband by promising to give up Sir Robert’s letter, a self-sacrifice he refuses. Wilde does not feel compelled to expose her publicly, possibly because there is no clear implication of sexual misconduct in her past, and Mrs. Cheveley leaves the play at the end of Act III neither triumphant nor entirely defeated. Through Mrs. Cheveley, Mrs. Erlynne and Mrs. Arbuthnot, Wilde presents three complex, atypical fallen women, asking audiences whether such women should be condemned.

2.9 Dandies and their Masks

Dandies are perhaps the most significant character type in these plays, and Wilde includes a series of multifaceted men and women who dress fashionably and attract the attention of other characters and the audience. Through his dandies, Wilde repeatedly illustrates how Society is a masquerade. Some dandies are flat, like Cecil Graham in Lady Windermere’s Fan , but most are complex enough to be at least doubled, revealing one side publicly and another privately. While few dandies are as well-developed as Wilde’s, they appear often enough in plays of the period that they must have appealed to both audiences and actor-managers. In the problem plays of Jones and Pinero, they are often raisonneur figures, unmarried middle-aged men such as Cayley Drummle in The Second Mrs. Tanqeray or Sir Richard Kato in The Case of Rebellious Susan (1894), who speak with some wit and solve problems. These men are less entertaining than Wilde’s dandies, characters such as Lord Darlington, Mrs. Erlynne, Cecil Graham, Lord Illingworth, Mrs. Allonby, Lord Goring, Mrs. Cheveley and Mabel Chiltern. The term could also apply to a number of characters in the later plays, including Hankin’s Eustace Jackson, Maugham’s Lady Frederick and Paradine Fouldes, and Elyot in Private Lives . These dandies vary in age, gender and social position, and through them Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward are able to both present and critique a number of accepted social practices, including how life in Society is a show. Wilde’s dandies can often be identified by their epigrams and their fashionable clothes. Dandies always seem to find a way to dress well: Mrs. Erlynne finances her wardrobe through blackmail, Eustace Jackson orders clothes he cannot pay for, and Lady Frederick owes a large sum to her dressmaker. Being a dandy is portrayed as a costume, sometimes with a mask, including this stage direction for Mrs. Cheveley: “A mask has fallen

40 from her ” ( An Ideal Husband 567). The dandies considered here, including Lord Goring and Nicky in The Vortex , are also viable love interests. These men are fashionable and flippant, and may even seem effeminate, but they are seen as potential sexual partners by the women in these plays. In fact, Maugham implies through Algy, the parasite in Smith (1909), that a lack of sexual interest from a dandy is abnormal, which also contrasts dandies like Drummle, who seem to be confirmed bachelors. The innovative use of dandies becomes part of Wilde’s legacy.

Wilde’s first dandy is Lord Darlington, a contradictory but appealing character. His visit to the Windermere home in Act I occurs after 5:00 p.m., during the calling hour generally reserved for family and close friends (Davidoff 43), and Lady Windermere’s instruction to Parker that she is “at home to anyone who calls” ( Lady Windermere’s Fan 420) would assure the audience that their relationship is innocent. In this scene, Lord Darlington’s speech is often epigrammatic but he assures Lady Windermere that some of what she sees is affectation, reinforcing the idea that dandyism is put on (424). Their relationship changes after Mrs. Erlynne attends Lady Windermere’s party, causing her to feel every woman “sneers” at her (438). Wilde creates a love triangle when Lord Darlington refuses her friendship but offers her his life instead (439). This triangle is a false one, however, because Lady Windermere loves her husband, has no real interest in her lover, and rejects the scandalous life Darlington offers her. He rebukes her, revealing that he also has ideals, saying, “You are not what I thought you were. You are just the same as every other woman. You would stand anything rather than face the censure of a world whose praise you would despise” (439). Lord Darlington has made an ideal of Lady Windermere just as she idealizes others. Wilde’s examination of the results of turning imperfect people into ideals carries through his work, inspiring the ongoing discussion of ideals we see in Hankin and Maugham.

Lord Darlington is a complex, ambiguous character, made more interesting by the way Wilde leaves his true nature open to interpretation. Is he a cad preying on a vulnerable woman, a precursor to Lord Illingworth in A Woman of No Importance ? Or is he ruled by ideals of good women that will fade if damaged, a man more in love with them than with Lady Windermere? If Richard Ellmann is correct, then perhaps Darlington’s decision to remove himself from her life by leaving England for some years is proof that he genuinely loves Lady Windermere ( Oscar Wilde 344); if he cannot be with her, he needs to be away from her. Based on viewings of a variety of productions of the play, it seems all three options can work in performance.

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Darlington behaves badly, trying to steal another man’s wife, but he believes he is saving her from marriage to an unfaithful husband, and says he will marry her ( Lady Windermere’s Fan 439). He leaves the play, and England, still a gentleman.

In A Woman of No Importance , Wilde explores the failure of the Victorian gentleman through a dark dandy, Lord Illingworth. This unwed father maintains distinct personal and public personas, and Wilde reveals that his genteel exterior is a façade. Although Lord Illingworth is the one man in Wilde’s plays who is guilty of a sexual indiscretion, fathering a child out of wedlock when he was twenty-one, this does not make him fallen. When Lady Stutfield says in Act I that “Every one I know says you are very, very wicked” (469), it seems more playful than sinister. Unlike Pinero’s Aubrey Tanqueray or Captain Ardale in The Second Mrs. Tanqueray , this wealthy dandy feels entitled to live a man’s life with no qualms, questions or consequences. An unsigned review of the play in the Saturday Review (May 1893) describes Lord Illingworth as follows: “He is not quite human, and is little more than a machine for the utterance of paradox and epigram, most of them, though by no means all, wonderfully clever, but bearing up on them the hall-mark of insincerity” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 153). This reviewer wanted to see Lord Illingworth atone for earlier sins (153), and show some evidence of fatherly feeling towards Gerald (154). Wilde uses Illingworth to examine the morally questionable behaviour of wealthy men and the way Society condones it, to show the male side of the double standard and to consider what kind of men are created when only women are punished. The portrayal also showed how an entertaining, round but dark character could be used to question Society’s belief in the ideal of the gentleman.

Wilde slowly exposes the darker side of Lord Illingworth as he subtly demeans Mrs. Arbuthnot. When they are alone on stage for the first time in Act II, he calls her Rachel; it is jarring in a world where the address is consistently formal except within families, such as between Lady Caroline and her sister, Lady Hunstanton. Through Illingworth, who says he felt a son was missing in his life (489), Wilde shifts his attention to fatherhood. Lord Illingworth’s excuse that he was only twenty-one and with little money and no prospects when their connection began (489) might appear justified to many in the audience, while other spectators likely agreed with Mrs. Arbuthnot: “When a man is old enough to do wrong, he should be old enough to do right also” (489). The audience learns that they eloped after he promised to marry her, that after she became pregnant he refused to marry her, and that she eventually disappeared. Throughout the

42 discussion, Mrs. Arbuthnot excludes Lord Illingworth, calling Gerald “my son” (489-90) and saying: “You have no right to claim him” (489). In the scene between Lord Illingworth and Gerald at the beginning of Act III, he does not reveal their relationship but does try to exclude Mrs. Arbuthnot from their son’s life because “the future belongs to the dandy” (493). Lord Illingworth is aware of that he is playing a role, but sees it as an advantage.

Illingworth’s demeanour in the remainder of the play reveals an unpleasant private persona, but Wilde keeps his unmasking private. Gerald, Hester, Mrs. Arbuthnot and the audience see the inner Lord Illingworth, but the remaining guests at Lady Hunstanton’s party do not, enabling his return to his old life at the end of the play. Lord Illingworth behaves inappropriately in Act IV, entering Mrs. Arbuthnot’s home without waiting for the maid as though he were a family member, entitled to be there. Lord Illingworth tries to gain shared custody of an adult child by offering Gerald money and status, but he fails, partly because Hester’s money eliminates any need for his. Wilde is unclear about whether his desire to know Gerald is genuine or if he simply hates losing. When it is apparent that he has lost, he nearly calls his son a “bastard” before he is stopped by a slap from his former lover (514). Raby feels the final slap of Lord Illingworth is important, as “a spontaneous subversion of a male code which is absurdly theatrical” (“Wilde’s Comedies 152), but perhaps it was the best way for Wilde to have an unspeakable word, “bastard,” nearly uttered on stage. Lord Illingworth’s mask is briefly removed, but one suspects that it will remain on hereafter: he will not be redeemed. Through this dark dandy, Wilde asks the audience to consider the results of condoning the double standard, allowing men to behave badly while ostracizing women.

Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband is Wilde’s most innovative dandy, a man who appears shallow but reveals unexpected wisdom, resourcefulness and solid judgement of character when he counsels his friends. He is a more active agent in resolving the plot than the dandies in Jones and Pinero, not only discussing the Chilterns’ situation but also acting to resolve it. He seems to fit Regina Gagnier’s argument that dandies were seen as refined and independent ( Idylls 68). Mabel describes him as “a class quite by himself” (An Ideal Husband 517) and Wilde writes in the stage directions that “ He plays with life … He is fond of being misunderstood. It gives him a post of vantage ” (521). Lord Goring pays much attention to his dress, coming home in Act III with a buttonhole, silk hat, Inverness cape, white gloves, Louis-Seize cane – “all the delicate fopperies of Fashion ” (553). Lord Goring contrasts the purposeless dandies of Maugham and

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Coward, however. When Lord Caversham complains about his son’s perceived idleness, Mabel defends him: “Why, he rides in the Row at ten o’clock in the morning, goes to the Opera three times a week, changes his clothes at least five times a day, and dines out every night of the season. You don’t call that leading an idle life, do you?” (516). In Act II this unmarried, seemingly frivolous dandy gives sage advice to his older, married, politically active friend.9 Sir Robert tries to argue that no one was hurt by his actions, but Lord Goring exposes the problem immediately with “Except yourself, Robert” (536), showing how Sir Robert lost something when he took money from Baron Arnheim (538). Lord Goring is also wise enough to refuse to sacrifice himself for Sir Robert. He tells Mrs. Cheveley, “it is so demoralising to the people for whom one sacrifices oneself. They always go to the bad” (565). The most interesting addition Wilde makes to this character type, however, is the perceptive way he speaks about love. Where Lord Illingworth seems unable to talk of love, and Lord Darlington refers to it in a romantic and self-serving way, Lord Goring understands it more fully. He tells Mrs. Cheveley she knows nothing of love: “… you whose lips desecrated the word love, you to whom the thing is a book closely sealed” (566). Lord Goring is able to counsel the Chilterns because he understands that love is not only romance, but requires honesty and compromise. He seems to embody Worth’s assessment of Wilde and love, that “much of the interest in Wilde’s drama springs from the sensitivity and realism of his exploration into the different kinds of love and the need involved in trying to be oneself and at the same time think of others” (14). Hankin’s Richard Wetherby and Maugham’s Freeman in Smith also speak more wisely about love than audiences would initially expect, although none of the later playwrights explore the emotion with as much breadth.

Wilde’s gentlemen-dandies expand the possibilities for this character type, but he also creates a number of female dandies, and this is likely a greater innovation. Whether socially unblemished like Mabel Chiltern, morally complicated like Mrs. Allonby, or fallen like Mrs. Erlynne and Mrs. Cheveley, they break down more gender stereotypes than his Puritans, and create a link back to the witty, intelligent, independent women of the comedies of manners. These dandies are better dressed, often older, more interesting, smarter and of stronger will than the innocent or

9 The stage directions state that Sir Robert is about forty and Lord Goring is thirty-four.

44 browbeaten ladies common in late Victorian plays. 10 With the exception of the more consistent Mabel Chiltern, they are all able to shift between the public and personal selves that Society requires. Anticipating characters like Pearl from Our Betters , who succinctly explains how she manipulates Society opinions, Wilde uses these women, especially Mrs. Cheveley, to deconstruct how public personas are sustained. Walkley wanted to know how she reached the upper circles of politics (Beckson Critical 181), but how she has managed to stay in Society may be the greater question. We are not told about either of her husbands, she has been associated with various scandals since childhood, and her connection to Baron Arnheim would not have improved her social reputation – yet she still appears to be “in.” Worth writes that “Shaw liked her because she was a ‘real’ adventuress – ‘selfish, dishonest and third rate’ – not a sentimentalized stage one” (131). She is a worthy antagonist for Lord Goring, and watching this dandy work out her schemes, and wondering if she will succeed, is one of the pleasures of this play.

Wilde uses Mrs. Cheveley to disrupt the rhythm and expectations of comedy, combining suspense and surprise. As with Maugham’s The Circle , the suspense carries through more than one act. After Mrs. Cheveley is revealed to be first an unwelcome guest and then a blackmailer, Wilde skilfully keeps the audience and other characters wondering what she will do, whether she can be stopped, and if she will be found out. After Mrs. Cheveley presents her dishonest proposal ( An Ideal Husband 527), Sir Robert tries to call for her carriage, the polite way to throw someone out of your house. She stops him because, like all the dandies in Wilde’s plays, she is smart, in this case smart enough to know that part of her power over Sir Robert is his reputation for virtue. She tells him:

Nowadays with our modern mania for morality, everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues – and what is the result? You all go over like ninepins – one after the other. Not a year passes in England without somebody disappearing. Scandals used to lend charm, or at least interest, to a man – now they crush him (528).

10 These late Victorian women include Paula Tanqueray, Mrs. Ebbsmith, “rebellious” Susan Harabin, and Mrs. Dane, all of whom succumb to social pressure.

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Sir Robert needs to pay for his past indiscretion, and Mrs. Cheveley is determined to be the agent (528-9). Like Lord Illingworth, however, her unacceptable private behaviour eventually leads to her defeat. She cannot be allowed to succeed in her schemes because, unlike the scheming female dandies in later plays, her actions could affect the nation.

Mrs. Erlynne, Wilde’s first female dandy, is a more ambiguous blend of fashionable and fallen than Mrs. Cheveley. Wilde uses her to show the layers that are part of creating a persona appropriate for Society, how fashion affects more than clothing choices, and that the distinctions between a fallen woman, a dandy, and a wise, worldly advisor are much finer than many in the audience might want to believe. Clement Scott wondered why “a blackmailing, deserting mother” was not more offensive (qtd. in Beckson Critical 121). Mrs. Erlynne has not only a public and a private persona, she also has a past identity to keep hidden, and Wilde shows us how carefully she has constructed herself. When Lord Windermere describes a miniature of her, painted before she left her daughter, as the picture of an “innocent-looking girl with dark hair” (Lady Windermere’s Fan 459), Mrs. Erlynne replies that such expressions were in fashion then. Eltis believes this line suggests that Mrs. Erlynne’s former self was also a façade ( Revising 71). A public acknowledgement of her daughter would ruin her self-reconstruction because Mrs. Erlynne cannot pretend to be 29 or 30 with a child of 21 ( Lady Windermere’s Fan 459). Just as Lady Frederick applies hair and paint to appear in Society, Mrs. Erlynne puts on clothes and a persona because dandies are always aware that masks must be worn.

2.10 Gender Roles and Marriage

Wilde is able to question gender roles and marriage with insight because he expanded the possibilities of comedy to make room for fully developed characters, including his Puritans, dandies and fallen women. He also plays with the old comic link between love and money through characters such as the Duchess of Berwick, her daughter Agatha and Mr. Hopper, but asks different questions about relationships and explores different kinds of love because the primary couples in his plays are not seeking matches. The Windermeres and Chilterns are already married, while Mrs. Arbuthnot and Lord Illingworth remain apart. He portrays a world with an entrenched gender imbalance where, as Raby writes, “Marriage is . . . seen as an economic transaction: the woman acquires security, and the wealth to maintain a conspicuous social position; in return, the man’s sexual infidelities are condoned, or at least overlooked”

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(“Wilde’s Comedies” 146). The later playwrights also examine this tacit agreement, and Maugham’s Constance in The Constant Wife (1926) deconstructs the bargain, obtains a job outside the home and then buys her sexual freedom. Wilde opens the discussion of what women and men gain and lose through marriage that Hankin, Maugham and Coward continue, particularly through plays such as The Two Mr. Wetherbys, The Circle and The Constant Wife .

Wilde understood that the double standard he questions was supported by many women. The Duchess of Berwick, whose spouse ran “after all kinds of petticoats, every colour, every shape, every material” ( Lady Windermere’s Fan 427), epitomizes wives who condone affairs to maintain their social status. She recommends that Lady Windermere take her husband on a trip away from Mrs. Erlynne to end the rumoured affair. His Puritans speak openly, particularly in the early acts of each play, about the need to judge and punish sexually adventurous women. The aristocratic ladies in A Woman of No Importance are compelled to temper Hester’s harsh comments on the sins of men, but not those about fallen women. Eltis argues that regardless of their own true moral status, they need to keep such women out to keep their position:

The ostracism of the fallen woman is a matter of convenience to these married women. Their power within society, as Wilde shows, depends upon their reputation for virtue. The fallen woman must be exiled in order that (at least outwardly) virtuous women may retain control of their husbands and their society ( Revising 128)

Eltis’s assessment is severe, but Wilde’s depiction of the way women helped to perpetuate the double standard seems accurate. By the 1920s, Maugham and Coward show less support for the double standard, and portray unashamed, unpunished, sexually adventurous women, but they also acknowledge that not much has changed in practice or in the law. Wilde comments on the unfairness of the double standard in a way that questions its validity, but he was unable to change general attitudes outside the theatre.

All three plays consider the role of wives, but Wilde is less explicit about the requirements for a good marriage than are the later playwrights. A man in Society needs a wife to act as a hostess if he hopes to maintain or advance his position and Wilde’s wives demonstrate the ability to host a successful party. Wilde seems less concerned, however, with providing an heir than many would have been in this world of strict primogeniture, as only the Windermeres have a legitimate child, a son. Wilde’s stage directions indicate that the Chilterns are physically affectionate with each

47 other ( An Ideal Husband 542), but they have no children. Husbands are usually older than their wives, again an accurate reflection of the way most men from the wealthier classes waited to marry until they were about thirty (Thompson 257), and they exercise a kind of parental authority over their wives. Like Nora in A Doll’s House (1879), the women in these plays regularly tolerate being called “child” by their spouses and others; Lady Windermere, a mother of twenty-one, is addressed this way by the Duchess of Berwick ( Lady Windermere’s Fan 427) and by her husband (431, 463). Mrs. Allonby makes a series of witty comments about how men should treat women: “the Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims” (A Woman of No Importance 481). She goes on to suggest that a man should praise a woman for qualities she does not possess and be relentless when he tries to reconcile after a fight (481). Bristow argues that Mrs. Allonby “seems to be celebrating nothing other than the devoted angel- wife who is forever infantilized by her authoritarian husband” (“Dowdies…” 62). Wilde’s attitude to calling grown women and mothers “child” is difficult to discern, but he may be applying it repeatedly to Lady Windermere to highlight and critique the paternal attitudes of her husband. Women continue to be called “child” on stage until at least 1930, when Amanda in Private Lives refuses to be addressed that way.

Wilde portrays a variety of marital relationships, some newer and some more mature, encouraging his audiences to think about what a husband should reasonably expect from a wife. For women of the period, fidelity was essential, and Wilde shows that admitting even the temptation to stray was risky. Mrs. Erlynne insists that Lady Windermere keep the secret of her near elopement because, as Eltis suggests, “Lord Windermere, blinkered by his ideas of female virtue, must be protected from full knowledge of the facts, for he could never truly forgive his wife…” ( Revising 85). Her husband has made too much of an ideal of her to tolerate such a stumble. Although the husbands in Wilde’s plays may not easily forgive, they seem to expect to be forgiven and trusted without question, whether it is Lord Windermere demanding understanding for his connection to Mrs. Erlynne, or Sir Robert blaming his wife for his likely downfall. He acknowledges that he was “brutal” to her, but tells Lord Goring he was honest “from the standpoint of men” ( An Ideal Husband 561). When Lord Goring says, “Your wife will forgive you” (561), both men seem to imply that forgiveness is not only about love but is also a wife’s obligation. Lord Goring voices ideas that seem out of step with his persona and his

48 relationship with Mabel when, in Act IV, he convinces Lady Chiltern to make Robert remain in politics. He tells her that women “are not meant to judge us, but to forgive us when we need forgiveness” (579), again implying that wives are required to forgive, and that “a man’s life is of more value than a woman’s” (579). Men are worth more in Society because they hold and can exercise political power, but Lord Goring also suggests that without power Sir Robert would lose the power to love as well (579). By questioning what men require of women in marriage, Wilde foreshadows the deeper conversations we find in Smith , The Cassilis Engagement and other plays.

Wilde not only asks what husbands expect from their wives, but also considers the complex demands wives place on their husbands, especially when the men are idealized. Lady Windermere, Mrs. Arbuthnot and Hester all speak about holding men equally accountable for sexual dalliances, and Lady Chiltern holds her husband to a remarkably high standard of integrity, more in line with the purity agenda than Society’s norms. Wilde dismisses the notion of a perfect man, particularly in An Ideal Husband , then shows why such a man would be undesirable. As Eltis writes, “Mabel Chiltern speaks for all the women in the play when she rejects the prospect of an ‘ideal husband’; male perfection is not to be dreamt of by these realistic women, for ‘It sounds like something in the next world’” ( Revising 148). Lord Goring and Mabel best embody what Wilde considers a good relationship, one based on a knowledge of each other, kindness, fondness and wisdom instead of the consolidation of status and wealth. Several kisses are listed in the stage directions for their proposal scene ( An Ideal Husband 572-3), and there is genuine affection between them. This match seems likely to last. After Hankin’s The Two Mr. Wetherbys in 1903, the other playwrights reject the ideal when they consider what women might want in a husband, although they each present their own case for the requirements for a successful marriage.

2.11 Parents and Children

Wilde’s comedies again disrupt expectations because they involve fewer parents than other plays of the period, but still consider how parents affect their children. 11 Wilde seems to devalue

11 See the next chapter for a comparison of Earnest and other late-Victorian farces.

49 legitimacy; birth status was important to all classes, but Gerald’s unmarried mother and father are the only complete set of parents in the plays, and Wilde makes a joke of Jack’s potential bastardy in Earnest . In Lady Windermere’s Fan , Wilde both supports and questions the Victorian glorification of motherhood. Lady Windermere believes throughout the play that her mother is dead, although the audience learns that she was abandoned as a baby by Mrs. Erlynne. In his original version, Wilde wanted to keep the secret of Mrs. Erlynne’s connection to Lady Windermere until Act IV (Holland and Hart-Davis 516), but Alexander insisted on a change; the first indication of their relationship is a brief comment by her son-in-law at the end of Act I. The statement is subtle enough to be missed by many in a modern audience, who often let out an audible gasp when her identity is made clear by Lord Windermere in Act IV. In Act III, Mrs. Erlynne seems to validate Victorian ideas of motherhood as natural by saving her daughter. She convinces Lady Windermere to return home, making mothering not only a wifely duty but also a Christian one, saying: “God gave you that child. He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him. What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you?” (448). Wilde promotes motherly duty until he seems to be supporting tolerance of the same double standard he rejects elsewhere. Through Mrs. Erlynne, he suggests that a wife should return even if the husband is unfaithful: “If he abandoned you, your place is with your child” (448). The irony is, of course, that Mrs. Erlynne left Lady Windermere when she was a baby, and that until she returned her daughter had been managing well. Secrets in this play remain withheld, however, and Mrs. Erlynne does not return to the role of mother and grandmother. Wilde seems unable to reconcile motherhood with being a dandy, a distinction maintained by the other playwrights. Few of the fashionable women in these plays have living children, and none are actively parenting.

Wilde again relies on the Victorian glorification of motherhood in A Woman of No Importance . Just as Mrs. Erlynne makes motherhood a godly duty, Mrs. Arbuthnot echoes biblical language when she speaks to her son, saying, “when you were naked I clothed you, when you were hungry I gave you food” (508) and “Not Hannah, Samuel more” (508), to show how much she loved him. The love of Mrs. Arbuthnot, an unwed, fallen mother, is portrayed as worth more than the wealth and status of Lord Illingworth. The truth of Gerald’s birth and Mrs. Arbuthnot’s prior relationship is withheld from the country house guests. Lord Illingworth may behave as though he is part of the family, but his plea, “Rachel, I want my son” (512), is rejected. Hester says she

50 would choose Mrs. Arbuthnot as her mother, reinforcing her role again, while Lord Illingworth is dismissed as “a man of no importance” (513). Allowing Mrs. Arbuthnot to keep her son away from such a father, placing motherhood above fatherhood, is significant within a system that placed such importance on legitimacy, inheritance and male heirs. By expanding the onstage relationship between parents and children well beyond choosing an appropriate spouse, Wilde again creates possibilities for the later playwrights, who may still glorify motherhood but dissect the relationships between parents and children in surprising, sometimes shocking ways.

2.12 Change and Forgiveness

Wilde’s reinvention of the fallen woman, his rejection of the ideal man and his critique of the double standard are all important parts of his legacy, but his greatest innovation may be the way he replaces the ridicule or destruction of flawed characters with change and forgiveness. Wilde’s approach is noted by Raby, who links his use of comedy to exploring ethical issues to early Realists such as Ibsen. “Morality, private and public, is brought into question in these plays, and found wanting quite as radically as in the ‘stronger’ dramas of Ibsen” (“Wilde’s Comedies” 158). Wilde’s outlook is difficult to define, however, and can appear contradictory, possibly because he was trying to both satisfy and challenge his audience. Moral ambiguity may also be the natural result of Wilde trying to explore what it means to behave badly while also saving his characters from public scrutiny. He cannot reveal Lord Illingworth’s or Mrs. Cheveley’s misdeeds, for example, without exposing other worthier characters’ past mistakes. Keeping secrets may suggest new alternatives to the later playwrights, such as the way Maugham allows some misdeeds to be exposed only within a small social group. In Wilde’s comedies, obstacles can be overcome, characters can learn from their missteps, and the play can end in reconciliation. Mistakes never have catastrophic results because he knows that if the consequences are too severe, comedy’s ability to instruct is disrupted. His characters can learn to forgive themselves and others because he allows them to grow without public humiliation, resulting in a thoughtful but popular style of comedy that could be adapted by the later playwrights.

Wilde explores alternatives to the prevailing view of honour for both men and women in his plays while successfully working within the confines of his theatrical milieu. Wilde’s depiction of a fallen man in An Ideal Husband , Sir Robert, is too complex to be simply dismissed as bad. Sir Robert is dishonourable in the way that matters for men – he broke trust with the government

51 and sold a Cabinet secret. His actions have implications far outside his family and social circles, and could affect the nation. While Mrs. Erlynne and Mrs. Arbuthnot both lost status through their actions, Sir Robert built on his dishonest act to become successful and admired. Unlike Lord Illingworth, however, Sir Robert cannot hide behind the double standard. Through this character, Wilde is able not only to explore ideas put forward in plays like Ibsen’s The Pillars of Society (1877), but also to combine them with longstanding ideas of his own about sin and judgement. In “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” Wilde writes that

Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man cannot always be estimated by what he does. He may keep the law, and yet be worthless. He may break the law, and yet be fine. He may be bad, without ever doing anything bad. He may commit a sin against society and yet realise through that sin his true perfection ( Complete 1180).

Through Sir Robert, Wilde explores the effect of what initially appears to be a single moral lapse on a complex man, one capable of appearing above reproach and doing much that is “good” while carrying the burden of a shameful secret. Sir Robert asks Lord Goring in Act II, “Is it fair that the folly, the sin of one’s youth, if men choose to call it a sin, should wreck a life like mine, should place me in the pillory, should shatter all that I have worked for, all that I have built up?” (536). Unlike Mrs. Arbuthnot, however, Sir Robert has not lived a genuinely exemplary life since committing his immoral act: his life has only appeared blameless, while he continued to benefit from his connection to Baron Arnheim. Sir Robert keeps his reputation, and is not subjected to punishment, unlike the forger Hugh Verreker in The Charity That Began at Home (1906) . Gelven notes the paradoxes in An Ideal Husband : “Deceit becomes honesty, the trivial becomes serious, the decent indecent, the weak strong, the selfish altruistic, the disloyal loyal” (36). Such Wildean paradoxes are fun but in this case can also be unsettling, as he uses them to question the appropriate long-term consequences of a dishonourable act. Eltis suggests that contemporary critics felt the way Wilde led spectators to sympathize with bad characters was a weakness ( Revising 132), but it is also an important part of his legacy. Hankin, Maugham and Coward also ask audiences to reconsider what they think is right through engaging characters who behave badly, but are too complex to be simply dismissed as bad.

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2.13 Consequences and Endings

Beginning with Lady Windermere’s Fan , Wilde breaks the longstanding formula that comedies end in marriage, avoids dénouement scenes, and plays with secrets. His example helps to free Hankin, Maugham and Coward from the strict rules of comic conclusions. Most of the comedies discussed here end with change or reconciliation rather than engagements, and a few conclude with marital breakdown. Wilde’s first comedy ends in a marriage between the older, more worldly Lord Augustus and Mrs. Erlynne, not the union of a young innocent couple who have overcome obstacles such as parental disapproval or lack of money. Wilde combines their engagement with a reconciliation, as the Windermeres come back together by the end of the play, each believing they have protected the other from a shameful secret. In contrast to centuries of comedy, including earlier reconciled couples such as the Teazles in The School for Scandal , the Windermeres are not exposed to further gossip, and their renewed relationship is based on secrets kept rather than revealed. Their reconciliation does seem genuine, however. Unlike Susan Harrabin in The Case of Rebellious Susan , Lady Windermere chooses to remain with the husband she loves, rather than submitting to pressure and returning to an unfaithful, likely unchanged spouse she no longer cares for. Wilde’s ending is far more satisfying, and better befits a comedy. His approach seems to encourage Hankin, Maugham and Coward to play with levels of exposure, as some secrets are kept, some are revealed semi-privately, and only a few become public knowledge.

Wilde breaks the patterns of both comedies and plays about fallen women with A Woman of No Importance , again expanding the possibilities of the genre. Wilde also imagines a different way forward for Mrs. Arbuthnot, who does not suffer in proportion to her crime. As with Lady Windermere’s Fan , where Mrs. Erlynne asks Lord Augustus to make their home on the continent, this play ends with the implication that unlike enlightened theatre audiences, English Society may not be ready to forgive a fallen woman. Exile is an improvement over untimely death, suicide or life in a convent, but while Lord Illingworth can replace his mask and continue his life as a dandy, Mrs. Arbuthnot and her illegitimate son will go with Hester to America, a newer and presumably less prejudiced country. Wilde, Maugham and Coward all use the continent, and sometimes the new world, to create spaces for characters who do not fit the norms of England. They question the values of the wider culture, but acknowledge that they cannot alter them alone.

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Mrs. Arbuthnot may describe herself using similar language to Pinero’s Paula; they both call themselves “tainted,” ( Second 132 , An Ideal Husband 507), but Wilde breaks with these plays when Mrs. Arbuthnot prefers to remain in what would be considered a state of sin. Mrs. Arbuthnot not only rejects Lord Illingworth, but also the benefits of regaining social status for herself, and a name for Gerald. Wilde was savvy enough, however, to provide the family with an alternate source of wealth through Hester. His women do not discuss financial concerns as openly as do some of Maugham’s or Hankin’s characters, but by providing them with financial support he may create space for the frank discussion of gender, work and money we see in the later plays.

Wilde never resorts to strict poetic justice, or even loss of status, but punishes Lord Illingworth privately. Illingworth has the dandy’s ability to function easily in Society, as well as wealth, status and power. As played by Tree in the first production, he likely also had a substantial stage presence. Yet he remains the kind of man who would try to kiss an innocent girl like Hester, an ungentlemanly gentleman who thrives in Society because masks are worn and the double standard encourages his behaviour. When Lord Illingworth loses Gerald, “his is the defeat of age, of aristocracy, of the old England; of everything that is suggested by the manicured lawns and terraces of Hunstanton Chase” (Raby “Wilde’s Comedies” 153). He leaves the play after taking a last took out the window at his son ( A Woman of No Importance 514). While Mrs. Erlynne and Mrs. Arbuthnot are allowed to grow and move on in part because of their role as mothers, Wilde’s indictment of Lord Illingworth questions both the effects of the double standard on men and the value of fathers. His fate also shows the playwrights who followed how to punish a character without ridicule or public exposure.

The best comedies should remind us that lessons can be learned and people can change, but Wilde seems to undermine that standard in An Ideal Husband . He presents his audience with two ideals of Victorian audiences – stable marriages and politicians with integrity – before showing how fragile both can be. Sir Robert is a fallen, dishonourable, hypocritical politician, but the audience still hopes he will be saved. The opening night audience of powerful politicians applauded the play, apparently accepting the premise without feeling condemned by the content. As Eltis writes, “The very fact that the audience accepted the play’s ending so easily demonstrates Wilde’s success in portraying British politics as a scene of compromise and hypocrisy, where Sir Robert will be perfectly at home” (Revising 135). Like Wilde’s fallen

54 women, Sir Robert not only survives but thrives, refusing to kill himself or resign. The play provides the happy ending that was still obligatory in its day, and the satisfaction of seeing the defeat of the villain, Mrs. Cheveley. Reviewers, however, were less comfortable than audiences with the message of the play, and their opinions of Sir Robert are mixed. Walkley argued that “the great thing is not to be found out; indeed the whole play is designed to fill us with hope over the escape of a sinner from the penalty of his sin through a trick with a diamond bracelet” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 182). Archer identified the fundamental problem with Sir Robert as a character, writing in the Pall Mall Budget in January 1895 that “The question which Mr. Wilde propounds is, ‘Ought his old peccadillo to incapacitate him for public life’ – and, while essaying to answer it in the negative, he virtually, to my thinking, answers it in the affirmative” (174). Archer goes on to argue that Chiltern is not a man who succumbed to temptation once but will not repeat it, because Wilde clearly shows us that he would fall again, and Archer expects more from a Cabinet Minister (174). A New York reviewer for Harper’s Weekly who saw the play in London, William Dean Howells, disagreed. He considered the play plausible because of Sir Robert’s initial need for money, suggesting that “…men clean up as soon as they have the pecuniary means” (185). Because Wilde keeps the secret private, Sir Robert is not forced from power or political life. The audience knows about Sir Robert’s indiscretion, as does a good family friend, but his party, wider Society and the press do not. Unlike Wilde’s fallen women, Sir Robert is also able to remain in England. Wilde creates an interesting, round but flawed character in a comedy, rescues him from ruin, and implies a change – but leaves the future unclear. By creating a way forward for both fallen men and women, Wilde opens up possibilities for future characters who behave badly, but are too complex to be irredeemably bad.

What completes these comedies, and distinguishes them from works by Wilde’s contemporaries, is the emphasis on reconciliation and love. Wilde repeatedly explores love that shifts from being naïve and dependent on ideals to something deeper and less conditional. He includes love between parent and child, as Gerald’s and Mrs. Arbuthnot’s relationship changes after their encounter with Lord Illingworth. An Ideal Husband replaces direct references to God 12 and the biblical allusions of the earlier plays, such as Hester’s assertion that “God’s law is only Love” ( A

12 Although he seems to be asking for a shift from a more rule-based, Old Testament viewpoint to a kinder, more forgiving New Testament outlook, Wilde refers to God in the plays, but never Jesus.

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Woman of No Importance 510), with much talk of love – between Sir Robert and his wife, Sir Robert and Lord Goring, Lord Goring and Mrs. Cheveley, and Lord Goring and Lady Chiltern. After the Chilterns are nearly driven apart, they reunite with a deeper connection and Lady Chiltern learns to love a man rather than an ideal. Deep emotions are a strength of this play; Eltis argues that “the only unambiguous message in the play is that of love” (Revising 169), and Ellmann thinks the “kindness” of Wilde and the growing “tenderness” between characters is what makes it work ( Oscar Wilde 388). The emotional depth of the play was also noted in H.G. Wells’s review of the first production. He wrote in the Pall Mall Gazette (4 January 1895) that Wilde was “discovering to an appreciative world, beneath the attendrated [sic] veil of his wit, that he, too, has a heart” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 172). Gelven describes this play as the “triumph … of grace over scheming” (37), and grace, wonderful and undeserved, does seem to run through this play. The later playwrights may not depict grace or refer directly to faith, as Wilde does, but there is an underlying kindness in the way they treat many of their misbehaving characters. They all discuss love with more depth than might be expected from comedies. An Ideal Husband ends with the Chilterns on stage together, and Lady Chiltern tells her husband “a new life is beginning” (582), a life with not only greater political power, but also with more truth and transparency.

2.14 Conclusion

By breaking a variety of theatrical norms, creating elaborate worlds for his Society characters that would speak to the audience, and cloaking his social criticism in wit and epigram, Wilde expands the possibilities of what comedy can do. He creates new character types with more depth than was usual for the genre, and ends his plays with reconciliation rather than engagements, but also uses comedy to ask serious questions about judgement, love and forgiveness. As these plays and playwrights explore what it is to behave badly, Wilde rejects the usual consequences for such behaviour. One of the biggest surprises of these comedies may be the way he refuses to punish his fallen characters, allowing them to keep their secrets, rather than subjecting them to gossip. Throughout the Renaissance and Restoration, characters who tried to change their social station or connections were often ridiculed and gulled, like Blunt in Aphra Behn’s The Rover , who loses his money and most of his clothes. Wilde allows characters like Mrs. Erlynne and Mrs. Arbuthnot to keep their private lives secret and move on, unlike Jones’s Mrs. Dane who is forced to give up a suitor because of her status as a fallen woman . Even

56 though some in Wilde’s audience would have considered public shaming a necessary deterrent, no one in his plays is subjected to the exposure that was a normal part of divorce proceedings, political scandals or sexual misadventures in the late Victorian period. The true villains in the plays, Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Cheveley, return to their lives defeated but still masked. Eltis believes forgiveness was one of Wilde’s goals. She writes:

An Ideal Husband suggests that society should accept the natural human failings of its leading figures, and so bring an end to hypocrisy, blackmail, and the tragic ruin of gifted men, men like Charles Stuart Parnell, Sir Charles Dilke and Wilde himself” (Revising 152).

Including Wilde in this list seems premature, however, as all his plays opened before his trials and public shaming. Wilde’s comedies do, however, ask audiences to reconsider their prejudices, reject moral absolutes and harsh judgements, soften their expectations and make more room for love in their families, marriages and social interactions.

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The Importance of Being Earnest : Adults at Play

3.1 Introduction

The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde’s most enduring play – by far the one most produced, most familiar to audiences and most often quoted. It also marks a distinct break from Wilde’s three earlier successes. He continues to explore the conventions of comedy, character types and careful use of production details to build character, as well as the distinction between private and public personas from the first three comedies, but takes them in a new direction. Jack, Algernon, Cecily and Gwendolyn dress up, pretend and inhabit a world of their own creation, one where the social consequences that so affected Lady Windermere, Mrs. Erlynne, Mrs. Abuthnot and the Chilterns have no power. Although Earnest is generally considered a superior , Wilde reveals new skills as a comic writer by reworking the norms of farce in this play to show his imagination and sense of fun.

Wilde’s shift to farce after his earlier successes with social comedy may seem an odd choice, but farce was an important and popular genre in West End London theatres at the time. It was also the form best suited for a more playful style of comedy; in farce, childish behaviour was not only accepted, but encouraged. According to Kerry Powell, the most popular play of the 1890s was not a work by Wilde or Bernard Shaw, but Brandon Thomas’s farce Charley’s Aunt (1892) (Oscar Wilde 108), which had an initial London run of four years (Thomas 5). The innocent fun of young men trying to arrange a chaperoned lunch for young women, combined with the silliness of the cross-dressing Lord Fancourt Babberley, made Charley’s Aunt a populist choice. There are indications, though, that the first run of Earnest might have competed with Thomas’s play had it not been cut short by Wilde’s trial for gross indecency in April 1895. Reviewing Earnest in February 1895 for the New York Times , Hamilton Fyfe wrote: “The thing is slight in structure and as devoid of purpose as a paper balloon, but it is extraordinarily funny, and the universal assumption is that it will remain on the boards here for an indefinitely extended period” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 189). Reviewers’ predictions, unfortunately, do not guarantee box office receipts, but Earnest was expected to have a long run. The genre remained popular with Society and middle-class audiences at least until the 1920s, when a series of Ben Travers’s farces were produced at the Aldwych Theatre. As with the earlier comedies, what sets Earnest apart is the way Wilde applies this comic genre to comment on the behaviour of Society playfully and

58 flippantly, but also insightfully. The use of farce as a means to critique behaviour is employed by Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward through the hilarious portrayal of divorce practices in Home and Beauty , and the chaos caused by characters behaving badly in Hay Fever and Private Lives .

Contemporary reviewers, including H.G. Wells and A.B. Walkley, recognized the farcical elements of Earnest , linking it particularly to the work of W.S. Gilbert (Beckson Critical 188, 197), although Wilde again follows, adapts or rejects the norms of this genre, such as humour about food. An examination of Charley’s Aunt , W.S. Gilbert’s Engaged (1877), one of Pinero’s court farces, The Magistrate (1885), and W. Lestocq and E.M. Robson’s The Foundling , cited by Powell as a source for Earnest , reveals some of the ways Wilde plays with the form. Engaged is often linked to Earnest because both plays involve two women who believe that they are engaged to the same man (Oscar Wilde 110) and contain scenes where the women show their displeasure with each other through food. In Act II of Earnest , Cecily and Gwendolyn do battle over a tea table with unwanted lumps of sugar and large pieces of cake (399-400), while in Act II of Engaged , the audience sees Minnie repeatedly try to hide the tarts for her wedding reception while Belinda finds and eats them (Gilbert 166-8). Wilde knew that adults playfully fighting through food was both familiar and fun. Powell also links Earnest to Lestocq and Robson’s The Foundling , arguing that Wilde adapted its plot after seeing the farce in August or September 1894 ( Oscar Wilde 108-9); it was on stage while he was writing Earnest . Both plays include lost parents, a similar tone, adults being christened, with names, confusion with a baby, and an incorrectly identified long-lost mother. “Indeed, both plays end with the foundling’s discovery that his mother was a woman of rank, lawfully married, and that his father pursued a career in !” (118). The Foundling lacks the layers of silliness of Earnest , perhaps because the complexities of Wilde’s play “can be traced to no single source” (111). Wilde may begin with elements of familiar farces, but he makes them his own.

Wilde avoids one common trait common to late Victorian farces: Earnest is not a snowball farce. The typical snowball farce follows a pattern wherein a respectable figure does something out of character in Act I, that minor act leads to more complications in Act II, culminating in Act III where there are “recriminations” (Davis 130), followed by a final return to respectability with no time to spare (130). In Modern British Farce, Leslie Smith labels Pinero’s commercially successful court farces “snowball farces” (17-18) because respectable characters are deeply

59 embarrassed and repeatedly humiliated (25). In contrast, Wilde continues to avoid public humiliation for his characters, and their scandalous actions are not exposed publicly during the play.

3.2 Wilde’s Stories for Children

By choosing farce for his Earnest , Wilde was able not only to continue his comedic commentary on Society, but also to draw directly from his earlier, non-theatrical works, especially his stories for children. Critics often find connections between Wilde’s plays and essays such as “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” or “,” or between the dandies in the plays and the characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Few connect the plays to Wilde’s short stories for children, but there are clear parallels. Themes that are an important part of Wilde’s social comedies, like self-sacrifice and forgiveness, also appear in the these stories. Wilde considers self-sacrifice – sometimes rewarded, sometimes futile – in stories first published in 1888 in The Happy Prince and Other Tales. In “The Happy Prince,” a statue of the Happy Prince asks a friendly swallow to strip him of his gold leaf and jewels and use them to help the poor. They are both destroyed by their acts of charity, as the swallow dies after missing his chance to migrate and the prince is melted down because he is no longer beautiful. They are discarded on earth, but Wilde has them both recognized and rewarded by God, spending eternity in paradise. “The Nightingale and the Rose” does not end so well, however. A nightingale gives up her life to create a perfect out-of-season red rose for a young man to give to his love, but the sacrifice is unrecognized, the gift is unsuccessful and the rose ends in the gutter. Wilde first considers forgiveness and changes of heart in stories such as “The Selfish Giant.” When the giant refuses to share his garden, shutting out the children who love the space, it is always winter there. His heart is changed one day by the sight of a tiny child trying to climb into a tree in the corner of the garden. After he helps this child into the tree, spring returns as he welcomes all children into his garden for the rest of his days, and the giant ensures himself a place in paradise. As with Lady Windermere’s Fan and A Woman of No Importance , some of these stories for children have clear Christian messages.

Wilde’s playful sense of humour emerges in the stories, including his delightful sense of whimsy, an element present in Earnest but harder to spot in the earlier comedies. “The Selfish Giant” has personifications of Snow, Frost and North Wind take over the giant’s garden. They

60 invite Hail “‘on a visit’” (284) and “[e]very day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle until he broke most of the slates” ( Complete 284). “” has many subtly humorous moments, especially in the battle between the pragmatic, practical joking American family and the poor ghost who has never been treated with such disrespect. The permanent bloodstain in the library is one of the most memorable examples. It is promptly removed by the new American owners with “Pinkerton’s Champion Stain Remover and Paragon Detergent” (186) but still returns each night, sometimes in unusual shades like emerald-green (189). We eventually discover that the ghost has been raiding the paint box of the daughter of the family, Virginia, 13 to keep the bloodstain in good repair. The stories show the depth of Wilde’s imagination and his great sense of fun.

3.3 Farce and Play

Wilde began to work with farce in Act III of An Ideal Husband (produced a few months before Earnest ), when Lord Goring tries to manage three guests in the three different rooms. He continued his critique of aristocratic behaviour through farce with his next play, infusing small details with great importance to reveal how some of Society’s rituals mimic childhood games. In The World in Play: Portraits of a Victorian Concept, Matthew Kaiser discusses attitudes to play, arguing that the Victorians were trying to “improve” and “control” (14-15) play for both children and adults, while rejecting “mischief” (15). He includes Wilde in his detailed explanation of how play was perceived in the period, revealing the tension between recognizing the benefits of healthy competition and the self-expression encouraged by hobbies, while feeling uneasy about imagination, mischief and chance. For Kaiser, Wilde “did not take play seriously enough in a Victorian epoch steeped in play” (145). Instead, Wilde ridicules play, refuses to compete (146), and reveals that many of Society’s rituals are just another form of sport (153). The most interesting link between Kaiser’s theory of play and Wilde’s plays may be love. Kaiser suggests that play has benefits for wider society, making us better people.

13 Virginia is described as having “a sweet Puritan gravity” ( Complete 196), but unlike his use of the term in Lady Windermere’s Fan , A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband , here it seems complimentary.

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Play makes us wise… Play trains us to outmaneuver our emotions, ‘keep[ing] emotion’ ‘from being dominating, controlling, exploitative, or selfish.’ Play makes us just; it balances us ethically in a topsy-turvy world. Some theorists even suggest that play is at the root of love. (40)

When Kaiser writes specifically about Wilde, he comes back to love because love cannot be competitive, but instead is “unselfish and thus profoundly unreasonable” (158). Kaiser also sees Earnest as inviting audiences to laugh at all the competition “in the loveless sport of bourgeois marriage-making” (162). Wilde’s refusal to celebrate the Victorian obsession with strategic matches in his earlier plays, focusing instead on established couples, may be another rejection of the rules of play. He is a mischief maker, subverting what Society values. As he undermines much that Victorians valued in Earnest , Wilde uses the whimsical genre of farce to both celebrate and free play, creating a world where young adults can behave like children without consequence.

3.4 Defining Farce

While critics disagree about whether Earnest is a true farce (Davis 14), it fits a number of the genre’s recognized qualities. Wilde knew that farce was popular with audiences, and Katherine Worth suggests the genre offered him more “freedom” (153). Within farce, the expectations around borrowing, plausible plots and the use of character types were more relaxed than for his earlier plays. While few critics treat farce seriously, Eric Bentley writes about both the genre and Earnest , creating a strong link between farce and childishness because it appeals to that part of adult spectators that still wants to play: “Farce affords an escape from living, a release from the pressures of today, a regression to the irresponsibility of childhood” ( Life 298). Bentley sees play as a necessary reprieve from duty rather than the potentially disruptive force identified by Kaiser. For Wilde, farce was the best genre with which to depict young adults who still engage in play.

In The Life of the Drama , Bentley describes a number of qualities of farce. The ones most applicable to Earnest can be summed up as follows, and will be applied more directly to the play below.

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1. Farce has some violence, turned to comic purposes, creating a space where one can do what would be considered unthinkable (221);

2. Farce allows us to laugh at the family, and marriage, as we watch the enacting of our secret desires (225-7);

3. Farce is joking made theatrical, and needs the context of characters and scenes (235);

4. Farces contain with a purpose (240);

5. Farces mix the fantastic and the everyday (240), presented with “a grave appearance” (242);

6. Farces unmask continually, not just at the end of the play (242);

7. Farces create a world where coincidences seem inevitable (245);

8. Farces sometimes work through sympathy (246);

9. Farces are not adult; they are “a regression to the irresponsibility of childhood” (298);

10. Farce needs speed, often created through chase and pursuit (247-8).

For Bentley, farces require purpose and truth to make their humour worthwhile, and their jokes convey much that is worth considering (240). With regards to the seemingly random or chaotic plots of the genre, Bentley suggests: “In farce chance ceases to seem chance, and mischief has method in its madness” (245). From this description, farce appears to embody Victorian fears about play. Lastly, in an earlier article, “The Psychology of Farce,” Bentley attributes the appeal of farce to showing not only the fulfillment of secret desires, but also “dreams” and “wishes” (x), certainly more of the stuff of childhood. Based on Bentley’s description, the playacting of the characters in Earnest could only exist in a farce, just as Coward’s Bliss family needs farce to be shielded from the consequences of their rudeness.

Other critics have also examined farce in ways that assist the analysis of Wilde’s use of the genre in Earnest. The arrival of Lady Bracknell at the end of the play seems to support Jessica Milner Davis’s argument that farce, along with many other notable comedic forms, generally ends with

63 a restoration of order: “It tends to restore conventional authority, or at least to restore that authority’s face, at the end of its comic upheavals” (3). Wilde’s Earnest rises above most Victorian farces by creating its own form rather than adapting the French farces popular at the time (86). In comparison, Davis sees Shaw as less successful when adapting the genre, describing You Never Can Tell and Getting Married as failed farces because the flow is disrupted by all the discussion (86). Certainly, neither Shaw play sustains the speed that Bentley identifies as a quality of farce, and both lack the pursuit, either by authority figures or lovers, that we see in Earnest. Davis seems to disagree with Bentley’s believable coincidences, suggesting instead that farce is a place where the unreasonable is accepted: “Farce enshrines the element of unreason, an admittedly important part of human nature” (87). Farce must, however, remain plausible in its illogic (88), following Eugène Scribe’s requirement that plot construction be logical (123-4). When Wilde manipulated familiar genres like the well-made play in his earlier comedies, he ultimately confirmed that his characters cannot break free from all of Society’s rules. Within Earnest ’s farcical space, in contrast, he needs to sustain the world the play constructs for itself, but can depict characters with more freedom to behave badly.

The structure and language of farce also affect Earnest. Joel H. Kaplan highlights one simple aspect of the play that helps define it as farce, at least in its revised form. The version of the play that was eventually produced had three acts, while Society dramas and comedies had four (“Wilde on Stage” 252), distinguishing this play from Wilde’s three four-act comedies 14 and aligning it with the norms of farce. The additional act would have disrupted audience expectations, slowing down the action with the bankruptcy scene; perhaps George Alexander encouraged the elimination of an act to keep the action in farcical space. While the endless wit of Earnest may seem out of place within a farce, Smith argues that there is room for witty writing, linking the genre to the comedy of manners. Ellmann says the play was initially set in the time of Sheridan (Oscar Wilde 398). Certainly, the epigrammatic wit of Earnest sets it apart from other farces, and likely contributes to its longevity.

14 George Alexander, who played Jack in the first production, insisted that Earnest be reduced to three acts (Jackson 163).

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3.5 Earnest as Farce

In 1903, Arthur Symons described Earnest as “sublime farce, meaningless and delightful” (73), but the play is not meaningless. The way Wilde depicts and then creates childish fun out of the rituals of Society both critiques those rituals and shows how competitive they can be. Wilde is making mischief, and his genius becomes clearer when aspects of Earnest are compared with Bentley’s traits. To begin, the violence Bentley associates with farce ( Life 221) is minimal in Earnest , replaced by serious breaches of social rules. Comic violence becomes fighting with food, beginning with Cecily and Gwendolyn’s genteel battle over tea, and followed by the tug- of-war with the plate of muffins between Jack and Algernon in Act III (pictured in Tanitch). Offering a large piece of cake instead of bread and butter may seem trivial, but the significance of the struggle between Gwendolyn and Cecily was noted by Walkley in The Speaker on February 23, 1895: “Two girls, believing themselves engaged to the same man, and deadly foes in consequence, show their enmity by squabbling over the division of the cake at the tea-table” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 198). In a world where manners matter enormously, improperly serving tea becomes shocking, as Coward shows when the Bliss family’s houseguests are flabbergasted after tea is done badly in Hay Fever.

Wilde continues to devalue manners and social rituals by using the norms of farce to create jokes with a purpose (Bentley Life 240). Earnest not only jokes openly about a number of subjects Wilde’s Society audience would have taken quite seriously, their practices and beliefs are also “mocked” (Jackson 169). Lady Bracknell, as the last and most memorable example of Wilde’s comic older ladies, makes pronouncements about a number of Society’s concerns, including the declining value of land. Wilde also continues his careful critique of ideals in Earnest . Instead of an ideal being a person like Lady Windermere’s mother or Lady Chiltern’s husband, Gwendolyn and Cecily have idealized a name. After Gwendolyn tells Jack, “my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest” (366), what follows makes it clear that she would have loved any man of that name. The girls’ faith that the name is enough to make a man trustworthy also fits with the faulty logic of childhood. By turning what Society values into a joke, Wilde is able to be both comical and insightful.

Another part of Bentley’s argument, that farce allows us to laugh at the family and marriage as we watch the enacting of our secret desires ( Life 225-7), also illuminates aspects of Earnest . The

65 younger characters in the play flaunt their rejection of family expectations, as Cecily contracts an imaginary engagement and Algernon uses an imaginary friend, Bunbury, to escape unpleasant family events. Powell writes that young people rebelling against authority and custom were the norm in farce at the time ( Oscar Wilde 131), but Wilde takes his plot into new territory. Lady Bracknell’s marriage quiz, with its mix of serious and silly questions, both reflects and mocks the way Society mothers like the Duchess of Berwick supervise matches. Wilde also plays with how courtship is often more about money than love. While the Duchess of Berwick implies but does not state that Mr. Hopper’s value is monetary, Lady Bracknell has set a minimum income for any potential suitor for Gwendolyn. Wilde has identified and subverted the competitive side of Society marriages.

Archer considered Jack’s arrival in full Victorian mourning in Act II one of the most memorable moments of the play (Beckson Critical 190), but the scene carries less weight for modern audiences. Jack’s outfit is, however, a good example of farce as joking made theatrical, requiring the context provided by the world of the play to be entertaining (Bentley Life 235); the use of clothing as a joke is also further proof of Wilde’s awareness of the power of theatrical costume. Wilde creates fun out of the elaborate rituals of mourning practised by the Victorians. According to Davidoff, mourning varied in duration and appropriate clothing depending on one’s relationship to the deceased, but a three-year process for a widow was the norm, beginning with black crepe and widow’s cap, but eventually allowing for some grey or lavender (54). Kaiser also discusses the playful side of Victorian mourning (15) embodied by Wilde, when a 29-year- old man plays dress up. Wilde adds a layer of dramatic irony to the scene, because Jack is pretending to mourn an imaginary brother, unaware that Algernon is already present and masquerading as this supposedly dead imaginary brother. Wilde has taken death and Victorian rituals of mourning and made them the subjects of an extended theatrical joke.

The way farces mix the fantastic and the everyday, presented with “a grave appearance” (Bentley Life 242), is playfully used more than once in Earnest , but these qualities also apply to Wilde’s stories for children, such as the boastful rocket, or the ghostly bloodstain made with green paint. In Act II, Wilde has grown men asking to be christened. He creates a link back to infancy, then makes the situation more ridiculous by turning this familiar ritual into something hazardous. Jack and Algernon argue over which of them is entitled to be christened, undermining the value of competition as they vie for the right to baptism. Jack argues that as a foundling he likely was

66 not christened, and Algernon counters with, “I know my constitution can stand it” ( Earnest 404). Gwendolyn and Cecily become part of the conceit when they describe christening as a “terrible thing” and “a fearful ordeal” (406). These young characters make their own assessment of what is important, breaking the rules for acceptable play by trivializing important social rituals.

Bentley’s statement that farces should unmask continually rather than only at the end of the play (Life 242) fits the way Earnest unmasks both during the action and in the final scene. In Act I, we learn that Ernest is actually Jack, or John, but pretends to be Ernest in town (361-2), and that he is a foundling (369). In Act II, Cecily reveals that Gwendolyn’s Ernest is John Worthing, as Gwendolyn reveals that Cecily’s Ernest is Algernon Moncrieff (401). Watching the characters, especially Jack, repeatedly get caught in their lies is part of the fun. Wilde avoids dénouement scenes in his other comedies, but can conclude with one this time because it does not expose potentially destructive withheld secrets, but reveals that what the characters have imagined is true. In this case, the unmasking that would lead to embarrassment in a snowball farce validates their falsehoods.

While Bentley states that the coincidences in farce should seem inevitable ( Life 245), they often seem to breach modern standards of plausibility. All the farcical plays considered here rely on unlikely coincidences, like Elyot and Amanda honeymooning on adjacent terraces in Coward’s Private Lives. In Earnest, the coincidences gradually accumulate until it seems reasonable within the world of the play that the baby Miss Prism lost is Jack, that Algernon is Jack’s brother, and that Lady Bracknell is his aunt. Wilde plays with inevitability, however, in his stage directions. He undermines the value Victorians place on identity by creating room for Jack to trick the other characters and the audience. A directorial decision at the end of the play can either confirm that Jack is Ernest or imply that he might not be. As written, Jack is the only one to look at the Army list. The stage directions state that he “ Puts book quietly down and speaks quite calmly ” (418) before confirming that his name is Ernest. A director can verify Jack’s identity by having other characters look at the book with him, or imply that this final coincidence might be another lie by having Jack look at the page alone while shielding it from the others. Lady Bracknell confirms his name is Ernest, but her memory is unreliable. The greatest coincidence in the play may be a falsehood, the result of mischief.

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Shaw described Earnest in a letter as Wilde’s “first really heartless play’” (qtd. in Weintraub 46), but that seems unfair. While love is more superficial in this play, audience members want Jack to defeat Lady Bracknell and win Gwendolyn. Bentley suggests that farces sometimes work through sympathy ( Life 246), and perhaps some in the audience sympathized with the young characters because they are rejecting parental control of marriage. Farces, and comedies in general, often show young couples overcoming obstacles to come together. The audience sides with the young people against the older authority figures because that is how comedy works. Wilde creates obstacles to marriage through Lady Bracknell’s list and Cecily coming of age at thirty-five, but these are mocked. Rather than waiting for heaven like the characters in some of Wilde’s fairy stories, Jack, Algernon, Gwendolyn and Cecily achieve their goals before the play is over.

Bentley’s assertion that farces are not adult, but are “a regression to the irresponsibility of childhood” ( Life 298) offers a profound and relevant framework for reinterpreting Wilde’s work, providing the strongest link between ideas about play and the genre. The younger characters revel in irresponsibility and there are numerous examples of childish behaviour becoming comic stage business, beginning with Algernon and the cucumber sandwiches in Act I. Critics frequently comment on the double lives of the characters in Earnest , as Jack uses an alternate identity to behave immodestly in town while Algernon goes Bunburying to get away from family and other responsibilities. These escapes should not be taken as a repetition of the way Wilde plays with the distinctions between a character’s private and public personalities in the earlier comedies, however. Within the space Earnest provides for childlike play, Jack, Algernon and Cecily have each created imaginary friends – the wicked brother/fiancé Ernest and Bunbury. Gwendolyn also seems to have fashioned a more exciting life for herself, stating that her diary provides her with “something sensational to read in the train” (398). These fictions also provide Wilde with another strong link to the world of childhood; by the end of the play, he grants their wishes. Cecily is engaged to Uncle Jack’s brother, although his name is Algernon. Jack is Ernest and he has an unfortunate younger brother. Their lives have aligned with their imaginings.

Wilde again breaks with a fundamental expectation of comedy in Earnest , this time through the absence of parents in the play. Alexander Leggatt suggests that parents are important in comedy (94), but there are missing parents in most of the plays considered here. While Engaged and Charley’s Aunt lack on-stage mothers, fathers and guardians play an important role in the plays,

68 and most of the younger characters have at least one living parent. The biggest difference between The Foundling and Earnest is likely that the earlier play has an abundance of parents. Dick’s father and the parents of his intended, the , are all seen onstage, as are various possible birth mothers, and we learn by the end of the play that his adoptive parents are in fact his aunt and uncle, and that his birth parents are alive and in India. Wilde’s plays have comparatively few parents, of either sex, but this may protect his younger characters from scrutiny, and encourage independence, a distinct contrast to the Duchess of Berwick’s relationship with her daughter, Lady Agatha. In Earnest , Jack is assumed to be an orphan. He is Cecily’s guardian because her parents and grandfather, Jack’s benefactor, have all passed on. After Jack discovers he is Algernon’s brother, he is still an orphan because Algernon’s parents are deceased. Gwendolyn has two living parents, but only her formidable mother, Lady Bracknell, appears onstage. While the lack of parents in Wilde’s earlier plays seems to create unanswered questions, this time it frees his characters to behave badly because no one will be embarrassed by their behaviour. In Earnest , Home and Beauty and Hay Fever , the characters are free to play because there are no lasting consequences for breaking the rules. Jack’s parentage, however, does have consequences, and affects what is at stake in this play.

This farce also, rather unusually, has an overarching theme, earnestness. Bentley suggests in The Playwright as Thinker that although “farce… is not easily put to serious uses” (172), Earnest has an undercurrent of seriousness because, “as its title confesses, it is about earnestness , that kind of false seriousness which means priggishness, hypocrisy and lack of irony” (173). Choosing to ridicule the name of Ernest enables Wilde to use farce to undermine earnestness on many levels – by equating the quality with a name, by connecting the name to remarkably shallow people, by playing with social and religious rituals, by refusing to treat anything as sacred. For Kaiser, Earnest subverts the Victorian understanding of play because play is the opposite of earnestness (47-8). In keeping with the subtitle to the play, Wilde shows that “what is wrong with this society… is the fatal inability to distinguish between the trivial and the serious” (Worth 156). As serious things repeatedly become trivial, and trivial things are treated with gravity, Wilde undermines what his audience values, yet they appreciated the play, and did not seem to object to being mocked. George Alexander was able to successfully revive Earnest in 1901 and 1902 (Tanitch 263), shortly after Wilde’s death, because this mix of criticism and fun continued to draw affluent audiences.

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The farcical nature of Earnest does force Wilde to abandon or reinvent the character types he relied on in the earlier plays. There are no self-described Puritans who gradually come to a wiser understanding of the world because such women have no place in this world at play. Instead, Wilde ridicules his own work, as well as Pinero and Jones, when Jack misinterprets Miss Prism’s relationship to the lost baby, and assumes she is his unwed mother:

Unmarried! I do not deny that is a serious blow. But after all, who has the right to cast a stone at one who has suffered? Cannot repentance wipe out an act of folly? Why should there be one law for men, and another for women? Mother, I forgive you. (415)

With one joke, Wilde deflates the stigma concerning fallen women. Jackson sees the play as eradicating not only the woman with a past and the Puritan, but also the dandy (Jackson 165-66), yet the play seems to be full of mild versions of that latter character type. They lack the intelligence of Mrs. Allonby, Mrs. Erlynne or Lord Goring, but certainly Algernon, Jack and Gwendolyn all have the dandy’s sense of style and idle life. In contrast to comedy more generally, farce does not permit depth of characterization or significant change or growth; transformations of characters in this play are reduced to changes of name. In Home and Beauty and Hay Fever , the selfish, oblivious characters also remain unaffected by events in the play. Larger questions of morality are dispensed with in these farces, and seem to become questions of style. Illustrating how farce can be put to more serious uses, Wilde creates a remarkably discrete world in this play, eliminating any possibility of public humiliation. His younger characters remain safely within their playground.

Another possible explanation for the ongoing appeal of Earnest is Wilde’s use of epigram and paradox to help drive the action. The clever, quotable aspects of Earnest are shared among the characters, until wit eliminates the need for a more complex plot. While some of the references have faded, a surprising number are still funny. When Lady Bracknell describes smoking as an “occupation” (368), she evokes laughter and surprise by minimizing the distinction between a profession and a pastime, perhaps unwittingly suggesting that a man suitable for Gwendolyn should not work. Wilde continues to make mischief by critiquing what Society values. Marriage is assaulted through mistaken identity, imaginary engagement, and placing value on a name rather than a man, but Wilde also wittily debases the institution through the dialogue. In Act I, Algernon asks Lane why the servants in bachelors’ homes always seem to drink the champagne.

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When he is told that it is because unmarried men have better quality wine, Algy replies “Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?” (357). Marriage, the bedrock of Victorian values, is not only a game but also diminishes one’s wine cellar.

To maintain the link between the play of childhood and farce, Wilde must keep his language elevated. His work lacks the jargon and local accents of Engaged , The Magistrate and Charley’s Aunt , which all have some slang. The language of Earnest also lacks the racy implications of French farce, and appears, as Jackson explains, almost “decorous” (172). Adding so much clever, clean wit to farce ensures that Earnest remains a safe, playful space. There is no room in the play for characters genuinely in need of rehabilitation or for language or subjects that could be considered improper.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a remarkably innocent farce in its language, action and intent. Perhaps because of this veneer of innocence, the characters show no fear for the implications of their actions, a trait that is rare in farce but shared by Maugham’s Victoria and Coward’s Bliss family. In Act One, Jack comments on the need to maintain a “high moral tone” (361) when one is a guardian, but then says his town identity was constructed because such a tone “can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness if carried to excess” (361). Unlike Charley’s Aunt , no one worries about chaperones in this play. The younger characters refuse to be embarrassed. The girls show no fear of scandal, as Cecily spends time alone in the garden with a man she has never met, and Gwendolyn follows a bachelor into the countryside. Perhaps because they are playing with the constructs of their imaginations, their innocence shields them. As the sole parent in the play, Lady Bracknell is more aware of potential scandals, but when she arrives at Jack’s house she is more concerned about hiding Gwendolyn’s flight from her father (407). As Eltis writes, “Earnest’s world has no authority, no laws, and most delightful of all, no consequences” ( Revising 200). Wilde allows characters to engage in uncontrolled, safe play. Gossip rules Society, as shown in Wilde’s earlier plays, but these characters show no concern for their reputations. Wilde has constructed a playful space where his characters can be as oblivious as children.

The greatest innovation in Earnest may be the way Wilde combines farce, play and the norms of Society to subversively question the value of social identity. Jack does not need money to become respectable. He must already be able to attend private social events, or he could not

71 have courted Gwendolyn. He has money, property, education and status from this guardian, Mr. Cardew. He can meet all the criteria on Lady Bracknell’s list but one – identifiable parents. Most farces and comedies establish some link between identity, money and status, but this play does not. Finding his identity may provide Jack with a family, but it may also leave him with a financially needy relative, Algernon. He will gain no title. Wilde has left his audience with a subtle but subversive message, as nothing about Jack has changed but being able to confirm his connection to a class that considers breeding important. Jack has been altered externally, but unlike Wilde’s Puritans or Sir Robert, his transformation will not help him live or love better in the future. Wilde’s use of the genre to alter Jack helps to show how little social status means, without the discussion and serious undertone that Shaw and Hankin require to confront the issue. 15

As discussed in the introduction, there are other readings of the play worthy of consideration, including approaches to Earnest that explore how the play reflects Wilde’s sexuality. Recent analyses of Earnest by critics such as Christopher Craft and Joel Fineman consider the play as a kind of homosexual code. In “‘Effeminacy’ and ‘Femininity’: Sexual Politics in Wilde’s Comedies,” however, Alan Sinfield replies to Craft and Fineman, rebutting some of the sources for gay readings of Wilde’s plays, including Lytton Strachey’s assessment of Lord Illingworth as queer in a revival of A Woman of No Importance in 1907. Strachey’s view of Illingworth seems idiosyncratic, and Sinfield argues that if there was an easily discernible homosexual message in the plays, they could not have been produced in the 1890s, or in 1907 (“‘Effeminacy’” 35). Alexander Leggatt argues that the homosexual code in the play is in debate, suggesting that the jokes are enough as they are, “with no need to be read as code” (31). Whether Ernest includes a series of veiled references or not, queer criticism, including Susan Sontag’s writings about camp, offers another way to think about Wilde, play and dressing up. It might be possible in the future to triangulate queer theory, Bentley’s analysis of farce and Victorian ideas about play.

The Importance of Being Earnest is fun and playful, as this successful writer of short stories for children takes some of his creative imagination and wry humour and puts it on the stage. Farce provided a framework that Wilde could both follow and rework, while also allowing his

15 Pygmalion and The Return of the Prodigal likewise expose the myth of good breeding.

72 characters to behave childishly. The play has fighting with cake as well as with words, and concerns about revolution or whether hair curls naturally (395), all treated equally. As Walkley wrote about the first production, “It is of nonsense all compact, and better nonsense, I think, our stage has not seen” (qtd. in Beckson Critical 196). The Importance of Being Earnest is still so popular because it remains some of the best nonsense ever written for the stage.

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Oscar Wilde and St. John Hankin: Truly Happy Endings 4.1 Introduction

Theatre in the decade after Wilde’s death in 1900 both sustained Victorian traditions from the 1890s and began to reflect some of the new techniques and subjects explored on the continent. After a brief hiatus, Wilde’s comedies returned to the stage in London in 1901. Arthur Wing Pinero and Henry Arthur Jones continued to focus on problem plays, England’s attempt at dealing with some of the subjects confronted by the Realists within a package that could pass the censor and attract respectable audiences to the London theatres. These plays often pose moral questions such as the appropriate treatment of fallen women, but do not follow Wilde’s method for using comedy to provide witty but thoughtful social commentary. While they often have an unexpected thread of humour, they sustain traditional roles for women and lack forgiveness. Bernard Shaw’s plays have connections to Wilde’s, but usually contain too much argument. J.M. Barrie’s The Admirable Crichton (1902) has a character, Ernest, whose head is “immersed in a bucket of cold spring water” (377) every time he speaks an epigram because such clever phrases are of no use on their island. Although this might echo Wilde’s clever and witty but essentially useless young men, Barrie’s comedies have too much of the fantastic to mark him as a direct successor of Wilde. The next playwright to create a series of comedies that repeatedly adjust comic forms to disrupt audience expectations, depict well-developed characters within comedy, and reject theatrical retribution was St. John Hankin. The Two Mr. Wetherbys , The Return of the Prodigal , The Charity that Began at Home and The Cassilis Engagement are thought-provoking comedies that asked audience to reconsider their values and prejudices. Hankin reworks old comedic forms in his own way, treats characters who could be ridiculed or punished with unexpected kindness, astutely uses production details and stage directions to add depth to his characters, and combines wit with social criticism. He employs or adjusts Wildean character types, explores the position of women, and considers the requirements for a good marriage. He also begins the clear shift in our study from Wilde’s explicit references to God and faith as the roots of morality to a more secular view. Hankin critiques supposedly Christian or charitable behaviour while exploring issues of goodness, morality, and forgiveness. He takes a

74 different approach to the question of what it means to behave badly, focusing more on charity and less on sexual misadventures.

4.2 Hankin and Wilde

Hankin reviewed The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde for the Fortnightly Review in May 1908, discussing all seven of Wilde’s plays. The review provides many insights into how Hankin viewed both Wilde and the playwriting process; Hankin is not always complimentary, but his analysis reveals some of the ways he adapted Wilde. The relationship between Hankin’s and Wilde’s plays is labyrinthine, as Bloom uses the term, but the review clarifies how it is also agonistic. Hankin considers Wilde a borrower, but sees that as a strength: “Wilde as a playwright was always an imitator rather than an original artist. In him, in fact, the faculty of imitation was carried to a point that was almost genius” (“Collected” 184). For Hankin, Wilde’s best play was The Importance of Being Earnest , because “in that play, for the first time, he seemed to be tearing himself away from tradition and to be evolving a dramatic form of his own” (185). He continues in his praise, arguing that Earnest , “with all its absurdity, its psychology is truer, its criticism of life subtler and more profound than that of the other plays” (186). Hankin believes that Wilde would have been more innovative had he continued to write, finally breaking free of the well-made play (185). Wilde is separated from Shaw and Henrik Ibsen because he wrote to make money (198-9). Hankin acknowledges that writers must make money, but complains that Wilde limited himself by making money too important (199). For Hankin, “Wilde condescended. He looked around him at the kind of stuff which other playwrights were making money by, examined it with contemptuous acumen, saw how it was done – and went and did likewise” (199). Hankin, in contrast, did not write for a living, and his plays were never produced in a popular London Society theatre. His condemnation of Wilde suggests this was a deliberate strategy. Perhaps in spite of his determination to avoid being commercial, Hankin’s plays were favourites of the repertory companies of Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester (Rowell and Jackson 26, 36, 41).

Hankin dislikes what he sees as the commercial side of Wilde, but praises some of his comic technique. He believes Earnest is the best of the comedies because “it is the expression of the author’s own temperament and his attitude towards life, not an insincere re-statement of conventional theatrical ideas” (“Collected” 200): “In The Importance of Being Earnest , in fact,

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Wilde really invented a new type of play, and that type was the only quite original thing he contributed to the English stage. In form it is farce, but in spirit and in treatment it is comedy” (188). Hankin still complains about Earnest , however, because of the alterations made to the original script. He suggests that by cutting it down to three acts, Wilde provided “an eloquent proof of his contempt for play-writing as an art” (200-1). Hankin remains steadfastly dismissive of anything he sees as giving in, and he sees Wilde as failing to reach his potential. “With his gifts for dialogue and characterisation, his very remarkable ‘sense of the theatre,’ he might have been a great dramatist if he had been willing to take his art seriously” (201). Throughout his review, he ignores Wilde’s careful application of elaborate and likely expensive production values, the demands of genre, and the desire to reach a wider audience. Hankin’s attitude to Wilde’s work as a playwright highlights and perhaps explains why he sometimes follows, sometimes adapts, and sometimes rejects Wilde’s approach to reworking comedy. Hankin ultimately finds his own way to write commercially viable plays that also examine the values and assumptions of both Society and the upper middle classes.

Hankin critiques some specific aspects of Wilde’s comedies, unintentionally highlighting similarities between their work, including the use of weak curtains. Hankin praises Wilde’s weak curtains and dislikes the ones he feels are stronger, such as the endings of Acts III of Lady Windermere’s Fan and An Ideal Husband (“Collected” 186). Hankin much prefers The Importance of Being Earnest , arguing that “Acts I and II end in the casual, go-as-you-please fashion of the ultra-naturalistic school” (186-7), because with this play “we have really no ‘curtains’ at all” (186), a fair assessment. He associates weak curtains with the New Drama, and sees casual endings as more difficult to write than strong ones (187). Although Hankin’s review appeared in 1908, just thirteen years after Wilde’s last play premiered, he already considered some of Wilde’s dramatic technique old-fashioned, such as the soliloquy at the beginning of Act III of Lady Windermere’s Fan that was “out of date on the first night” (193). Wilde avoids soliloquies in his other comedies, although he does employ asides throughout his work. Wilde and Hankin both seem to recognize the awkwardness of this technique, and they shift more into stage conversations (to be discussed below). Hankin praises Wilde’s characters and dialogue, but in spite of his praise of Wilde as an imitator, dislikes his plots:

Luckily the fame of Wilde’s comedies does not rest on his plots or his construction. It rests on his gifts of characterization and of brilliant and effective dialogue. Both these gifts he

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possessed in a pre-eminent degree, but in both of them one has to recognize grave limitations. (193)

Hankin’s appreciation of Wilde’s characterizations reveals another link between them, as Hankin consistently places accurate portrayals of character ahead of following comic conventions. He suggests that Wilde writes better minor than major characters: “Windermere and Lady Windermere, Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern, none of them is really human, none of them quite alive” (194), then praises Wilde’s older women and includes similar women in his own work: “Did anybody ever draw foolish or pompous or domineering old ladies better than Wilde?” (194). He discusses a few examples, including Lady Hunstanton and Lady Caroline in A Woman of No Importance (194-95), but sees Lady Bracknell in particular as “an immortal creation” (197). Hankin sees Wilde’s characterizations as limited, however, because “he had a quick eye for the foibles of mankind and a rough working hypothesis as to their passions and weaknesses…but he never shows you their souls” (Hankin III 198). Hankin may not reveal souls either, but he was able to provide a more individual voice for some of his characters than we see in Wilde.

Critics across the decades have seen connections between Hankin and Wilde. P.P. Howe, writing in The North American Review in 1913, states: “the English drama as Oscar Wilde left it is the English drama that St. John Hankin took up” (78). Howe also links Hankin to the “gently ironical” Restoration writers (79); as suggested earlier, Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward are all connected to the comedy of manners. Howe sees Hankin as starting in “the Wilde tradition” (79), citing as an example the conversation in Return of the Prodigal led by Lady Faringford about what languages young ladies should be allowed to learn. Howe also explains, however, that Hankin was concerned with a somewhat different class of character. While Wilde focused on people connected to London Society, The Return of the Prodigal , for example, is set in a lesser country house “in the suburb of Norwood, and in the suburb of Norwood Wilde could never have been prevailed upon to set foot at all” (80). Hankin’s characters sometimes have titles, but they are a mix of aristocrats, gentry and the wealthy, manufacturing middle classes, with occasional minor characters from lower classes. Maugham employs a similar mix of characters in his work, although both lack the performers we see in Coward’s plays. Writing in the early 1900s, Hankin reflects the transition away from largely aristocratic to more wealthy

77 middle-class characters in theatre, recognizing their growing importance in wider British society, as well their presence at the Court Theatre, to be discussed below.

4.3 Hankin’s Technique

While some critics see the fun in Hankin and link him to Wilde and the comedy of manners, others associate him with a more sarcastic or sinister outlook. When Shaw spoke about the younger playwright at a dinner honouring John Vedrenne and Harley Granville Barker in July 1907, he described Hankin as “the Mephistopheles of the new comedy, [who] would have been suspected by an old-fashioned manager – and suspected very justly – of laughing at him” (qtd. in Phillips 16). Some critics, including William H. Phillips, see Hankin’s work as Darwinian (53), showing how those more fit punish those who are less able to contribute. More recently, Kristen Shepherd-Barr argued that Eustace reflects Darwin because he does not believe in “free will” (155). Certainly, Hankin repeatedly explores heredity and environment as factors shaping character. Phillips describes Hankin’s approach as reflecting “both his doubts about reforming human nature and his willingness to follow an argument to wherever it leads him, even if to an unconventional and unpopular position” (29). Whether some of what his characters say should be taken as Hankin’s viewpoint, or read with some skepticism, will be considered further below.

Hankin’s works were produced and sometimes revived as part of the seasons programmed by Granville Barker at the Royal Court (Rowell and Jackson 24), but unlike the works of Wilde, Maugham and Coward, his comedies were not embraced by the commercial London theatres. Alan Andrews observes that “though London was not strongly attracted to Hankin’s plays, they were produced by new repertory companies in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham in the years before 1920” (“Unhappy” 268). His plays may be more in line with the Manchester comedies of Harold Brighouse and Stanley Houghton through their breadth in the class of characters, actions, opinions and eventual endings, than with a typical London Society comedy at the turn-of-the-century. Perhaps audiences outside London were less entrenched in their expectations of how comedies should work and were better at appreciating Hankin’s humour. Hankin was aware that his plays were unsuitable for London. As he said in an interview in the spring of 1909,

The chances of success in the London theatre of to-day for anyone save the purely commercial dramatist are infinitesimal, but in art it is only the difficult things that are

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worth doing, and if you are born willful, you must either write what interests you or not write at all. So I write plays. (qtd. in Phillips 113)

His plays were repeatedly produced until the 1920s, and share with Wilde, Maugham and Coward an effective mix of detailed staging, well-drawn characters and situations designed to ask his audience to reconsider their values.

The best justification for Hankin’s approach, and his endings, is that they follow the nature of his characters. Various critics share Hankin’s belief that he was an accurate portrayer of character, including Howe who suggests “that Nature shows us such people every hour and that the dramatist has rendered them noteworthy by his own fine sense of dramatic style” (79). His plots are often unconventional, but they are also uncomplicated. Howe sums them all up in a line or two, including this description of The Charity That Began at Home : “An excellent lady and her pretty daughter arrive at an interesting distinction between the false hospitality and the true, in accordance with which they invite a lot of people to their house not because they like them, but ‘out of kindness,’ with results that are both dreadful and amusing” (80). Howe suggests that Hankin always begins with a “well imagined” premise but then “its progress is never cluttered up with a lot of unnecessary ‘ideas’” (81), providing both a contrast to Wilde’s reworked, sometimes complicated plots, and a connection through the way they generally present a situation more than they debate an idea. Andrews makes an insightful observation about Hankin’s characters that distinguishes them from many of the figures created by Wilde, Maugham or Coward: “when his characters speak about themselves, we normally rely on what they say – even if we don’t like them for it” ( “Unhappy” 269). Within his plays, seemingly shallow characters can still tell you truths about themselves. Andrews also identifies some of the key traits of a central Hankin character: “Typically, the behaviour of Hankin’s protagonists defies conventional morality, custom and expectation” (“Unhappy” 269), but they are happy that way. While Phillips suggests that “Hankin’s plays attack some of the traditional targets of comedy: idealists, romantics, hypocrites, and prigs” (101), these attacks are handled more gently than in a Restoration play, and some potential targets are always left alone. Hankin seems to honour genuine kindness, for example, by treating characters who behave charitably with compassion, instead of mocking them. Andrews also sees Hankin as replacing “marriage as the solution to every problem life presents” with “a measure of realism and honesty about his subjects” (“Introduction” vii). Hankin’s characters seem less artificial than Wilde’s but both

79 playwrights honour honesty, kindness and simplicity, providing an interesting contrast to darker readings of his work.

Hankin also follows Wilde by reworking existing comic formulas and using staging to help define character. Jan McDonald sees Hankin as breaking the structure of the well-made play, (7), and he also eschews the withheld secrets that Wilde uses so well. Instead, Hankin adapts techniques from Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy, while aligning himself with Wilde by discarding some of their values, especially the commodification of women. Hankin is unable to provide a new way forward for some of his women, but he creates memorable moments in his comedies by refusing to silence them, allowing women like Violet Jackson and Ethel Borridge to speak for themselves. McDonald groups Hankin with other playwrights produced at the Court Theatre, including Shaw, Harley Granville Barker and John Galsworthy, suggesting “they, usually implicitly, demand reform” (McDonald 34). Hankin’s social criticism links him to the other playwrights working at the Court Theare, but his reworking of the comedy of manners, his staging and his depth of characterization likely build on Wilde’s work, also connecting him to Maugham and Coward.

As suggested earlier, Hankin may avoid soliloquy, but Howe correctly notes that he instead provides information to the audience through stage conversations, where characters supposedly speak privately within a group scene, heard by spectators but not by others on stage (83). All the playwrights discussed here write effective scenes where the audience watches characters on stage react to an event, such as Mrs. Erlynne’s arrival at Lady Windermere’s party. Perhaps the best example of this technique in Hankin’s comedies is Mabel and Ethel’s songs in Act III of The Cassilis Engagement , where class distinctions are reinforced by the reactions of the on-stage audience. There are weaknesses in Hankin’s writing, however, including his repeated use of weak curtains, adversely affecting momentum and dramatic tension. While Howe believes Hankin’s “final curtains are always good” (88), he asks if the weak curtains in the middle of the plays make the audience care enough (88). If Hankin sets up his initial premise well, however, the audience should remain interested in the final outcome even if the endings of individual acts lack forward movement.

Some of the supposed cynicism in Hankin may be attributed to his endings, which continue to confuse spectators in this age of blended genres. Audiences are disconcerted when they spend

80 much of a play laughing, but end their afternoon or evening by watching a likable character sobbing on stage. Where Wilde appears to play with the conventions of comedy to cajole audiences into being thoughtful, Hankin seems more willing to shock or upset them. Hankin’s endings were so unusual for his day that he wrote “A Note on Happy Endings” (1907) to justify his unorthodox approach. He complains about audience members, and critics, who dislike the endings of his plays (119). While all of Hankin’s comedies discuss marriage to some degree, he notes that “theatrical critics and theatrical audiences seem unable to conceive of any other endings to a play save a death or a marriage” (120). For Hankin, “death ends nothing,” marriage is “simply the beginning of a fresh set of complications,” and all dramatic endings are “arbitrary” (120). He states that he is merely presenting a moment of importance in the life of his character, or characters (121), because “it is the dramatist’s business to represent life, not to argue about it” (121). Hankin considers his plays superior to those that end with a marriage set up in two hours, because of the “tolerable certainty that half the marriages which the author has so recklessly arranged during its progress will turn out disastrous failures” (121). Wilde’s comedies and many of Maugham’s early works follow this pattern, ending with at least one match. By replacing marriage with exploring an important moment, Hankin believes his plays depict characters who have “a reasonable prospect of happiness in the future” which “is the most that life can do for any of us” (121). Hankin’s resolutions seem to confuse and frustrate audiences because they do surprise, thwarting the audience’s expectations of how comic endings should work. Phillips sees Hankin’s endings as one of his strengths. “By basing the endings of his plays upon the characters, not conventions or audience expectations, Hankin was also innovative” (100). While the specific details of Hankin’s endings will be discussed below, perhaps he is combining a new kind of comic ending with surprise. By choosing endings that are true to character and situation rather than meeting the expectations of comedy, he both reflects Wilde and moves away from his technique.

4.4 The Two Mr. Wetherbys

Hankin wrote five full-length plays and a number of one-act plays and sequels before his death in 1909, nearly all containing some witty remarks that remind one of Wilde. The Two Mr. Wetherbys , his first full-length play, was less successful than his later comedies but shows some of the clearest links to Wilde. Hankin’s most frequently produced and revived plays, The Return of the Prodigal , The Charity That Began at Home and The Cassilis Engagement , reveal a

81 distinctive style but also show how Hankin built on Wilde’s approach to comedy. The Last of the De Mullins, Hankin’s other major play, portrays an unwed mother who refuses to be downtrodden or behave like a tainted fallen woman, instead thriving while running a business and raising her illegitimate son. While Hankin’s failure to punish her aligns with Wilde’s treatment of women with a past, this play lacks the fun of his other works and will not be discussed further.

First produced by the Stage Society in 1903, The Two Mr. Wetherbys tells the story of two brothers married to two sisters, one happily and one unhappily. The play follows the three-act form of a farce or Edwardian comedy, and as with Wilde’s comedies, the action is compressed into about twenty-four hours. We quickly discover that the supposedly good brother, James, keeps his marriage to Margaret happy by pretending to be moral and dull, while secretly engaging in essentially innocent activities she would disapprove of. His brother Richard is open about his supposed immorality and, as a consequence, has entered into a Separation Deed with his wife, Constantia, who felt it her duty to show her disapproval by leaving him. Hankin depicts a moment of crisis in both marriages and we watch the couples try to renegotiate the terms of their relationships. In the process, Hankin explores the notion of an ideal husband, recalling Wilde’s play of that title. As Phillips writes, “both An Ideal Husband and The Two Mr. Wetherbys are partly about the hypocrisy encouraged by the widespread demands in Victorian England for moral purity by fallible people” (40). The stakes are lower here, however, as the families in this play are comfortable middle-class business people. There are no aristocrats or politicians in this play. James Wetherby’s hypocrisy will not affect the nation.

The Two Mr. Wetherbys is set in a home of some comfort, but not one built for Society entertaining. The action of Acts I and III takes place in a cluttered but not ostentatious drawing room described as “philistine but not shabby” (33), shifting to a dining room for Act II. Hankin effectively uses small onstage details like props in his work, such as the prominent photo of James that is part of the description of the drawing room. When Margaret packs the photo to take with her at the beginning of Act III, she reveals her ongoing affection for her husband (94). In the opening scene, Hankin demonstrates his skill at using stage action to generate humour. While James is reading the newspaper to his wife’s Aunt Clara, he is required to crawl on the floor to untangle and rewind wool that has fallen off her lap and rolled itself around chair legs (34). James does not call a servant to retrieve the wool, reinforcing the play’s middle-class

82 setting. The affection between James and Margaret is also part of the stage directions, contrasting the physically aloof relationship of Richard and Constantia. Like Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern, they are affectionate with each other on stage, both before others and when they are alone, beginning in the first act, when James and Margaret kiss when she enters, and carrying through to the end of the play after they reconcile, when they embrace and she strokes his hair. A more unusual trait of Hankin’s characters is that some of them laugh on stage. Characters in comedy rarely laugh on stage, but Hankin allows a few in each play to do so, noting it clearly in the stage directions. This seems to be a way for Hankin to indicate which characters he favours. In this play, James is capable of laughter, Richard laughs often, and occasionally Margaret laughs, but no one else. Hankin uses stage action and production details as a kind of exposition, sharing information about the status and relationships of his characters in a Wildean way.

Hankin’s choice of characters in this comedy also shows the influence of Wilde. As noted above, Hankin admired Wilde’s comic dowagers, and Aunt Clara is another of these unintentionally funny older ladies. Aunt Clara is oblivious to James’s feelings and tone and shows no awareness of the nuances of conversation. Throughout the play she makes pronouncements against “modern” things: “I do not approve of this modern habit of sleeping during the day” (36); “Personally, I don’t approve of this modern habit of forgiving people. It encourages them” (36); “I disapprove of this modern mania for change” (39); and “Modern wives are far too ready to forgive their husbands. It is the cause of many unhappy homes” (52). Richard may also have a Wildean predecessor. He describes himself as “always agreeable” (56), and according to Phillips, critics aside from A.B. Walkley liked him (37). He is one of Hankin’s basic men, whose happiness is demonstrated by sleep, a healthy appetite and the appreciation of good weather (37). Phillips sees Richard as being somewhat like Algernon Moncrieff (37), but he is more genuine than Wilde’s constantly play-acting dandy. In contrast, Richard and Lord Goring are the same age, understand the need for honesty in marriage, and counsel wives to rescue troubled unions, reinforcing other clear parallels between this play and An Ideal Husband .

Although he is disliked by everyone but his brother at the start of the play, Richard is the one character who listens rather than repeating platitudes, and he ultimately saves his brother’s marriage. Phillips suggests that “Richard acts as if it is better to see life – in spite of its vicissitudes – as a comedy” (38). When the others are taking situations too seriously, he retains the ability to laugh at life. There is limited wit in this play, but many of the best lines, including

83 some epigrams, are connected to Richard. He also proves in Act III to be an astute judge of character, helping to reconcile James and Margaret. Richard is described by Phillips as a “hedonist,” but aside from wishing to live apart from a wife who shows no affection for him, we see little immoral behaviour from the “bad Mr. Wetherby” ( Two Mr. Wetherbys 52). Richard, like Lord Goring, gains freedom because he is not taken seriously, while James, because he is the good brother, cannot get rid of Aunt Clara, Robert or Constantia to spend more time alone with his wife. Both men are kind in their own way, and they are rewarded for their kindness. As James says, “I can’t bear hurting the feelings of any one, even an ass like Robert” (92). Neither is an ideal husband, but they are both recognizable men.

If Wilde showed how to adapt the comedy of manners to combine witty but astute criticism of Society with humour, Hankin employs this technique to both question the outlook of middle- class respectable society and satirize some of its practices. Middle-class attitudes to charity are mocked through Robert, the supposedly worthy relative of James’s wife Margaret, who has no job or income, but collects money from James for various causes, such as the Otaheite and the Mahommedans. James complains about the breadth of Robert’s charity, saying “Oh, come, I hardly think we need go far as the Mahommedans to find a deserving subject” ( Two Mr. Wetherbys 41). Hankin repeatedly explores organized altruism in his works, making it an extension of the performance of manners. He seems particularly interested in how charity is dispensed and to whom. Phillips argues that “Hankin satirizes the abudance, specialization, and impracticality of such causes, perhaps because he thought man unreformable” (35), but this seems more cynical than Hankin’s treatment of the genuinely kind characters in other plays would indicate.

Hankin also uses The Two Mr. Wetherbys to depict and critique marital breakdown and separation, but his approach is gentler than in other plays of the period, and he focuses less on scandal than on everyday concerns. No one is fallen or adulterous, neither party is abusive, and there are no children involved. Robert and Constantia are governed by a rather peculiar Separation Deed, the common, less public choice of couples with sufficient means. Their deed is unusual because it stipulates that the couple meet annually, and the play begins with preparations for their yearly meeting, a suitable moment for Hankin to explore. Because Margaret, Aunt Clara and Robert consider Constantia the wronged party, she shocks them when she shares her plan to forgive Richard if he proves to be suitably contrite (52). Her desire to reconcile,

84 however, arises not from affection, forgiveness or Christian charity, but from the realities of living as a separated woman. Hankin has much fun revealing the seemingly trivial aspects of Constantia’s life that prompt her wish to reunite with her husband. She complains that being separated “has all the disadvantages of widowhood without its compensations” (53), admitting that she now has less money. She later discloses that “the house is very small and the dining room chimney smokes” (96-7). Richard wisely turns down her initial attempt at reconciliation; he is unwilling to take her back if she is motivated by “duty” rather than “affection” (57).

Hankin also uses this pair to explore one of his recurrent themes: the badly-matched couple. Richard explains that he prefers Constantia from a distance, because their union was caused by “lunacy” and they “haven’t a taste in common” (71). When he is told that Constantia is unhappy without him, he counters that “she’s as happy as possible. She doesn’t know it but she is. She’s a good woman and she’s got a grievance. What more can she want?” (71). At the end of the play, Constantia tries to insist on returning “to watch over him more carefully in future” (97), but Richard says he no longer loves her and will not take her back on her terms. He makes it clear that there is no other woman, eliminating the possibility of divorce, and rebukes her by saying “I’m a very moral person” (100). Constantia did what she supposed was right and got what she thought she wanted, only to find that moral indignation was not worth limited means, social isolation and a smoky house. In a Wildean way, Hankin takes the serious issue of marital breakdown, creates humour by focusing on its more trivial consequences, then provides an insightful critique of some of its causes, including women’s insistence on ideal husbands.

The title of the play sets up the doubled lives of the two brothers, a contrast Philips links to Oscar Wilde, arguing that through “its characters’ role playing to avoid boredom, The Two Mr. Wetherbys echoes The Importance of Being Earnest ” (40). This play explores the split between public and private personas in a Wildean way, but these characters are not creating imaginary friends, or revealing a vibrant, childlike fantasy life. These men are lying to gain freedom, although in this case James’s alter ego is likely more broadly acceptable than the well-behaved persona he dons at home. James is forced into hypocrisy to live up to an ideal. As he explains to Richard, “if I were just an ordinary person, I dare say she wouldn’t be so shocked. Margaret’s not a fool. But she’s got it into her head that I’m a sort of saint, and to please her I’ve got into the habit of pretending to be one, and now I can’t give it up” (64-5). Hankin is exploring a much milder form of behaving badly than the other playwrights. Nowhere in this play is there any

85 implication for either brother of adultery, any sort of sexual impropriety, or false financial dealings. James explains that he was bored and “only wanted to amuse myself – music halls, an occasional race meeting, a game of cards at the club” (67). Margaret and Constantia’s ideas of what is permitted to middle-class men would have been out of date for many in a London audience, and Hankin is creating a space where their impossible standards can be corrected.

James’s double life creates a situation where, as with Wilde’s self-described Puritans, Lady Windermere, Hester Worsley and Lady Chiltern, a naïve young woman needs to gain some wisdom about life and ideals. After James’s visit to the is discovered (79), Richard convinces him to confess to Margaret. This previously warm woman “gets colder and more angry” (83) as the scene goes on. She ends by saying “you are not what I thought you, and I will never forgive you” (83). James admits that he pretended for months to like missionary meetings, considers Aunt Clara and Robert “a burden” and tells her he has done these things “just to please you” (84). He tries to place some of the blame on her ideals, saying “It was partly your fault, you know. You would put me on a sort of pedestal. Of course I tumbled off” (85). Margaret says she “must” leave him (87). In a speech reminiscent of Gertrude Chiltern, she asks, “Oh Jim, Jim, why did you tell me all this? Why didn’t you leave me in ignorance?” (87). They seem destined for a Separation Deed of their own as Act II ends.

The final act begins the next morning, as Richard tells a “wretchedly depressed” (90) James that Margaret will not go. Richard has a moment reminiscent of Lord Goring with Lady Chiltern, and speaks to Margaret about her marriage. Again echoing an interaction in Wilde’s play, Margaret comments that she is surprised he is being serious (105). Richard wisely tells her James is in love, but will not always be unless she is more careful, because love can be “killed” by “boredom, relations” (105). The wisdom and kindness of the supposedly less worthy brother shows through, as he intervenes to save the love his brother and sister-in-law have for each other (106-7). Richard also seems fond of his sister-in-law, saying “my dear Margaret, when I see a woman deliberately throwing away her own happiness, I think it’s only kind to warn her” (107). He reminds her that while he is happier separated, Constantia is not. Richard ends the argument by saying, “you will think carefully? Not for Jim’s sake, Margaret, but for your own ” (108). This is a particularly innovative moment because Hankin gives Margaret the ability to think for herself. She is returning to her husband not out of duty, or for a child, or out of self-sacrifice, or because her life is worth less than a man’s, but for herself. Margaret cries, then laughs, then

86 speaks to James, revealing a significant change of heart; James must be honest, but he can openly spend more time with Richard in future and Aunt Clara and Robert will leave their home (109- 110). Hankin has successfully depicted believable changes within a likable couple. Like Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan and An Ideal Husband , there is hope they will be wiser and love each other better in the future.

This play fits Hankin’s approach to weak curtains, although the structure lacks the natural act-to- act flow of Earnest . All the acts end with Richard on stage, although the play is set in James’s house. Act I ends after he refuses to reconcile with Constantia on her terms, Act II after James leaves him alone on stage, and “soda fizzes loudly into whisky as the curtain falls” (89). Because this play ends in reconciliation, it has a more conventional ending than Hankin’s other plays. The conclusion, however, is awkward and unsatisfying. Richard is cornered into taking Constantia back, they finally shake hands, and she promises to give him more freedom and to laugh at his jokes. The play ends with a double curtain, and when the second is lifted, he is carrying their bags. Hankin avoids the awkward device of the double curtain after this play. Phillips thinks too much changes too quickly for both couples (39). While his argument seems fair when applied to Richard and Constantia, his assessment of Margaret and James does not. Hankin emphasizes their love and affection for each other, beginning in Act I and carrying it through the play. Their reconciliation and renewed relationship is charming and believable, perhaps more convincing than the interactions of the Chilterns in An Ideal Husband . Hankin both reflects and adapts Wilde with this comedy about two marriages, yet the double reconciliation manages to be both satisfying and frustrating, and is likely part of the reason this play was seldom revived in its day and has not been produced alongside other Hankin comedies in recent decades.

4.5 The Return of the Prodigal

Hankin’s next major play, The Return of the Prodigal , is generally considered his most significant work and is the one most often mentioned by modern critics. This comedy initially seems less Wildean, but Hankin continues to build on some of Wilde’s techniques to develop his own unique style of comedy. The important moment here is simple: a ne’er-do-well younger son returns home after a long absence, discovers his father is running for election to the House of Commons, then demands to be given an income to spare the family shame. Hankin adds layers

87 to the story, however, showing how the social ambitions of a family can make them vulnerable. Hankin also employs more wit in this play, including epigrams, which seem appropriate for the public school educated Eustace Jackson. Hankin generally limits witty remarks, however, and his best lines are not transferable. Hankin is not as quotable as Wilde. He seems to rely more on portraying characters, situations and visual details to create humour. This makes his characters more believable, but limits their comic potential because of the way humour thrives on exaggeration.

Hankin chastises Wilde for being derivative, yet The Return of the Prodigal relies on its connection to source material to help break down the assumptions of his audience. When the play premiered in 1905, it recalled not only the Parable of the Prodigal Son from the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15, but also Hall Caine’s successful melodrama The Prodigal Son , produced around the same time (Phillips 44). In Hankin’s version of the story, the younger son, Eustace returns home after a long absence, but “no fatted calf is killed for him” (McDonald 149). Hankin considered the play “a plea for the underdog, and that is always rather immoral and subversive” (qtd. in Phillips 115). J.T. Grein, in his review of the original production for the Sunday Times , argued that Hankin presents the play so that “all our sympathies are on the wrong side” (“Return” 1905). We learn the truth of Eustace’s story through a private conversation he has with Henry; Henry promises not to tell, and seems to keep that promise. Eustace admits that he only pretended to walk from London and staged his collapse in Act One to ensure a welcome (Return 242-3). Max Beerbohm found the original production “delightfully amusing, and true to life” (394). His assessment is that “Mr. Hankin does not set out to prove anything or to probe anything. He merely observes what is going on in the world, and is moved to communicate to us his good-natured amusement” (394), whereas Shaw would have “harangued” (394). Hankin presents the audience with an issue to consider, and outlines the basic argument, but like Wilde he does not let discussion dominate the action, nor does he provide the expected resolution to the story.

With The Return of the Prodigal , Hankin moved from the Stage Society to the Court Theatre. The play was successful enough to be produced in September 1905 and then revived by Barker and Vedrenne in 1907. McDonald describes some of the context of the Court Theatre in The ‘New Drama’: 1900-1914 , situating it somewhere between a commercial London Theatre and an independent one, partly because ticket prices were comparable to a West End house (13). The

88

Court Theatre was unusual, however, with no long runs, no star system, a more prominent role for the director, and better acting (17, 20, 22). The audience was a mix of affluent classes, connected by shared enlightened views about art and social issues; Granville Barker directed most productions and its major playwright was Shaw. The Court Theatre’s budget was sufficient to create the Jacksons’ home, Chedleigh Court, on stage. The stage directions for Return include a Drawing Room for Acts I and IV, a Breakfast Room for Act II, and an outdoor lawn scene for Act III, all with specific, props, furniture and style. Hankin’s detailed stage description for Act I reveals the family’s social status, as the drawing room is said to have more “opulence” than “taste,” “too full of furniture, pictures, knick-knacks, chair covers, plants in pots. Too full of everything” ( Return 217). The carefully described room is the audience’s first clue that the Jacksons are new to having money, and they are given time to study this space before the characters enter. This play also moves up a social level from The Two Mr. Wetherbys , into the home of an upper-middle-class factory owner whose son seems likely to marry into the minor aristocracy. There is less need for elaborate costumes in this world, however. These characters are not part of the London season, and while Eustace is described as appearing in new, likely fashionable clothes, the characters would need to be suitably but not lavishly dressed. Throughout this play, Hankin uses details from the stage setting to provide his original audience with important information about the Jackson family, in a way that links him not only to Wilde but also to Maugham and Coward.

In addition to communicating with his audience through set details, at the opening of this play Hankin also uses the specific actions to provide exposition. When the ladies enter the drawing room, Mrs. Pratt chooses a chair too far from the others, prompting Mrs. Jackson to drag “up an armchair near Lady Faringford with hospitable inelegance” ( Return 217). The original audience would have immediately known that Mrs. Jackson is no lady and that they are “new money,” because in a well-run home a servant would be called if a piece of the carefully arranged furniture needed adjusting. Throughout the play, the Jacksons do small tasks for themselves; this behaviour would be acceptable for the middle class, but marks them as out of place among the ornamental aristocrats of the play. The chair scene is, however, our first encounter with the genuine, unpretentious kindness of Mrs. Jackson. As the ladies converse away from the men, here and again in Act III, they create a world outside the play. It is reminiscent of A Woman of No Importance , although these women are embedded in the local area and do more than simply

89 engage in Society gossip. As McDonald suggests, “Hankin succeeds, in the same way as Barker, in creating a society as a setting for the particular action of the play, through the mention of a host of outside characters who are made real for the audience, and the image of Chedleigh, though clearly drawn, is hardly pleasant” (153). The references to people outside the play again recall the comedy of manners, including the way Mrs. Candour refers to a long list of people we never see in The School for Scandal. Hankin avoids Wilde’s use of unseen but announced guests at a party, instead relying on conversation to make the world of the play larger than what we see on stage.

Eustace is part of two further scenes that show Hankin’s deft use of the tricks of the stage, including dramatic irony. At the end of Act I, Eustace is found collapsed outside in the drive. There is a lovely scene of frantic entrances and exits, almost farcical, as each family member leaves in search of something to revive him. When the prone Eustace is alone on stage, Hankin describes his actions: “The patient takes advantage of this to raise himself cautiously from his recumbent posture and wring out the bandage on his forehead, which he finds disagreeably wet” (Return 228). He goes back to his prone position, everyone returns, Eustace is revived with brandy and salts and the act ends as the overjoyed Mrs. Jackson hugs him and cries, “Oh he’s not dead! He’s not dead!” (228). Act III also relies on inventive staging, when Eustace drinks coffee while resting in a hammock. The stage directions state he “Finishes it and begins to perform the acrobatic feat of putting his cup and saucer on the ground without falling out of the hammock” (244). This action would require some skill from the actor, and there is a moment of suspense for the audience while they wait to see if he will drop the cup. It is worth noting that the Jackson family drinks coffee rather than the ubiquitous, aristocratic tea. Hankin’s use of staging may be more in line with the physical humour of Private Lives than with Wilde, but he is able to use it both to generate humour and to develop character.

Hankin is praised for writing characters that seem true to life, but he also follows Wilde by combining round characters with some character types. This play has another dowager, Lady Faringford, who is also “descended from Wilde’s comic yet dominating and self-righteous ladies” (Phillips 47). Like Wilde’s comic older women, she seems to be unintentionally funny. She is not kind, and makes a number of remarkably selfish, rude statements, especially when the women are alone in Acts I and III. It is initially unclear if she is genuinely oblivious to the effect she has on others, but because she is remarkably astute at other moments, it seems more likely

90 that she simply does not care. When she comments on the electric lighting in the Jackson home, she tells Mrs. Jackson “I do envy you your electric light, Mrs. Jackson. Lamps are so troublesome. The servants are always setting themselves on fire with them” ( Return 217). The primary convenience of electric lighting, for Lady Faringford, would be eliminating the need to replace injured servants. She makes many outrageous statements, contributing to the social criticism in the play. She complains about new money buying up the homes in the area, forgetting that she is in a home purchased with such money, then says, “If this sort of thing goes on there won’t be a single person fit to speak to within twenty miles” (219). She fails to notice that she has silenced the room (219). Yet Hankin ensures that she is a more complete character than one would expect, creating a more interesting version of a Wildean older lady.

The character of Eustace has provoked some interesting critical debate. In a way, he is a failed dandy: a charming, educated young man who appreciates good clothes and food and company, without any means of his own to procure them. As suggested earlier, Phillips sees the play, through Eustace, as a blending of “comedy of manners and Darwinian philosophy” (53). There are discussions in the play about the place of the poor and whether they should be encouraged to survive, but suggesting from those discussions that Eustace favours eugenics misses both the irony of the statements in context and the way Hankin carefully constructs Eustace’s story. Eustace may lead inattentive readers and spectators astray when he says at the end of the play that what he has done is irrelevant, and “the real tragedy is what one is. Because one can’t escape from that” (263).

Returning to the prodigal son allusion, Beerbohm acknowledges that there was no “riotous living” for Eustace, but that he is simply unable to “succeed commercially” (393). For this respectable upper-middle-class household, the inability to be self-sufficient is the greatest sin. Hankin is exploring the effects of the practice of some middle-class families, who set their children up in business rather providing a substantial inheritance (Harris 109), showing us how Eustace was primed for failure. McDonald describes Eustace as having “every advantage, a comfortable and stable family home, a Public School education (denied to the successful Henry), good looks, brains and a pleasant disposition” (153). Instead of being groomed to help manage the factory like Henry, however, Eustace was raised away from his family for much of his life, spending his time at Harrow with young men with incomes. Hankin carefully reveals details of Eustace’s history, often in private conversations between Eustace and Violet. For a young man

91 accused of being unwilling to work, he has held an astonishing number of jobs, many of them physical. Hankin seems to share Maugham’s belief that there is some inherent value in manual work. Eustace feels honourable for staying out of prison during the times when he “would do anything, anything , just for a square meal” ( Return 257-8). When Mr. Jackson and Eustace finally agree to an allowance, he tells Eustace he would prefer starvation over taking money this way. When Eustace suggests that his father has never experienced starving, Mr. Jackson suddenly understands that his son knows “what hunger means, and the thought makes him uncomfortable” (265). For a man who has spent the play blustering and posturing, this is a rare moment of insight, and the audience might also be disturbed by the thought of an attractive, educated man going hungry. Hankin does not openly judge the middle-class values that both create and condemn men like Eustace, but he does ask his audience to consider the treatment of such young men, and the prejudices of men like Mr. Jackson.

The audience learns how Eustace’s misadventures away from home have changed him through Violet. She is disappointed by his willingness to blackmail his brother and father to get an allowance and wonders where his kindness has gone. He tells his sister he has put aside his younger, kinder self to survive. Eustace wants no “pity” because his “life hasn’t been successful. It hasn’t even been honourable. But it’s been devilish interesting” (260). He connects his failures with his “upbringing” (263), supporting J.T. Grein’s review of the revival at the Court in 1907, where he called the play “the demonstration of incompetent education” (“Return” 1907). Eustace is behaving like a young man from the class his family aspires to, but does not understand. Beerbohm describes Eustace as “the philosophic loafer – a type that exists in real life; and the type has been admirably drawn for us by Hankin” (395). Hankin’s blackmailer, like Wilde’s Mrs. Erlynne, is multifaceted and engaging enough for the audience to sympathize with a character doing something they should find unforgiveable.

Hankin uses the characters and crisis of this play to engage in social criticism that is harsher in its assessment of Society than Wilde could risk, including the way he portrays the differing values of old and new money (Phillips 47). Hankin repeatedly contrasts the actions and words of the Faringfords with the Jacksons. Eustace is able to prey on what McDonald describes as his family’s “ambitions” (151), because they are trying to move up socially. The Jacksons are at least partly successful, as indicated by Henry’s pursuit of Stella Faringford, Mr. Jackson’s political aspirations, and the presence of upper-class guests in their home. Henry reflects the

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Victorian middle class belief in the merit of work, and not only finds new ways for the family to make money, but also new ways to enable more labour in the factory, including new lighting for longer work days. As mentioned earlier, the Jacksons also reflect their origins by engaging in middle-class activities on stage. In Act II, Violet does a number of household tasks and Mr. Jackson mails a letter. This family has not yet learned to rely on its servants. Both Violet and Mrs. Jackson work on handwork during conversations, and they have made items for the Mission Room Fund Bazaar. They gladly provide useful items and money for Mrs. Simmonds, a poor local woman who has had a baby, and Mrs. Jackson is considered too generous with her gifts. Later in the play, Mrs. Jackson completely misses the sarcasm in Eustace’s comments about Lady Faringford. It would be easy to make Mrs. Jackson a figure of fun, turning her into a foolish country mother, but Hankin honours her good heart and love for Eustace by allowing her to retain her dignity. The Jacksons are uneasy in their new circle of county society; Mrs. Jackson does not know the rules and Mr. Jackson is unsure if he will be able to win the seat. When Eustace says he was able to demand money from Henry and Mr. Jackson because they are “snob[s]” (265), he reinforces the fragility of their new position. If the Jacksons were lower down the social ladder, Eustace’s threat would have no value. Hankin is depicting the middle classes in way that explores and then both reinforces and critiques their values.

While the Jacksons are wealthy, useful and busy but uneasy, the Faringfords are depicted as important, confident and poor but ornamental. When compared to Violet or to Margery Denison in The Charity That Began at Home , Stella is no more than a pretty object; she cannot play the piano and never does anything useful on stage. Her mother, Lady Faringford, seems incapable of kindness, and donates a tea cloth to a charity sale only because it is “extremely ugly” (219). She is disinterested in Mrs. Simmonds and her baby, and cannot understand why her family should be held responsible for the damp cottages that triggered fatal pneumonia in a tenant. She implies it is better that a former local teacher killed herself, thus avoiding the need for charity, because collecting money for her would have been an inconvenience. She wonders why the locals refused to hire her aging lady’s maid as teacher, preferring someone qualified. The more she talks, the less we like her. She is still funny, but where Lady Bracknell’s exaggerated allusions to the are both trivial and ridiculous, Lady Faringford’s prejudices and pronouncements are hard to dismiss.

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Hankin does, however, give Lady Faringford one exchange with Stella that adds depth to her character and shows the audience she is remarkably shrewd. She knows people from different classes are more alike than she pretends, but understands that aristocrats must maintain the pretence of superiority to retain their “position.” The Faringfords lack money but are still treated well because of that position.

But if we began telling people that position was all moonshine, family an antiquated superstition, and many duchesses far less like ladies than their maids, the world would ultimately discover that what we were saying was perfectly true. Whereupon we should lose the very comfortable niche in the social system which we at present enjoy and – who knows? – might actually be reduced to doing something useful for a living like other people. (240)

Hankin makes Lady Faringford more than merely a Wildean old lady, combining humour and social commentary to create a well-rounded comic character, although her assessment of the aristocracy was likely a better fit for the Court Theatre than a commercial house.

The Return of the Prodigal is unusual because it examines not only the demands placed on men in the rising upper middle class, but also the position of women. Hankin shows how the necessity of marriage restricts both Stella and Violet, then allows them both to say something about how they are affected by gender expectations. As suggested earlier, the contrast between the young women is greater than their relative social positions. We learn in an Act I stage conversation between Stella and her mother that she is to marry Henry. In fact, Stella is told to accept any eligible man with enough money as long as she likes him. Lady Faringford tells her that “Love matches aren’t very common among people of our class,” and that it is probably better to marry without love because you are less likely to “loathe” (221). She makes it clear that Stella may speak to Henry, but not Eustace. Stella links her mother and Henry because they both generally get what they want. When Stella deflects Henry’s attempt to propose, we sense that she does not want to shift from being under the control of her mother to being under the control of a husband like Henry. She has position but no money. Unusually, it is Henry’s father who is encouraging the match, not Mrs. Jackson, because Mr. Jackson believes a connection between the two families will strengthen his political position. In Acts II and III, Stella and Eustace show they have a rapport, and we learn that she would like a different life than the one her mother has

94 planned for her, one her class and gender would never permit. She tells Eustace that “if I were a man I would go abroad and visit strange countries, and have wonderful adventures as you have done, not waste my life in a dull little village like Chedleigh” ( Return 237-8). Stella is another one of Hankin’s characters who laugh on stage, understanding that Eustace is less ill than he pretends. Grein liked Stella’s attraction to Eustace: “it is human; it is feminine” (“Return” 1905). Eustace makes it clear in Act IV that he is giving up Stella to Henry, but Hankin leaves us wondering if she will have him.

Violet is repeatedly contrasted to the more ornamental Stella because she makes herself indispensable. Through her, Hankin gives a voice to another kind of woman trapped by social and family expectations, a type likely more common than Wilde’s genteel fallen women. She also laughs on stage, rather than chastising Eustace when he calls Lady Faringford a “Gorgon” (Return 252). In Act IV, after Eustace suggests that her life is “easy” (258), Violet provides one of the most articulate and concise indictments of the position of unmarried middle class women found in the drama of the period. Because Violet cannot visit without her mother, who does not like to visit, she rarely gets away. She must remain in the family’s circles, “not a grown woman with interests of her own and a life to order as she pleases” (259). She knows she will not marry because she recognizes she is trapped between classes. Henry and Mr. Jackson are still too middle class to settle her with enough money to be attractive, but would only permit her to marry someone who would help them move up. The original audience would understand that Mrs. Jackson lacks the social skills to assist her daughter in making a suitable match. Violet sums up her future: “And the years go by and my youth with them, and I know it will be like this always, always” (259). Like Eustace, she does not want pity, but she demands to be heard. McDonald reports that Hankin felt Violet’s speech was important, telling an actress in Manchester in 1908 to “discontinue all stage business” (152) when delivering it. Phillips sums up why Hankin’s treatment differs from the way other playwrights try to explore the plight of such women: “Violet neither commits suicide nor is disillusioned; she is neither prominent in the play nor shown to suffer deeply. As elsewhere in his drama, here Hankin displays his distinctive, understated treatment of important subjects within the framework of comedy” (50). Hankin does not provide a clear way forward for Stella or Violet, as Wilde does for his fallen women and reconciled couples, although he does give them a voice, and treats them with compassion and dignity.

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Hankin disliked conventional happy endings, although he felt this ending was happy for Eustace, who now has an allowance: “No more looking about for ‘jobs’ that never come, no more adding up accounts in a filthy Hong-Kong bank or playing steward on a filthier ocean liner” (“Happy Endings” 122). The play’s conclusion likely fails to meet audience expectations for a comedy, but it does seem to fit with the characters. Hankin also argues that it is happy for Mr. Jackson, who no longer needs to worry about Eustace’s livelihood. He wonders why some people objected to the audience crying during the final act, writing, “But The Return of the Prodigal is a comedy? Of course it is. But that is no reason why it shouldn’t make people cry” (qtd. in Phillips 115). This retelling of the prodigal son parable has to end differently because these particular characters cannot forgive or reconcile. There is no engagement, and the one possible match in the play depends on the collective wills of Henry and Lady Faringford. Hankin may be braver than Wilde, refusing to rely on duty to make characters behave. As Philips writes, “by so ending his play Hankin rejects – as he does in his later plays – the Victorian notions of the ennobling powers of woman and marriage and the sanctity of the family” (46). Eustace leaves without a tearful send off from the women of the house. He has his allowance, but no blessing from his father or brother. According to the stage directions, Mr. Jackson reluctantly shakes Eustace’s hand ( Return 265-6), but Beerbohm says there was no handshake in the first production: “Mr. Jackson folds his hands behind him. Eustace with a shrug of the shoulders and a friendly nod, goes forth into the world. And that is the end of the comedy” (393). Beerbohm still refers to the play as a comedy, but it has an unusual, muted ending, lacking the family tableaux we see at the end of Wilde’s plays. Instead, Hankin has successfully rewritten this parable to tell the story of a young man whose only real sin is being caught between classes, subversively replacing rejoicing at the prodigal’s return with Eustace’s expulsion from the family home.

4.6 The Charity that Began at Home

Hankin’s next play, The Charity that Began at Home , takes an entertaining look at the practise of hospitality, while continuing the discussion of marriage and gender expectations that Hankin begins in his earlier plays. It has some connections to An Ideal Husband , but is likely Hankin’s most original plot. Where Wilde asks for a kinder approach to individuals with a past, this play seems to argue for a kinder approach to people many in Society would simply ignore. As discussed above, the basic idea of the play is simple: a wealthy woman and her daughter invite a

96 number of guests to their home because no one else will have them. This collection of unpleasant people is unable to get along, with hilarious results. The initial premise is like the happy idea of a Greek Old Comedy, and for the next three acts we see the working out of this peculiar notion of hospitality. The play seems to have a double crisis, however, because at the end of Act II one of these guests becomes engaged to the daughter of the house, forcing the mother and her mentor, Hylton, to question the limits of charity. Hylton, a secular preacher, has created a modern take on “the Golden Rule” (Phillips 57), and much of the humour in the play “satirizes charitable and romantic idealism” (57). The ideals considered this time are not people or names, as they are in Wilde’s plays, but again they do not account for real people with real personalities. The adoption of the happy idea is already underway when the play begins, and we get to watch its consequences over the course of two weeks. J.T. Grein considered the story “slender” (“Charity”), but in his review of the first production for The Sunday Times says “The result is that the home of the old lady becomes an aviary of undesirable birds” (“Charity”). Much of the humour of the play comes from surprise at the antics of the guests, who are unfit for good company, although it trails off somewhat after they leave at the end of Act III. Phillips describes the play as “amusing, genial, and effective ” (55). It presents troublesome characters and some potentially risqué material in an ultimately charming way. Hankin seemed to understand that the play was special, stating that “Barker says it’s the best of the plays, and I’m not sure he isn’t right” (qtd. in Phillips 116). With this play, Hankin moves beyond Wilde’s consideration of the ideal man or wife to examine the earnestness of people dedicated to not only being but also doing good.

First produced at the Court Theatre in October 1906, The Charity That Began at Home faded more quickly than The Return of the Prodigal or The Cassilis Engagement . When Phillips’s book appeared in 1979, the play had been out of print since 1914 and unproduced since 1917 (55), but it has been revived recently, including productions at the Mint Theatre in New York in 2002 and at the Shaw Festival in 2014. As with Maugham and Coward more than Wilde, Hankin seems to adjust social class to suit his characters and plot, and this play takes another step up socially, into the titled gentry. The play is set in the dining and drawing rooms of Priors Ashton, the country house of Lady Denison. The drawing room has doors to the hall and sitting room, French windows to the terrace, and a garden beyond, and Hankin uses the possible exits from this room well, as there are a number of private conversations that occur in the drawing

97 room as characters come and go from the outside world, adjacent bedrooms and the garden, a less contrived device than stage conversations. There is much conversation in this play, but Hankin does not rely on it to replace all the action.

As with Return, Hankin begins this play with women on stage doing handwork. This time Lady Denison and her daughter, Margery, described as pretty and twenty-two, are crocheting, a clear indication that they are more useful than Lady Faringford and Stella. Their ugly crochet work becomes another one of Hankin’s stage jokes, as we gradually learn that they are deliberately making something garish to be given to a woman going blind – they think the bright blue and red will help her see it. Hankin cleverly disrupts audience expectations, gradually revealing that this is not a typical country house comedy. We gradually meet the strange assortment of guests at tea time, and like Wilde and Coward, Hankin uses this ritual to show that something is amiss. Mr. Verreker is described as “devil-may-care” and twenty-nine, while Mrs. Horrocks is a “pompous woman of no breeding” ( Charity 11) who nonetheless constantly talks of it. There is also Firket, a salesman wearing clothes that “look rather pathetically seedy” (12), who tries to sell the others everything from a billiard table to a car, on commission. The dominant character initially is General Bonsor, described as lean, sixty-five or so, Anglo-Indian and “in the midst of one of his interminable stories” (12). The General tells many long stories full of irrelevant details about people no one knows, and will never meet or likely hear of again. As tea is served, Bonsor resumes one of his stories and refuses to be diverted. The results are comic, as he is irritated by the obligatory requests for milk or sugar, causing Verreker to serve cake in silence. All the guests are chastised by Bonsor’s loud repetitions of “ as I was saying” (20). Hankin writes, “General Bonsor meantime goes on steadily with his story in his loud authoritative voice, and enjoys himself thoroughly” (21). Miss Triggs, an older, remarkably demanding woman involved in education, arrives with Hylton as tea is being served. At the end of the scene, the rest of the guests leave the room and Lady Denison’s sister, Mrs. Eversleigh, asks the question many in the audience must want to have answered: “Who are all these dreadful people you’ve got down here?” (26). After she describes General Bonsor as “the greatest bore in London” (26), she learns that, with the exception of Hylton, all the guests have been invited because no one else will have them.

Hankin’s unusual premise drives the play, particularly the first three acts. Lady Denison tells Mrs. Eversleigh that according to Hylton “ false hospitality is inviting people because you like

98 them. True hospitality is inviting them because they’d like to be asked” (29). It is important that the guests think they are liked and wanted because “if they didn’t they wouldn’t enjoy it half so much” (30). Another aspect of Hylton’s philosophy is hiring servants who need to be helped, rather than ones who are suitable or good at their job. This sets up a scene in Act II that might have been too risqué for some commercial theatres at the time, and Hankin’s unusually vague writing suggests that he could not state the problem too directly. One of the servants hired under Hylton’s guidance, Soames, is not working out well. It takes about six pages for Mrs. Eversleigh, Hylton and Lady Denison to learn that Soames has impregnated Lady Denison’s maid. 16 Eventually Anson’s inability to stop crying becomes comical. Soames is unable to save Anson from further shame because he is already married, but Hylton continues to defend him, eventually convincing Lady Denison to retain Soames as a servant because “it might save a soul” (Hankin II 62). The audience likely believed Lady Denison was taking an unreasonable risk by keeping such a man in the house. Hankin has taken Wilde’s notion that one sin should not spoil a life and used it for comic effect.

This play has too many characters for all of them to be fully drawn, although the central ones are round and interesting. Phillips correctly notes that the minor characters are types (63-4), but they belong to social classes well below characters in Wilde’s plays, and any characters of similar status in Maugham or Coward are better mannered. Grein sees the characters as coming directly from life, especially General Bonsor, an “admirable portraiture… of a retired general who bores all the world and his wife with his interminable tales and recollections of past prowess… and who sends us to immediate flight” (“Charity”). Margery is an embodiment of self-sacrifice, but she is also genuinely good-humoured, another character we see laugh on stage. Yet she is shocked when Verreker gives what Hankin describes as his “profession of faith”: “I like every one to give his mind to getting a good time for himself in this wicked world. Then I know where I am” ( Charity 46). Margery’s discussion with Hylton in Act II about Verreker is the important moment that sets up the second plot and drives the remainder of the play. Hylton foolishly tells

16 Modern theatre critics sometimes interpret this scene as rape comedy – Hankin’s lines seem to allow for this reading, but there is no indication of sexual assault. Given how sympathetically he treats women of all classes, however, it seems likely that delicate language was required for the play to be staged, and that Anson was seduced by Soames and is now justifiably upset with her situation.

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Margery such a man needs “someone who is kind to him or loves him, and then the eyes of his soul are opened” (50), prompting her interest in Verreker without realizing what he has done. Margery is naive, but she is no Puritan, and does not need to learn to be less hard on others, although she does need something to do. Verreker seems to be her next project.

Beyond his critique of ideals and hospitality, Hankin provides additional social criticism in this play through Mrs. Eversleigh. She makes similar pronouncements, but also shows enough common sense to set herself apart from the usual comic older women in Wilde and Hankin. She dismisses Hylton and his theories, suggesting that “people with absurd theories about life usually are bachelors” (32). When she begins to understand that this peculiar house party was caused by his ideas, including “love our enemies” (33), Mrs. Eversleigh replies that she was taught that before, “but only on Sundays. And no one ever dreamed of doing it” (33). Mrs. Eversleigh also exhibits appropriate Edwardian concern for an unmarried niece; she wants to keep Margery and Hylton apart until she finds out that he is a gentleman with a good income. Mrs. Eversleigh’s assessment of the guests seems accurate, as they consistently show a complete lack of graciousness. Hankin seems unwilling to clarify if their life circumstances have made them resentful, or if he associates good manners with the higher social classes. These characters certainly are a marked contrast to Maugham’s capable, quietly dignified maid, Smith. Mrs. Eversleigh sums up the situation at Priors Ashton: “If you ask impossible people to stay they may be civil to you , but they’re perfectly certain to quarrel with each other” (40), and she is given the title line at the end of Act III, when she says “This, Muriel, is what comes of beginning one’s Charity at Home” (95). She is both a comic type and a character to listen to in the play.

Hankin uses comedy not only to comment on the dispensation of charity, as Wilde does in A Woman of No Importance , but also to show how it can go awry. In contrast to the kind, habitual charity of the Jacksons, Lady Denison, Margery and Hylton seem good-hearted but foolish. Hylton seems to refute the general belief in the separation of the deserving from the undeserving poor when he says he wants people to be helped “irrespective of whether they deserved it or not” (34). Lady Denison is willing to live by Hylton’s philosophy, tolerating unpleasant guests and incompetent and sometimes immoral servants, until Verreker and Margery announce their engagement. Then she says: “I really must give up going to hear Mr. Hylton. The results are too unpleasant. I didn’t mind asking the wrong people to the house and trying to make them happy. But I can’t have them proposing to my daughter” (67). When Verreker discovers why he was

100 invited in Act III, he laughs and thinks the others will laugh too, but he misjudges the situation. Miss Triggs, Mrs. Horrocks and the General are all deeply hurt, and in spite of Lady Denison’s “We all meant it kindly” (94), they announce that they are leaving on the next train. The moment when General Bonsor realizes that he is a bore is handled with Hankin’s usual care, and he remains a character more to be pitied than scorned.

Hankin continues his critique of charitable practices in Act IV, as Verreker tries to assist Margery in her philanthropic work. We learn that she upsets the gardener by giving away too much of the produce meant for the household, and Verreker complains about all the visits he is making. Hankin then comments specifically on the running of charitable orphanages, as Margery and Verreker write letters asking people to vote for a particular orphan to be admitted. When Verreker suggests drawing from a hat instead, Lady Denison admits that people might not support the orphanage if admittance were random, because voting gives them a sense of control. Hankin is showing that alongside good will and generosity, there is some self-satisfaction in the way aristocrats and the wealthier middle classes dispense charity. Such work sustains the idea that they have a right to make decisions for others. Throughout the play, rather than treating charitable work as admirable as Wilde seems to with Lady Chiltern, Hankin questions the underlying motives behind philanthropy.

Margery, like Hester Worsley or Lady Chiltern, is able to forgive a past mistake, this time without suffering herself. The question Hankin poses, as Wilde does in An Ideal Husband , is whether a man should be forgiven a dishonourable act. General Bonsor and Mrs. Eversleigh sense in Act I that there could be “something shady” (Hankin II 29) about Verreker. We learn in Act III, through the General, that Verreker took money from the mess. When confronted, Verreker tells Margery that he borrowed money to pay a gambling debt to much wealthier fellow officers, and fiddled accounts to cover the missing money until he had sufficient funds to cover the debt, but got caught before he could repay it. When Verreker says he would never do it again, because “One plays too dear[ly] for it” (Hankin II 88), the audience would likely believe him. Unlike Sir Robert, Verreker’s dishonesty was discovered, and he has struggled since his indiscretion. In his essay on happy endings, Hankin describes Verreker as a “decent fellow at bottom” (124), but Grein is far less charitable. For him, “a forger, as he is presented in this play, is not fit to be in decent society” (Grein 1906). Grein considers forgery worse than murder, because “forgery is an outrage on the community. The whole of commerce would totter if

101 forgery were to be condoned” (Grein 1906). Ultimately, however, Hankin seems less interested in Verreker’s past indiscretion, focusing more of his attention on the possible consequences of his relationship with Margery.

Like Wilde, Hankin is less concerned about making matches than how a couple will function in marriage. In this play, he also joins Maugham and Coward by considering the requirements for a successful union. When Margery is confronted by Hylton, her aunt and her mother with the facts of Verreker’s past, she says she is going to “cure him” ( Charity 80-81), but does not speak of love or affection. Initially, Verreker also refuses to break it off, asking “How many men are fit husbands for the girls they marry? One in a hundred? One in a thousand?” (88). By Act IV, however, Verreker has begun to realize what marriage to Margery will mean for both of them. Like Lord Goring, he is wise enough to know that self-sacrifice has consequences. He loves her, but asks her to break it off because, “on every ground except love I’m quite unfit to marry you” (111). He also tells her, “Marriage isn’t a thing to be romantic about. It lasts too long” (111), and admits his fear they would end up “in the Law Courts” (112). Hankin believed the broken engagement was a happy ending. He writes:

Luckily Verreker has brains enough to realise that passing the remainder of your days with a wife whose moral standard you cannot possibly live up to is a peculiarly reckless piece of stupidity. Moreover, like most hedonists, he does not like either seeing or making other people unhappy. (“Happy Endings” 124)

Verreker, a supposedly ineligible, dishonourable man, turns down a suitable, wealthy match. He chooses to remain a bachelor, rather than trying to live up to a wife’s unattainable expectations, thus avoiding the trap of James Wetherby, Lord Windermere and Sir Robert Chiltern. He also voices some of Hankin’s requirements for a good marriage, acknowledging that compatible tastes, values and temperament are more critical in a marriage than money, status and possibly love. Verreker would not make an ideal husband, but he has some sense of himself as a man.

Because of this play’s unusual premise, and the way Hankin structures it as a Greek Old Comedy, there are some issues with sustaining dramatic tension. Howe’s comment about Hankin’s curtains affecting momentum is fair in this case, as the curtains of The Charity That Began at Home vary. Act I ends as Lady Denison “gazes at her sister in hopeless bewilderment” (38), after Mrs. Eversleigh assumes that she is trying to bring about a match between Margery

102 and Hylton. Act II, however, is more satisfying. After learning about the engagement and declaring that she will no longer follow Hylton’s philosophy, the act closes with Lady Denison saying she will “Dismiss Soames!” (67). This play ends not with the making of a match, but with the breaking of an engagement, although again there may be a marriage in the future. Mrs. Eversleigh considers Hylton a good match for Margery, and when he is horrified to hear about the engagement to Verreker, we wonder if his reasons are more personal than philosophical. Verreker believes this secular preacher loves Margery, and at the end of the play tells her not to forget Hylton. The transformations in this play may not be as dramatic as the ones we see in Wilde, but some characters seem to change. Lady Denison will no longer let ideals overrule common sense and Verreker may see new possibilities for his future. He tells Margery “For the first, and I hope the last, time in my life, I’ve done an unselfish action” (116), but he now knows he is capable of goodness.

George Alexander told Hankin that he had ruined the popularity of Charity by failing to give it a happy ending (qtd. in Phillips 115), and audiences still find the ending unsatisfactory. A Greek Old Comedy does not always end in marriage, however. We have seen the working out of the happy idea, we have had a few battles of words over the philosophy that created it, and then we reach a different kind of resolution. Hankin has drawn a line between charity done for those who want and need it, and thrusting it upon people like the guests in this play, without their knowledge or consent. Hankin could have made Margery seem foolish, or at least more naïve, but he allows her to end the play with some dignity, leaving the room with Verreker. Defending his ending, Hankin explains that “Margery’s life was saved from shipwreck and the play ended happily” (“Happy Endings” 124), but whether it is a Greek Old Comedy or something new, it still lacks the reconciliation audiences expect. A comedy that ends immediately after we see a likable character crying on stage remains disconcerting.

4.7 The Cassilis Engagement

The Cassilis Engagement also examines the requirements for a viable marriage, this time across classes, disrupts audience expectations, and ultimately treats disreputable characters with some kindness. Phillips suggests the play is Hankin’s reply to Tom Robertson’s Caste , a play about a successful match that crossed classes, and shows Hankin’s awareness of the earlier work (71-2). As suggested earlier, any play that includes characters, other than servants, from below the

103 affluent middle classes is innovative, and this time Hankin moves well below the respectable but lower-middle-class characters we meet in Charity . The Borridges may be scheming, unworthy women, but Hankin still manages to portray them with some sympathy. This play was not as successful as either Return or Charity , perhaps because this depiction of the slower pace and claustrophobia of country life did not provide enough action for a London audience. The original London production at the Stage Society in 1907 had a short run and “tepid reviews” (Phillips 66). It was, however, surprisingly popular in repertory outside London, especially in Birmingham, becoming the “…most successful play there by 1923, revived 10 times between 1913 and 1926” (66). Hankin felt critics treated the play unfairly and complains that

the dramatic critics as a whole resented it with almost passionate intensity and seemed to think Mrs. Cassilis a wicked, soulless woman who had sundered two young hearts that might have beat as one and set her worldly ambition before her son’s welfare. This, of course, is absolute nonsense. (“Happy Endings” 124)

It has been successfully revived since, including a production at the Shaw Festival in 2007. Once again, Hankin builds on Wilde’s technique of disrupting audience expectations about comedy to explore a question, this time continuing his consideration of the basis of a good marriage.

The premise of this play is not a happy idea, nor does it follow the usual trajectory of a romantic social comedy. The audience is misdirected with some skill at the beginning of Act I, when Hankin depicts the ritual of calling not to flatter his audience but to make fun of the link between this social ritual and gossip. The Rector and his wife enter, debating whether they should call and creating the impression that some calamity has befallen the Cassilis family. She says, “it’s just on these sad occasions that a visit is so consoling. One should always call after a birth, a funeral –” ( Cassilis 121-2). After they are joined by Lady Remenham and Mabel, we gradually learn that the potential calamity is Geoffrey Cassilis’s engagement. This play begins not with young lovers trying to overcome difficulties to achieve a match, but with a potentially unsuitable connection made but not completed. Mrs. Cassilis enters and confounds her visitors, cheerfully serving tea while describing her son’s engagement to a girl he met on an “omnibus” as “so romantic” (125). Hankin is again using an unusual moment to initiate his play, while also disrupting the norms of comedy in a Wildean way.

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We learn Mrs. Cassilis’s true plan after the rest of the guests leave, and she admits to Lady Marchmont that she is not pleased, but believes forbidding the match will guarantee it. Hankin’s plays generally have more parents in them than Wilde’s, but in this play he focuses on the effects of the relationship between mothers and children. Mrs. Cassilis initially seems to have an open mind about the match, suggesting that she is waiting to see if Ethel loves Geoff. She greets them with grace and hospitality, in spite of Mrs. Borridge being described by Hankin as “a beaming, good-natured harridan,” and Ethel as “pretty but second-rate” (139). According to the stage directions, and even the maid is “enormously more like a lady than Ethel” (140). Before the act is over, however, Mrs. Cassilis has made her decision: the engagement must end. We learn in Act II that she will not forbid the match, but will keep the Borridges in the country until Geoff sees how different they are from his peers: “Girls like that can’t endure boredom. They’re used to excitement, the vulgar excitement of Bohemian life in London. Theatres, supper parties, plenty of fast society” (167). In another break with comic tradition, in this play the country people are sophisticated and of a higher class, while the city people are lower class and vulgar. To ensure that her plan succeeds, Mrs. Cassilis will insist on a long engagement with lots of long visits, until Ethel gets cross and starts “to quarrel with her mother, and nag at Geoffrey” (167). If Ethel had genuine feelings for Geoff it might have made a difference, but Mrs. Cassillis says “the girl’s not in love with Geoffrey. Any one can see that. She’s in love with his position and his money, the money he will have some day. She doesn’t really care two straws for him. It was a trap” (164). For the remainder of the play we watch to see if her scheme will succeed. Mrs. Cassilis’s challenge is a contrast to the contests in Wilde, which are generally about thwarting a villain like Mrs. Cheveley. In this case, based on Hankin’s ideas about marriage, both Geoffrey and Ethel will be better off if she succeeds.

Once again, Hankin uses effective staging to show rather than tell us parts of the story of The Cassilis Engagement. This home is more ostentatious than in Hankin’s previous works, although it is again a country house, Deynham Abbey. Hankin continues to follow Wilde in the use of staging to help create character, this time including more costume details. This is a four-set play, and the stage directions include colour, such as the well-furnished, white, Louis Seize Drawing Room for Act I. The outdoor scene for Act II requires wicker chairs with red cushions. Hankin is specific about the cushions, because they are designed to clash with Mrs. Borridge’s green silk blouse. According to Hankin, “the effect is electrifying” (144), emphasizing that Mrs. Borridge

105 does not belong at Deynham Abbey. For Act III, which takes place a week later, the action moves to a traditionally male space after dinner, the smoking room, providing an excuse for Major Warrington to be alone on stage with Geoff when he reveals the Borridges’ history. All the settings for this play provide the multiple exits and entrances that Hankin favours, while providing opportunities for pairs of characters to have revealing conversations while they are alone on stage. The third act also has an important conversation openly overheard. After Geoff chastises Ethel at the end of Act III, Mrs. Cassilis discusses what she heard while eavesdropping, giving us a private glimpse into their relationship. By this play, Hankin seems more skilled at adapting his own preferred techniques, including stage conversations, while still remaining true to the rituals of the social classes he is depicting on stage.

Hankin shows his skill at using visual details and small actions to develop character in this play, particularly Ethel’s series of visible yawns in Act III, which prove that Mrs. Cassilis’s plan is working. The music scene in Act III, however, gives us the best embodiment of Hankin’s skill as a visual playwright, including his effective use of moments when characters are watching each other. After the Borridges are unable to listen politely or attentively while Mabel sings in German, Mrs. Borridge encourages her daughter to sing, having no idea that a voice for “the ’alls” is inappropriate here (195). Ethel follows Mabel with what Hankin describes as a “refined ditty” with lines like “Stop that ticklin’ when I tell yer toe” (196). When she tries to get them all to join in on the final verse, only her mother and Major Warrington sing along. Warrington praises her, even after “she cordially slaps him on the cheek” to end her performance (196). The song ends in “horrified silence” (197), and Hankin embodies class differences in a moment of stunned inaction, as Mrs. Borridge gradually realizes that the rest of the party did not like the song. As with Lady Windermere’s response to Mrs. Erlynne’s presence at her party, Hankin lets the scene speak through silence. At the end of the scene, “Geoffrey looks intensely miserable” (197). There is no question, however, that Ethel’s inappropriate song had more energy and fun in it than Mabel’s, and the entire scene is enormously entertaining.

Another way The Cassilis Engagement amuses is through Lady Remenham, a more typical Wildean older lady than Mrs. Eversleigh in The Charity That Began at Home . Mrs. Cassilis says of Lady Remenham: “People who talk as much as that must talk a good deal of nonsense, musn’t they? Otherwise they have nothing to say” (132). Lady Remenham is a Society mother, concerned with ensuring appropriate matches and, as the Duchess of Berwick says to Mr.

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Hopper, she knows Geoffrey’s value. In Act I, she lets the audience know that Geoff will eventually have the house, with its excellent shooting, and £12,000 a year. She makes a number of nonsensical statements, such as “It’s this vulgar Radical notion that people ought to do things that is ruining English Society” (127) and “Engagements are such troublesome things. They sometimes even lead to marriage.” (122). Her world has no room for the Borridges, who are in the way of her plan for Geoff to marry Mabel.

Hankin also follows Wilde by creating round characters in this comedy, and Phillips describes Mrs. Cassilis and Ethel as “admirable” (73-4) in their construction. They are certainly the most interesting characters in the play, and Hankin provides some unexpected links between them, including the ability to laugh. Mrs. Cassilis’s first sign of a sense of humour occurs in Act I, when she reacts with laughter to Lady Remenham’s insistence that she knows everything about Ethel without meeting her. Mrs. Cassilis knows her neighbours well, and tolerates them with humour. When Mrs. Herries stops by to gossip in Act II, Mrs. Cassilis is amused by her thinly veiled nosiness and introduces her to Mrs. Borridge. Phillips describes Mrs. Cassilis as a “devoted mother” with “acumen and self-control” (67), but also considers her “charming and devious” (68). Deciding if Mrs. Cassilis is devious or clever perhaps depends on one’s assessment of Ethel’s feelings, but Hankin provides ample reasons why breaking up this match will be good for both Geoff and Ethel. Hankin explores the relationship between Mrs. Cassilis and Geoff without merely relying on clichés about motherhood.

In keeping with Wilde’s approach to dubious women, Hankin is careful to give Ethel intelligence and heart. She is neither a simple, pretty, virtuous girl of the working classes who deserves a better life, nor a scheming fallen woman determined to entrap a foolish, wealthy man. In Acts I and II, she tries to help her mother fit in, without quite understanding the rules of Deynham Abbey herself. She admits in Act II that she does not love Geoff, but is not yet willing to fight against her mother. By Act III, however, Mrs. Cassilis’s plan is clearly working. Ethel yawns repeatedly, is testy with Geoff and snaps at her mother. During her semi-private chat with Major Warrington, we learn how much she hates the country, while he makes it clear to her that Geoff is a true country gentleman, and that Mrs. Cassilis controls his money. Warrington tells her, “A lifetime of this! Year in and year out. Till you can yawn yourself decently into your grave” (189). He warns her of a dark future, suggesting that Ethel will eventually break under the strain and cause a scandal, probably causing Geoff to kill himself. Ethel realizes her true

107 position “in horror”: “And I shall have to stand this all my life! All my life!” (190). She tries, unsuccessfully, to elope to Paris with Warrington to escape the situation. When Mrs. Borridge and Mrs. Cassilis conspire to keep her in the country indefinitely in Act IV, the audience knows something is going to break. Hankin does not make an appeal to ideals, or duty, to get Ethel to give up Geoff, because they would not apply in her case. Instead, he has given her enough depth and intelligence to decide her for herself, admittedly with some prompting from Mrs. Cassilis, that this life is not for her.

Hankin’s most innovative character in this play could be Mrs. Borridge, who is both pitiable and scheming. She represents the undeserving poor, but believes that because she is now respectable, by working-class standards, she should be able to help her daughter rise and go along with her. Mrs. Borridge’s goal is clearly stated: “I do want to see you married and respectable. I wasn’t always respectable myself, and I know what it means for a girl” (149). Her other daughter is clearly fallen, although Ethel still has some pity for her sister. We eventually learn that Mrs. Borridge had to pay her husband, a bookmaker, to marry her after years of living common law, an unusual practice even within the working classes by the end of the 1800s (Gillis 231). Hankin shows a surprising understanding of working-class respectability – Mrs. Borridge takes pride in being married, she used life insurance money from Mr. Borridge to keep them out of the workhouse, and Ethel was sent to boarding school in the hope she might one day catch a good husband. The auctioneer’s clerk Ethel favoured was not enough for Mrs. Borridge, although it would have been a significant step up for them, into the lower middle class. In her own way, she is as determined as Mr. Jackson to ensure that any match for her offspring raises her status. Geoff describes Mrs. Borridge as “rather trying” but “good-natured” (134). She is oblivious to the effect she has on the other guests and cannot see how out-of-place her family is in this setting. When Ethel breaks the engagement in Act IV, Mrs. Borridge admits everything, saying she caught Geoff for Ethel and now has to start again. She is so upset that Mrs. Cassilis is “almost sorry for her” (225). Mrs. Borridge manages to be both devious and sympathetic, and Hankin still treats her kindly, saving her from the mistreatment and ridicule she likely deserves. Because of her class and background, Hankin cannot fully rehabilitate her the way Wilde provides Mrs. Erlynne and Mrs. Arbuthnot with an income and better future, but he gives her authenticity and allows her to explain her motives in a way that helps the audience understand her.

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The Cassilis Engagement contains some of Hankin’s best social criticism because of the vast differences in status among its characters, and the subtle ways he indicates them for the audience. Phillips sees the play as reflecting “the Edwardian preoccupation with motherhood” (69), and reminds us that there are three mothers, the Countess of Remenham, Mrs. Borridge and Mrs. Cassilis (69). Of the three, Mrs. Cassilis is probably the most unusual, another mother who breaches the rules established for the role. Hankin makes it clear that this mother and son are too close. If Eustace Jackson was ruined by attending a public school, this time it is implied that Geoff may have fallen for Ethel because Mrs. Cassilis kept him home with her instead of sending him away to one. We learn that when his father died she did not want to send him away, in part because Mrs. Cassilis wanted to avoid “the way public school boys look on women” (Hankin II 161), a different indictment of the education system, and perhaps of ungentlemanly men like Lord Illingworth. The bond is reminiscent of the one between Mrs. Arbuthnot and Gerald, but there is no shameful secret in this family.

The clash between the Cassilis and Borridge families initially appears to be simply about class, but as he deconstructs the norms of a that crosses social boundaries, Hankin is careful and clever enough to make the differences deeper. He complains that the critics were unable to see the need for the engagement to end:

The Press, of course, was very cross over it. I think the London Press sometimes suffers from a kind of inverted snobbishness which made them want to sympathise with poor, vulgar, old Mrs Borridge and her not very reputable daughter rather than with Mrs. Cassilis and ‘the County’” (qtd. in Phillips 116).

Hankin repeatedly shows in his plays that shared tastes and values are requirements for a good match, and Ethel and Geoff have little in common. Phillips suggests the two families differ not only in class but also in “language, social conduct, and pastimes” (70). Mrs. Cassilis says she wants to help Geoff realize that his feelings for Ethel have “no foundation in reason, in common tastes, common interests, common associations” ( Cassilis 162). The split is embodied not only through class and interests, however, but also through the differences between country and city life. While Geoff likes country life, Ethel dislikes horses and walks without a destination, preferring “shops, and theatres, and lunching at restaurants and dancing” (145). She is a city girl. If, as Phillips suggests, the “differences between a proletarian and an aristocrat are simply not

109 obliterated by marriage” (71), neither are the differences between London and the country. Hankin has added depth to this clash by combining lifestyle and social class.

As suggested above, the play seems to further Wilde’s exploration of what makes a good marriage, revisiting some of Hankin’s ideas about suitable matches. What makes this play special is the way Hankin ultimately allows a working-class girl to voice these ideas. The critics may have complained that Mrs. Cassilis’s machinations broke up a romance, but Hankin is careful to show us that what breaks the engagement is Ethel’s need for independence. In Act II, Ethel and Geoff are physically affectionate with each other, a visual cue also used by Wilde to reinforce the connection within couples, but she knows they are not compatible, telling him, “I’m not the sort of wife you ought to have married” ( Cassilis 153). Ethel’s strongest scene is in Act III, after her conversation with Major Warrington and her music hall song. Geoff tries to assert his authority, asking her to promise never to sing such a song again. She is an independent working class girl, however, used to more freedom than Violet Jackson or Stella Faringford could dream of. She refuses to promise, telling Geoff she will not be “bullied” (202), and that he can end the engagement or “behave accordingly” if he wants it to continue (203). By the next morning, Ethel realizes she may be trapped in the country forever. When Geoff replies to her request to end the engagement by suggesting she should take some exercise or do something, she is “almost hysterical with exasperation”: “ Please believe that I’m not a child, and that I know what I’m saying. I want to break off our engagement . I don’t think we’re suited to each other” (218). It takes her three more pages to convince him that she is aware she is giving up money and position, but that she is a city girl who wants “life, people, lots of people” (220), a life in London. She finishes the argument by persuading Geoff to admit he no longer loves her. Unlike Stella Faringford or Violet Jackson, Ethel is not ruled by convention and can express and then act on her feelings more decisively than any of the higher-class women in either Wilde’s or Hankin’s plays.

This play has another one of Hankin’s unconventional endings; it began with an engagement made and ends with one broken. Mrs. Cassilis feigns surprise when she learns that Ethel does not like the country and has broken it off. Hankin is also willing to allow some secrets to be kept, such as Mrs. Cassilis’s interference. Mrs. Cassilis successfully manipulated situations to help Ethel see that she did not want to marry into this family. When critics complained that the play did not end happily, Hankin replied that the outcome was appropriate because Geoffrey was

110 not in love but only under “a purely physical obsession which lasts only till the appetite which prompts it is satisfied” (“Happy Endings” 125). He also argued that “Mrs. Cassilis did not act without due consideration” (125), inviting Ethel to Deynham before making her decision about the match. Hankin has little patience for those who feel this broken connection is anything other than a happy ending: “so the engagement was broken off and any one who does not realise that it was a ‘happy ending’ for all parties must be perfectly imbecile” (126). Once again, an alternate match is implied, but when Geoff is told it was assumed that he would marry Mabel, he says, “We’re like brother and sister” ( Cassilis 133). Geoff and Mabel do have a rapport and common interests, such as riding, but the audience may wonder if they are too close for any attraction. Hankin has again demonstrated what he considers essential for a good match, but his more successful comedies do not have an equivalent to Mabel Chiltern and Lord Goring, or James and Margaret Wetherby, to show us what a suitable couple might look like.

Hankin never wrote a play suitable for the commercial London theatre, and that would have pleased him. He chastises Wilde for writing for such theatres, but then he reflects Wilde’s approach to comedy in his own work. Instead, his works were produced in London by less commercial theatres that were sympathetic to his outlook. He worked with directors like Harley Granville Barker who could help stage his works effectively. He was influenced by the comedy of manners, but included more fully developed characters. Hankin effectively uses settings, stage business and stage directions to help tell his stories, communicating visually. He weaves insightful social commentary into his plays, sometimes through small details modern audiences would miss. Hankin treats characters from all classes with dignity, and looks for ways to provide a voice for characters who are not usually permitted to speak for themselves, such as Violet Jackson and Ethel Borridge. In a significant break with comic tradition, Hankin rejects the notion that comedies should end in quick, flimsy engagements, like the ones Wilde satirizes in The Importance of Being Earnest . By arguing for matches based on shared tastes and interests rather than ideals, Hankin tries to show how to avoid unhappiness and the Divorce Court. He refuses to provide what audiences might consider a satisfactory happy ending, but, with the exception of the reconciliation of Richard and Constantia Wetherby, Hankin always provides one that suits these characters in this situation.

In his essay about endings, Hankin provides some possible sequels for his plays: Eustace marries a woman of means and lives happily in London; Hylton and Margery and Geoffrey and Mabel

111 marry; and Ethel weds Lord Buckfastleigh, the elderly, married aristocrat mentioned in the play (127-9). He does not tell us about Henry and Stella. Whether all these matches eventually come together or not, he is clever enough to leave possibilities open when the curtain falls, always focusing on resolving the crisis of the play rather than worrying about the future, leaving the outcomes less tidy than Wilde’s. Hankin is not against happy endings, but rejects artificial ones.

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Oscar Wilde, Somerset Maugham, and the Idle Classes 5.1 Introduction

Somerset Maugham is another supposedly cynical playwright who adapts aspects of Oscar Wilde’s approach to critique society, but also to create memorable, complex characters within comedy, ultimately asking his audience to reconsider how they judge others. He continues to explore theatrically what it means to behave badly. Alongside his subtle, thoughtful comedies, Maugham also takes some of the silliness of Earnest , building on Wilde’s adaptation of farce with Home and Beauty to playfully expose the complexities of British divorce laws. Where Wilde forces young women who describe themselves as Puritans to come to a more mature, nuanced view of others, and Hankin provides young women of all classes with a voice, Maugham fills his plays with a variety of women who are able not only to speak but sometimes to act. They are not always likeable, but they are intelligent and interesting. There may not be forgiveness in Maugham, but there are also limited consequences for behaving inappropriately. He began his career with A Man of Honour at the Stage Society in 1903, the same year as Hankin’s The Two Mr. Wetherbys . Although it took him a few years to gain recognition on the popular stage, Maugham is the most prolific playwright considered in this study, and the only one whose writing career extends through the period. His last play, , was produced in 1933 and although Maugham continued to write after 1933, he wrote no more plays.

5.2 Maugham and Wilde

Connections between Maugham and Wilde are more difficult to establish than those between Hankin and Wilde, although Maugham was familiar with at least some of Wilde’s work. Their overall connection seems more “labyrinthine” (14), to use Bloom’s term, although there are some direct links between their plays. In The Summing Up , a memoir about his writing life completed after he stopped writing plays, Maugham says: “I read Intentions and The Picture of Dorian Gray . I was intoxicated by the colour and rareness of the fantastic words that thickly stud the pages of ” (24). Later, he refers specifically to The Importance of Being Earnest in a list of great plays, but says it cannot be considered “beautiful” because it was not written in

113 verse (137). Maugham places great value on verse drama, and undervalues his own and other plays because of it. When he considers changes in dramatic dialogue, he again mentions Wilde: “In that time I have seen dialogue change from the turgid, pedantic speech of Pinero, from the elegant artificiality of Oscar Wilde, to the extreme colloquialism of the present day” (152). Perhaps the oddest connection is to Wilde’s essay “Pen, Pencil and Poison” linking criminality, art and individuality, in which Wilde writes with obvious admiration about the writer, forger and poisoner Thomas Griffiths Wainewright. “It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal,” Maugham suggests, “who can make their own [life]” (48). While he does not include any genuine criminals in the plays considered below, Maugham does create numerous characters who behave selfishly and break social norms.

Maugham also has some indirect personal connections to Wilde. Although both were in London during the 1890s, there is no evidence they met and no reason they should have, but Maugham did eventually encounter a number of Wilde’s friends, including Robert Ross, and Ada Leverson (Calder 111-12). Sos Eltis suggests that Maugham’s first encounters with Wilde were likely as an audience member, because Maugham was “a compulsive London playgoer in the 1890s” ( Acts of Desire 216). In his biography of Maugham, Robert Calder suggests two specific links between Wilde and Maugham. The first is through the effects of Wilde’s trials on young homosexual men. Maugham avoids explicitly depicting homosexuality in the comedies discussed in this study, 17 and seems aware that such characters would be unwelcome on the commercial stage. Calder also links Maugham and Wilde through St. John Hankin’s assessment of Wilde, discussed in the previous chapter.

What St. John Hankin had recently said of Oscar Wilde applied equally to Maugham, that is, ‘had the National Theatre or any theatre of dignity and influence existed in his time to which a dramatist might look to produce plays for their artistic value, not solely for their box office, Wilde might have done really fine work for it.’ (109)

17 Although an early version of Our Betters (1933) is mentioned in the documentary The Celluloid Closet because of the depiction of the dancing master, Mr. Ernest.

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Calder correctly suggests that for both Wilde and Maugham, there were no options between “uncommercial serious theatre and profitable popular theatre” (109). Hankin was able to find something between the one- or two-day runs at the Stage Society and the indeterminate runs of the commercial theatre at the Court Theatre, but this was an unusual situation and did not last. Maugham’s assessment of a production at the Stage Society was that it “did not lead to very much. After the two performances they gave it and the notices in the press it was as dead as mutton” (“Preface” vol. I, iv). Like Wilde’s four comedies, most of Maugham’s plays were at least moderate hits. Financial success was important to them both because, unlike Hankin, they were concerned with earning a living by writing. What might surprise us today is how remarkably lucrative writing plays, particularly comedies, was for Maugham, in fact more profitable than writing novels. “Many hard things were said of me because comedy was more lucrative than tragedy,” he wrote in the 1930s, “and I grew callous to hearing that I had sold my soul for money” (“Preface” vol. II, vi).

Some modern critics see connections between Wilde and Maugham, but they often seem to focus on a small part of Wilde’s legacy, including his recovery of the comedy of manners. Christopher Innes suggests that “The style of his early comedies derives from Oscar Wilde, as does his ironic claim that they were ‘trivial pieces’ with no other aim than to ‘hold an audience’” ( Modern 253). Eltis identifies a strong link between one of Maugham’s later plays, The Constant Wife , and a plot created by Wilde, while Laurel Brake focuses on the intertextual relationship between The Constant Wife and An Ideal Husband . Wilde’s legacy within Maugham’s work goes deeper, however, and he both adopts and adapts aspects of Wilde’s approach to writing comedy for a changing audience, including disrupting expectations to convey a deeper message, using production details to help develop layered characters, and rarely punishing characters in proportion to their misdeeds.

5.3 Maugham and the Comedy of Manners

Whereas Wilde returns Restoration-style comedy of manners to the English stage, Maugham develops it into something more distinctly Edwardian. J.C. Trewin sees the connection between Maugham and as obvious, “not merely because of the plotting, the matrimonial to-and-fro, give-and-take, but also because of the detachment with which he stands back from his characters” (4). Maugham’s attitude to characters and morality will be discussed

115 in more detail below, but as Trewin suggests, “he treats passions dispassionately” (4), generally maintaining a level of detachment. Eltis suggests another link to the comedy of manners is the general lack of raisonneur figures in Maugham’s plays ( Acts of Desire 222). She also notes that his plays “did not offer moral precepts but merely observed the game, noting who was most skilled at preserving their public reputation while satisfying their private passions” (223), discarding the rules of poetic justice of the late-nineteenth century. While the conflict between public and private image is Wildean, Maugham approaches it differently in his work. Ronald Edward Barnes suggests in The Dramatic Comedy of William Somerset Maugham that Maugham is playing with the Restoration idea that “man’s image became a façade concealing the real self” (93). Both Wilde and Maugham understood self-fashioning, and the layers between the private, semi-private and public selves, as explored by Wilde with Mrs. Erlynne and Sir Robert Chiltern. Both Wilde and Maugham have characters who reveal some things publicly, some things to one or two other characters and some things only to the audience. Maugham’s characters are often remarkably adept at maintaining their public image while allowing their semi-private image to become soiled. Private selves seem less of a priority in Maugham’s world, perhaps because his plays contain so few secrets.

Maugham believed that some of his later plays, from Our Betters (written in 1915) to The Constant Wife (1927), followed some traits of “the Restoration Period, which was carried on by Goldsmith and Sheridan” ( Summing 118). The comic detachment and extended use of dramatic irony in those two plays, produced in 1923 and 1927, creates a tone that seems both traditional and extremely modern. Maugham lets the audience enjoy secrets shared with just a few characters, encouraging them to feel broad-minded because the secrets involve unconventional sexual liaisons. Barnes suggests that in a Maugham play, “the audience almost always knows more than any one of the characters on the stage knows” (36), a trait shared with Wilde where secrets are divided among central characters. Where Wilde often uses this method to help the audience connect to characters by sharing a shameful secret, such as Mrs. Arbuthnot or Sir Robert’s pasts, Maugham also likes to use the technique for moments when characters know less than they think they know. A good example is the ending of The Circle , when Champion- Cheney smugly believes he has ensured Elizabeth will stay but the audience knows she just left. Maugham also links himself to Wilde, arguing that his work “is the drama not of action, but of conversation” ( Summing 118). Like Wilde, Maugham allows conversation to become action,

116 and it often feels less contrived than some scenes in Wilde, perhaps because he states his case more through characters’ stories. In any case, Maugham never slows down his plays with long moral or political arguments, tying him more to Wilde than to Bernard Shaw.

5.4 Maugham’s Technique

As discussed earlier, Wilde often borrows aspects of his plots from well-known plays, and then thwarts the expectations created by those links. Maugham also reworks old ideas or plots, sometimes inverting them. If, as Innes suggests, the expectation of marriage drives comedy (Modern 251), then Maugham, like Wilde and Hankin, often misdirects or breaks down this expectation. He eschews the usual happy ending: his plays do not always lead to marriage or reconciliation, and may force characters into an unconventional relationship. Where Wilde reworks plots, such as the conventional fallen woman story, to ask audiences to reconsider their prejudices, Maugham sometimes considers similar issues, but comes to more ambiguous endings in keeping with the more fluid morality of his times.

As they consider marriage, gender roles, morality and other questions, both Wilde and Maugham rely on comedy to make their message palatable for a West End audience. Both were known for high-quality comic writing, including epigrams. While Wilde seemed to enjoy writing epigrams, Maugham had a more ambivalent relationship with them: “It is easy to write an epigram (you only have to loop the loops on a commonplace and come down between the lines),” he writes, but he is “glad the fashion for them has gone out” (“Preface” vol. I, viii). Many of Maugham’s best comic lines require context; they are funny because this character is saying them in a particular situation. They cannot be used by another character in another play, the way Wilde reused some of his epigrams. Trewin, writing in the 1950s, praises Maugham’s speech by suggesting that “his dialogue, unlike that of many of his contemporaries, is designed to be spoken” (1). While Trewin sees Maugham’s dialogue diminished by “the cliché ” (4), some of Maugham’s best dialogue plays with clichés, as will be explored below. Maugham said of his own writing that he wanted to aim for “…lucidity, simplicity and euphony” ( Summing 29) and believed that stage dialogue needed to be concise (21-2). He also shows an awareness of the role of the experienced actor in the rehearsal process. Maugham writes:

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Here a knowledge of stage dialogue should help. An actor will sometimes say to an author: ‘Couldn’t you give me a word or two more in this speech? It seems to take away all the point of my line if I have nothing else to say’ (22)

Lines needed to flow and sound right, as well as move the story along. Maugham acknowledged that there was a level of sophistication in Wilde that he neither met nor attempted, but, like Wilde, he was known for writing good epigrams, thought about good stage dialogue and used conversation as action to develop rounder characters than might be expected in comedy.

There is less playfulness in most of Maugham’s works, and he is less inclined than Hankin or Wilde in Earnest to rely on stage business for the humour in his plays, but when it suited the play, Maugham could write visually comic scenes, as he demonstrates in Lady Frederick and Home and Beauty. He also frequently uses on-stage card games to great effect, building on card playing, particularly bridge, as a popular and respectable pastime (Davidoff 67). His plays employ detailed settings, following the way Wilde depicted a recognizable world for Society: Maugham’s plays are generally set in drawing rooms, decorated to suit the characters. Most of the plays considered below include at least one drawing room scene, and details about their furnishings help to reveal character, such as Arnold’s obsession with his new antique chair in The Circle . As with Wilde’s productions, fashion was also important. The attire of Edward VII inspired the original productions, opening up possibilities for the men beyond formal dress, while “Callot or Worth” provided costumes for the women (Barnes 95). Photographs from the original productions show detailed settings, often with more set dressing than specifically mentioned in the texts, but also provide ample space for the actors. Maugham’s characters want to be fashionable, and will find a way to demonstrate good rather than personal taste. Being in style can affect their life choices, however, because unlike most of Wilde’s and Hankin’s characters, Maugham’s often exist in a world where money is an issue.

Maugham discusses the process of theatre-making in The Summing Up with some insight, including a lovely description of the role and behaviour of dressmakers (101-2). The problems Maugham had getting Lady Frederick produced, however, show his lack of experience working in theatre: he somewhat foolishly assumed an actress would consider a good role more important

118 than preserving her on-stage image.18 He did not enjoy his role in the process of theatrical production, another possible reason for his early retirement from playwriting. Maugham also needed to address a broader audience than Wilde or Hankin. He argues that his plays could not merely appeal to a limited, intellectual audience:

It must address itself equally to the working man in the gallery and to the gilded youth in the stalls. It must interest the stock-jobber who reads nothing but The Financial Times and the elderly spinster whose soul is sweet with memories of Italy and . (“Preface” vol. III, viii)

Maugham repeatedly shows an awareness of audience in his writings, and that he prefers to please them rather than the critics.

Maugham’s approach to playwriting both follows and differs from the work of Wilde and Hankin, partly because he adapted his work to changing audience tastes. Maugham understands that the standards of plausibility were higher for him than they were for earlier playwrights like Wilde. He can adapt existing plots, but needs to make the details seem viable by the standards of his day. Home and Beauty starts with a woman with two husbands, but grounds itself through details specific to WWI, including cases of accidental bigamy when wives thought themselves war widows and remarried, only to have their husbands return from the war. For Maugham, what a dramatist presents is not truth but “what he can persuade his audience to accept” (Summing 138), his variation on Aristotle’s “improbable possibilities”. Maugham also acknowledges, however, that audiences frequently accept the improbable, such as a handkerchief as proof of unfaithfulness and that “a six-course dinner can be eaten in ten minutes” (138), arguing that the playwright’s job is to convince them “that the make-believe is real” (126). The convenient coincidences that carry a Wildean plot were not available to Maugham; he cannot have Lord Goring be Mrs. Cheveley’s former fiancé, then defeat her with a brooch/bracelet she stole years before. Maugham also had a different attitude to curtains. Where Wilde and Hankin often avoided strong endings to their acts, Maugham often includes them, perhaps to sustain the action over longer periods of time than their few hours or days.

18 Maugham’s problems finding an actress willing to appear “undressed” on stage will be discussed below.

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As already suggested, one of Maugham’s greatest strengths is his ability to write interesting, well-rounded characters in comedies, another link to Wilde and Hankin. The early plays sometimes had characters who fit standard nineteenth-century types, and they were described as such, including Rose in Lady Frederick , “a pretty ingénue of nineteen” (12). Other early characters reflect the Wildean dandies of both sexes and comic older ladies. Maugham’s characters follow their natures and if they break rules, they are more concerned about being caught than suffering consequences or guilt because of their actions. Maugham is sometimes accused of misogyny, yet his oeuvre contains an astonishing number of substantial roles for women, and his plays are nearly balanced in terms of gender. Some of the women are genuinely nasty – but some are nice. Calder writes that “Maugham’s plays are filled with a succession of female roles which provided memorable parts for many of this century’s greatest actresses” (74). His list includes, among others, Lady Frederick, Smith, Constance from The Constant Wife , Lady Kitty and Elizabeth in The Circle and Victoria from Home and Beauty (74), all roles which are discussed below. Maugham gives these characters a voice to speak about their situations, but where Wilde’s and Hankin’s women are often caught up in conventional morality, Maugham’s sometimes take actions that would have shocked earlier audiences. He is able to make use of the shifting values of his time, particularly around sexual misbehavior, to continue the discussion of what it means to behave badly.

Unfortunately, some Maugham plays, such as Our Betters and Smith , seem to have too many nasty characters, leading Richard A. Cordell to complain that “in a number of his comedies there is not a single very pleasant character” (213). Maugham is smart enough, however, to keep unpleasant characters sufficiently fashionable, charming and interesting for these plays to be successful. “I have been called cynical,” he writes; “I have been accused of making men out worse than they are,” arguing that he was only highlighting the “lack of consistency,” the “seemingly irreconcilable” coexisting in people ( Summing 55). Perhaps his greatest strength is the way he can, through three or four acts, lead the audience to sympathize with a character’s morally dubious decision. At the beginning of his career as a playwright in 1892, Wilde carefully used Mrs. Erlynne’s noble act of self-sacrifice to redeem her for a Society audience before he asked them to forgive her. By the 1920s, however, Maugham was an established, financially secure playwright who could sometimes take risks with his audiences, or with the Lord

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Chamberlain’s office. The initial reaction to The Circle in 1921 suggests that asking an audience to support the elopement of a young wife was problematic, but the play still had a successful run.

Maugham continues the discussion of marriage shared by the playwrights under discussion here, delving more deeply into the effects of income and class. Where Wilde wanted marriage with honesty and love but without ideals and Hankin felt common tastes and interests were critical, Maugham seems to argue that marriage needs common interests, sex, affection and ideally children, but also an awareness that love will fade: “affection is created by habit,” he writes, “community of interests, convenience and the desire of companionship” ( Summing 296). The worst partners are selfish or cold, like Victoria in Home and Beauty or Arnold in The Circle. Barnes suggests that Maugham’s views of marriage changed (25), a reasonable argument given the emphasis on marriage as a contract with mutual obligations in the later plays. Constance in The Constant Wife discusses her marriage in terms of what her husband is owed for keeping her, when what is required of her is minimal because of her class. Maugham suggests that audiences “had an instinctive feeling that love, though all very well in its way, was not really as important as the dramatists pretended, for after all there were politics, golf, getting on with one’s job and all sorts of other things” ( Summing 136). The couples Maugham seems to favour may speak of love, but seem to balance vitality and compatibility, creating a basis for affection that should last. As Barnes writes, the other prime reason to marry in Maugham’s plays is “for money or for title” (67-8) – but these marriages rarely succeed, as will be shown below.

Unlike Wilde and Hankin, Maugham seems less concerned with reconciling broken unions than exploring the consequences when marriages fail. Where Wilde declares Mrs. Erlynne divorced but does not worry about whether the situation is plausible, and Hankin uses a separated couple in The Two Mr. Wetherbys as a source for entertaining social commentary, Maugham examines marital infidelity and divorce from multiple perspectives, following the law but also raising questions about its implications. Barnes suggests that Maugham’s characters choose other options because “divorce was seen as an extreme and undesirable solution to marital problems” (Barnes 76). Divorces were, as stated in Our Betters and The Circle , also difficult to obtain, although Maugham also shows in Home and Beauty how getting a divorce can be a game. In the 1920s, Maugham explores the effects of conventional morality, and he has some of his characters reveal the problems with the laws by having them make socially unacceptable choices, such as taking lovers or living in common-law marriages.

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While Maugham’s plays were never as full of aristocrats as Wilde’s works, he says the abundance of titled characters in his early plays occurred because “managers thought that they attracted the public, and actors liked to play them” ( Summing 2). The mix of classes in Maugham’s plays fits his description of his audience: “playgoers began to be ready to observe the actions of people of their own class, the well-to-do merchants and professional men who were then conducting the affairs of the country,” but “it was still impossible to interest the public in the lower classes” (2-3) as central characters. Rather than trying to work within a circle of Society, he seems to make class part of character development, plausibly matching class, setting and situation, returning to aristocratic characters later in his career. He certainly depicts a wider breadth of social classes than the other playwrights discussed here, sometimes making working- class characters a significant part of the plot. The maid Smith in Smith is a pivotal, likeable character. Working-class characters in Maugham’s plays are not only live-in servants but also the dressmaker, Madame Clod, in Lady Frederick , the porter in Smith , and the manicurist in Home and Beauty . They become an integral part of the world on stage instead of merely serving the central, idle characters.

Because he depicts such a variety of social classes, Maugham is able to subtly question the value of class distinctions. Barnes suggests that Maugham’s “comedy has an ironic bite because it involves the audience in the same confusion between the reality and illusion of class distinction that his characters face” (106). Maugham takes a different approach than Wilde when revealing the lie behind class differences, asking if English breeding matters if a servant shows more feeling and worth than middle-class characters, an American is the greatest hostess in London and the only place to live authentically may be the colonies. His characters do not discuss the lie as does Hankin’s Lady Faringford, but some acknowledge that status is a construction. Maugham bravely asks what happens when characters have money and leisure but no sense of what to do with either. Wilde presents us with idle, wealthy young men and women, but they are either harmless, like Algernon and Jack in Earnest , or prove to be worthy, like Lord Goring. The wealthy Americans in Our Betters , by contrast, lack both the kindness and work ethic of Hankin’s Violet Jackson and the sense of moral obligation that comes with privilege, as portrayed by Lady Denison and Margery. The result is a group of idle, vicious, largely purposeless people.

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A reflection of Wilde’s clear, openly Christian moral stance is hard to discern in Maugham, likely because of the gradual shift in the period to a more secular viewpoint. Where Wilde focused on sexual infidelity for women and dishonesty when in a position of trust for men, Maugham’s characters begin in less prominent positions, and only a few of them genuinely transgress. His characters speak of their intrigues with their friends, but fear being found out by the newspapers. “Biblical law” is not a factor, because Maugham’s characters are, as Barnes suggests, “a-religious” (72). Perhaps because religion is largely irrelevant, Barnes suggests Maugham could be less conscious of sin than Wilde when considering sex. Instead, Maugham “accepts sex as a fact and he prefers to ignore any argument either for or against his position” (75). Maugham never labels sexual misconduct as sin, and his characters seem immune to guilt, yet he does show the social and emotional costs of unconventional relationships. Where Wilde avoids sexuality, Maugham confronts it. He often uses talk of children to discuss sex with subtlety, but it is always part of the discussion. Barnes argues that Maugham sees sex as natural (74). It may be more accurate to suggest that failing or refusing to engage in sex when one has the opportunity is seen as unnatural, and refusing to have children is worse for Maugham, perhaps because it is seen as the greatest embodiment of selfishness. Both Pearl in Our Betters and Rose in Smith confirm their frivolousness and selfishness by refusing to be mothers, a distinct contrast with Wilde, whose rehabilitated fallen women all have children.

Maugham may remove sin from the discussion, but he follows Wilde and Hankin by asking audiences to potentially change the way they view characters who break the rules. Sometimes, as in Lady Frederick , he seems to ask forgiveness for a character who has done nothing wrong. At other times, he asks us to tolerate characters, such as Pearl from Our Betters , who have done little good. Maugham says he chose not to condemn characters because “it is not meet to expect too much of others” ( Summing 56). He also claims that “there is nothing more beautiful than goodness and it has pleased me very often to show how much of it there is in persons who by common standards would be relentlessly condemned” (56), a remark that seems in line with Lady Windermere’s conclusion that the good and bad are not as distinct as she once believed. Perhaps Maugham sees fewer distinctions between people than “…the moralists would have us believe” (56) because “humour teaches tolerance” (65). Maugham names himself a humourist, then suggests that “he does not moralize, he is content to understand; and it is true that to understand is to pity and forgive” (65). He creates characters who are complex, like Lord

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Porteous in the The Circle who is alcoholic, cantankerous and ruined, but who also has moments of wisdom and shows genuine affection for Lady Kitty.

A Maugham play surprises not only with plot, but also by asking us to sometimes change our mind about characters we likely dislike or condemn at the beginning of the play. The characters become part of the argument. For Maugham, comedy “does not preach: sometimes it draws a moral, but with a shrug of the shoulders as if to invite you to lay no too great stress on it” (118). While Wilde had a clear moral stance that questioned but ultimately affirmed many Victorian morals, Maugham’s best work portrays the ambiguity of his age. Maugham creates comedy that is, perhaps, truer than Wilde’s or Hankin’s by depicting how people live, showing that some are mean while some are kinder than one expects, and that some leave their spouses because they must, always reminding audiences that one should never assume someone’s public persona is an accurate reflection of their inner self.

5.5 Lady Frederick

Maugham’s first major commercial success, Lady Frederick , should be included in any discussion of Wilde’s influence on Maugham. He wanted his second play to have a wider audience than A Man of Honour , and thus he wrote a piece he thought would suit the popular theatres of London rather than the Stage Society:

I reflected upon the qualities which the managers demanded in a play: evidently a comedy, for the public wished to laugh; with as much drama as it would carry, for the public liked a thrill; with a little sentiment, for the public liked to feel good; and a happy ending. (“Preface” vol. I, vii)

He thought the part of Lady Frederick, “the adventuress with a heart of gold” (vii), would appeal to a leading lady, but he underestimated the desire of actors to appear at their best onstage, whether or not this suited the character. Maugham later acknowledged that when he was struggling to get Lady Frederick produced, “make up [sic] was not universal and most women wore false hair. No actress would consent to let an audience see her in this condition and manager after manager refused it” ( Summing 112). Lady Frederick was produced by Ortho Stuart in 1907, four years after it was written, but only after another play “unexpectedly failed” (Calder 100) at the Court Theatre. According to Calder, it was intended for six weeks, but “ Lady

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Frederick continued for 422 performances at the Court, the Garrick, the Criterion, the New and the Haymarket Theatres” (101) before Charles Frohman made it a hit in the U.S. with Ethel Barrymore (101-2). Maugham had continued to write plays while struggling with Lady Frederick , and its success made managers take a second look at his other works (103), leading to the famous moment when Maugham had four plays running simultaneously in London in 1908.

Lady Frederick has more in common with the plays of the 1890s than with the other plays to be considered in this chapter, creating a natural link with Wilde. J.T. Grein’s review in the Sunday Times (October 27, 1907) claimed he saw something of the well-made play in this piece, commenting on its “corseted form and somewhat antiquated devices’ (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson 55). Maugham was probably obliged to follow at least some of the rules of the well- made play, as Wilde had a decade earlier, and his first commercial play reflects many of the qualities of the form identified by Stanton, including the use of a withheld secret. John Brophy suggests that Lady Frederick also reflects one of Maugham’s dramatic techniques, “the device of making then answering a challenge” (30). In this case, “a young man is infatuated with the ageing Lady Frederick. The plot produces the challenge: he is to be compelled to lose his infatuation before a stated time” (30). Lady Frederick succeeds by allowing him to see her unembellished self, breaking down his illusions. Wilde does not generally drive his plots with such challenges, but the one issued to Lord Illingworth to kiss Hester leads to the great revelation at the end of Act III of A Woman of No Importance . As Lady Frederick works out how to disentangle herself from the young man, she also makes a successful match for her younger brother, saves them both from financial ruin without being forced into marriage to an unpleasant social climber, and sorts out her relationship with a former suitor. Maugham plays with genre and audience expectations, created in part by Wilde’s comedies, when spectators forgive a woman who is actually guilty of nothing; more than Mrs. Erlynne, she is an adventuress rather than a fallen woman. Lady Frederick seems to be a compound well-made play, where the heroine battles multiple antagonists, responds to multiple suitors, settles multiple debts and is rewarded by being reunited with a man from her past who loves her as she is.

Maugham also uses production details to reveal information and build his characters. Production pictures from 1907 of the Court Theatre show a rich but not overly furnished room with a painted view outside the windows for the first two acts at the drawing room of the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo (Mander and Mitchenson 34). It is a room where the wealthy can be

125 comfortable, although it says less about Lady Frederick than about her class. Maugham does, however, use fashion and small details of costume in a manner reminiscent of Wilde. The production pictures show women in beautiful, elaborate gowns, which fit stage directions like this one for Lady Mereston, who enters the play “magnificently attired” ( Lady Frederick 5). Based on production photos, Lady Frederick has at least three gowns (Mander and Mitchenson 34). Act III, in Lady Frederick’s dressing room, shows a dressing table with mirror placed centre stage, at an angle, to ensure that everyone could see her applying her makeup (34). The play was initially set when it was written and produced, which fits the now-dated discussion of the House of Lords, a major political issue at the time (Thomas et al 73). When Maugham’s Collected Works were published in the 1930s, however, the text was altered to set the play in the 1890s. Mander and Mitchenson say this shift was made to ensure that playing Lady Frederick would have long hair for the dressing scene. The stage directions say she gives Mereston a hair piece to examine, and the production photo of that moment shows him holding a hair piece more than a foot long (34). This would have been visible from almost anywhere in the house and provide a wonderful moment of surprise and humour, as the astonished Mereston realizes that part of what attracted him to Lady Frederick is an artifice he can hold in his hand.

The dressing scene is subtler than some of Hankin’s or Wilde’s visually comic scenes, but shows Maugham’s skill at slowly building a comic sequence. The dressing scene is also a link to Sheridan’s The School for Scandal , which begins with Lady Sneerwell at her dressing table. While the published stage directions for Sheridan’s play are sparse, some productions show her gradually getting dressed. Where Wilde and Hankin consider the split between one’s private and public persona, here Maugham plays with what is real or put-on in life, as well as the illusions of theatre. Lady Frederick begins by setting the scene, making sure the blind is up to let the light in and show her flaws. She has just finished her bath and is described as wearing a “Kimono, her hair is all disheveled, hanging about her head in a tangled mop. She is not made up and looks haggard, and yellow and lined” ( Lady Frederick 67). When her young lover, Mereston, sees her, he “gives a slight start of surprise” (67). In addition to her clothes, hair and makeup, Maugham also has Lady Frederick put on an Irish brogue that she uses intermittently in the play to charm men. Mereston learns that her hair is touched up and fake (70) before being shown the “pots and vases” of her complexion (71) while she puts grease-paint all over her face (72). Here Lady Frederick highlights the tension between life and theatre: “I wish I were an actress. They have

126 such an advantage. They only have to make up to look well behind the footlights; but I have to expose myself to that beastly sun” (72). While talking continuously, she adds powder, blush, lipstick, eyebrow pencil and eyeliner. She finally returns in a dressing gown looking gorgeous – a process that takes up eight pages! The humour in the scene comes from the way Maugham cleverly layers Lady Frederick’s witty remarks about her process with Mereston’s shocked realization that he was infatuated with pots and powder and curls he can hold in his hand. As Innes writes, “Like him, the spectators have accepted the image of elegance and beauty for two whole Acts” (“Test Case” 553), but now must accept that they were fooled. Maugham also uses the scene to provide some astute social commentary about women who try to appear younger than they are. Lady Frederick tells Mereston that “if I don’t marry you, I can look forward to the white hairs fairly happily” ( Lady Frederick 77), instead of becoming an overly painted figure of fun. If Wilde removes the genteel masks some wear in Society, Maugham has removed all outward illusion from a character, then reconstructed her public mask in full view of the audience without exposing her private self.

Lady Frederick is a witty play, following Wilde’s use of epigrams, although this time there is more plot to help keep the audience engaged. Many of Maugham’s best epigrams rework existing clichés, like this description of Fouldes’s valet: “When I engaged Thompson I told him the first thing he must learn was the very difficult feat of keeping his eyes open and shut at the same time” (6). In this early work, however, Maugham sometimes uses epigrams without a strong connection to the play or characters. Both Innes and Barnes find the epigrams in this play lacking ( Modern 256-7, Barnes 46-51), perhaps because they are less tied to character. Maugham says he added twenty-four epigrams to the play for one manager, who was then unable to find an actress to play the lead (“Preface” vol. I, vii-viii). The play also has a number of Wildean exchanges which help keep the action entertaining, often involving Paradine Fouldes. His description could fit one of Wilde’s dandies: he is a “very well-dresssed, man of forty-odd. Self-possessed, worldly, urbane. He is never at a loss or out of countenance” ( Lady Frederick 6). The following exchange between Fouldes and Lady Mereston about Lady Frederick is one of the play’s first witty exchanges:

Lady Mereston: She dyes her hair.

Fouldes: She dyes it uncommonly well.

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Lady Mereston: She paints.

Fouldes: Much better than a Royal Academician. (8-9)

While the most memorable banter is between Fouldes and Lady Frederick, the verbal cleverness is widely distributed. Mereston, Lady Mereston and Rose are also quick-witted enough to engage in comic exchanges. Maugham also employs a comic staple of his own in this play, the hypothetical argument, where couples argue childishly about something either impossible or far in the future, a variation on some of the sillier arguments we see in Earnest , such as the discussion about who is entitled to christening. Lady Frederick’s brother, Gerald, and his fiancé Rose argue about where their future sons will be educated before they are officially engaged. Gerald argues for Trinity in Dublin, while Rose says Magdalen College, Oxford (35) – both schools attended by Wilde. In contrast to scenes like Act III of Lady Windermere’s Fan , where Cecil Graham turns what others say into epigrams to prove he is the dominant dandy, Maugham lets a number of characters provide witty remarks and makes their exchanges part of the action.

Lady Mereston emphasizes a link between Lady Frederick and one of Wilde’s characters, Mrs. Erlynne. They are both female dandies without sufficient means, although like Wilde, Maugham redeems this fallen woman partly by having her dress well, breaking the usual rule. Lady Mereston says of Lady Frederick that “it’s one of the injustices of fate that clothes only hang on a woman really well when she’s lost every shred of reputation” (9). Lady Frederick is “beautifully dressed” (12), unlike some of the ostentatiously dressed women of dubious morals we see in the later plays. In contrast to Mrs. Erlynne, though, Lady Frederick was an unhappy wife who chose to stay. We gradually learn that she once nearly eloped with Fouldes, but remained with her loathed husband for her child (55). Staying with her son not only distinguishes her from other fallen mothers, but also reflects the enormous value Maugham places on motherhood in his work. He does not refer to it as a duty the way Wilde does, but seems to perceive it as natural for women. Just as Mrs. Erlynne has many admirers, Lady Frederick has multiple suitors, any one of whom could improve her financial situation and restore her damaged reputation. As she disentangles herself from two of them and is rescued from the third, however, Lady Frederick seems kinder, less calculating and more romantic than Mrs. Erlynne. Lady Frederick wants love, saying: “If I ever marry again it shall be to please myself” (32). She is living by her own rules, unwilling to sacrifice herself for financial security.

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Instead of following Wilde in his reworking of the well-made play by keeping a withheld, likely shameful secret, Maugham reveals a secret that is merely a long-held misunderstanding. Throughout the play, there are hints that Lady Frederick is connected to a past scandal, but when she is openly accused of being “the mistress of Roger Bellingham,” she laughs (58). There is an incriminating letter, but Lady Frederick says she wrote it to protect her sister-in-law, the true mistress. She cannot prove her story, but Fouldes believes her, saying Lady Frederick has “a thousand faults” but “she’s not a liar” (60-1); she may be financially irresponsible, but she is consistently truthful in the play. While modern critics emphasize the on-stage power of the dressing scene, in their reviews of the first production, J.T. Grein and Reginald Turner focused on Lady Frederick’s defence of herself . Grein writes:

Her sole weapon of defence is her word of honour – the declaration that the letter served to save a friend. Of course, her antagonists doubt her word, but so powerfully, so convincingly is the scene written, and so beautifully is it acted by Miss Ethel Irving, that the hearer is fully persuaded of her truthfulness.” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson 55)

The secret is not an affair, but her willingness to damage her reputation to save another. Lady Frederick then burns letters “which would ruin the happiness of a very worthless woman I know” (Lady Frederick 63), further proof of her worthiness, but also another echo of Mrs. Erlynne. Maugham has employed a typical well-made device, misdirected letters, but as with Wilde, they do not drive the action.

In Lady Frederick , Maugham begins to define his requirements for a successful union while also playing with the traditions of comedy. Lady Frederick, a penniless, potentially fallen, middle- aged widow, has not one but four viable suitors. “Not only do both the first two Acts end with her receiving proposals,” writes Innes, “but in Act Three these offers of marriage are repeated, then followed by two more. In fact, with the exception of a footman and her brother, every male in the cast wishes to make Lady Frederick his wife” (“Test Case” 552). Like Mrs. Erlynne, Lady Frederick realizes that Society requires performance, but she is wise enough to know that she does not want to perform all the time. Lady Frederick is willing to be masked in public, but does not want to “have to wear a mask all day long” ( Lady Frederick 80); she wants a man who “saw [her] faults and forgave them” (80). In this, she seems remarkably wise, avoiding the ideals and manipulations of Wilde’s women. After the other three suitors are dispensed with, Fouldes and

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Lady Frederick acknowledge they still have affection for each other. The play ends when she calls him “Monster” before they kiss (89), the first example of how Maugham often combines affection with mild insults in his successful couples. Ultimately, as Grein states in his review, “Lady Frederick is a good sort” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson 55), and while she began the play with debts and a dubious reputation, she ends it with happiness and security. Maugham has challenged his audience not by asking them to forgive a fallen woman, but by presenting a woman who behaves inappropriately yet has done nothing requiring forgiveness. Instead, they may need to question the way they make assumptions about women.

5.6 Smith

Between Maugham’s first great success, Lady Frederick , and The Circle , generally considered his greatest play, he wrote twelve more plays (Barnes 180-1), including Smith , Home and Beauty and Our Betters . They were not all comedies, but most were at least moderately successful. The plays produced around the time of Lady Frederick , including Jack Straw and Mrs. Dot , also reflect Wilde’s influence, but they are too tied to nineteenth-century comic conventions and lack the depth of his later work . The next play to be examined here, Smith , creates a link between Maugham’s earlier and later works. Trewin considers Smith the best of “Maugham’s Edwardian and early-Georgian series” (7) and says it was still playable in a 1947 revival. It was a moderate hit for Charles Frohman at the Comedy Theatre, running for 168 performances in 1909. The play has two through lines, both sparked by Freeman’s return from Rhodesia to visit his sister, Rose. The first is Freeman’s disruption of the shallow lives of the leisured, bridge-obsessed circle led by Rose, and the second is his challenge to find himself a suitable wife during his six- week visit, resulting in an unconventional match between the wealthy Freeman and the household servant, Smith. This play will not be discussed in great detail, but is important because of 1) the way Maugham uses detailed depictions of character not to reveal inner depth, but to reinforce triviality; 2) the way he not only disrupts comedy, but allows tragedy to intrude in the play in a shocking way; and 3) the unconventional marriage plot, and what it implies about the possibility of good marriages in the idle classes. With Smith , Maugham seems to adapt Wilde by starting with what looks like a standard comedy, using its conventions to lead the audience one way, then jolting them into confronting the results of putting selfish pleasures before duty. The overall tone of the piece seems closer to Hankin’s unconventional comedies,

130 although it does end happily, with a satisfying match between two worthy people. While it can appear cynical, the play also makes a case for a different way of life.

While Wilde shows that outwardly trivial dandies like Lord Goring can be wise and kind, Maugham’s portrayal of the idle classes is far less flattering. With Smith , he begins to consider what happens to those who have income and time but no real purpose. Rose’s home at Crediton Court, Kensington, is “the kind of drawing-room which every woman of the upper middle class has in London. It is agreeable to the eye, unoriginal, artistic and inexpensive” ( Smith 115), highlighting the clash between aspirations and fashionable surfaces through its cheap furnishings. It is a suitable setting for Rose, but also for her trivial companions, the parasite Algy, the spinster Emily who plays bridge to try to make money in a respectable way, and Mrs. Otto, a young woman with an older Jewish husband who avoids spending time at home with her baby. Innes suggests that Maugham links this work to the equally idle characters of Restoration comedy when “one of the characters points out that having ‘no moral and no conscience’ seems irrelevant so long as one ‘has a very neat gift for repartee and a keen sense of humour’” ( Modern 255). The intense focus on card-playing is the strongest proof of their misplaced priorities. Instead of greeting her brother, returned from eight years abroad, Rose says, “Nothing will induce me to stop in the middle of a hand” ( Smith 123). Freeman embodies two qualities we often see in Maugham’s plays: he is the outsider who can comment on the lives of those who remain in England, and he is a better, more authentic man because of his time in the colonies. Rose and her circle seem to be more afraid of boredom than perhaps anything else, and mistake being busy for doing something useful. Mrs. Otto is transformed by events in the play, but wisdom comes at a greater cost to her than for any character in Wilde’s or Hankin’s plays.

Maugham breaks Wilde’s pattern for reforming women in this play. Wilde’s young Puritans change, but Maugham’s Rose refuses to become more worthwhile, self-aware and forgiving. Through Rose, he explores what the reviewer from the Athenaeum described as “the modern woman of wealth and fashion, who shirks all duties of marriage and maternity, and wastes her life in a feverish hunt after pleasure” (qtd. in Curtis and Whitehead 59). To provide commentary on Rose and her circle, Maugham carefully sets up Freeman to have the authority of the outsider who was once an insider. He cannot understand Algy’s role in his sister’s home, or why his brother-in-law tolerates Rose’s relationship with him. Algy and Rose’s celibate connection is strange to Freeman, who sees sex and children as natural. Rose is a surprisingly explicit

131 character for a play of the period, eventually telling her brother that, “if we haven’t got any family it’s because we take jolly good care not to” ( Smith 132). They would not be able to travel and go out on their income of £2000 a year if they had children (132-3). Later in the play, Freeman offers to provide the money for a child, but Rose replies, “I don’t want a child. It would bore me to death. I haven’t the maternal instinct, and there’s an end of it” (159). Rejecting motherhood epitomizes selfishness in Maugham, a contrast to the celebrations of motherhood we see in Wilde and Hankin. Freeman tells Rose, “You’re too trifling to be wicked. Your only vice is cigarette-smoking, your only passion is bridge. You want nothing much except to be amused and boredom eats into your very bones” (202). The depiction of Rose appears cynical, but it also feels true. She ends the play by demanding that her doting husband, Herbert, take her out to lunch, determined to appear triumphant in public, saying she will replace this set of friends with more like them because she “won’t be bored” (208). She is left to continue the only life she appears capable of. Maugham has created a fascinating, layered character that, instead of having vastly different public and private personas, chooses to be trivial inside and out.

The most dramatic events in the play revolve around Mrs. Otto. In Act III, we learn that her husband has been looking for her all day because their baby is ill. Through this unseen child, Maugham shows how far he is willing to take his disruption of comic expectations to make his point. The child is referred to without name or gender, seems to be sickly, and is treated as a nuisance. Rose might have twice helped find Mrs. Otto, but instead complains, “Wretched little rickety brat, it’s always ill” (167). The group sees no need to ruin their afternoon of bridge by telling Mrs. Otto about the phone calls. When Mrs. Otto arrives, we learn that she has spent a busy, frivolous day of calls and shopping and eating out, saying, “I’ve never had such a rush in my life” (168). They continue to play cards as the phone rings, ominously, during the game. Smith is forced to take the message and tell Mrs. Otto her baby is dead (169-71). When Algy has to take the dazed Mrs. Otto home, he complains: “I say, what a bore, isn’t it?” (171). They show no remorse or sympathy.

That scene made J.T. Grein uncomfortable. He wrote in the Sunday Times in October 1909, “I do not remember anything so distressing as the heartlessness of all these more or less unsexed women, nothing so brutal as the whole conceit whereby in the middle of a bridge party the death of a child is introduced as a dramatic element” (qtd. in Curtis and Whitehead 58). The events are

132 shocking, but prompt a viable change in Mrs. Otto. She explains in Act IV that after her husband threatened to separate, calling her “a worthless wife and a worthless mother” ( Smith 199), she realized he was the one person who actually cared for her. She gives up this shallow set to keep her marriage. Wilde sometimes shows us the truth beneath the mask of a character or two in a play, like Lord Illingworth or Mrs. Cheveley, but here Maugham is unmasking an entire group, and is willing to lose his comic momentum and shock his audience to reinforce his argument.

Through Smith ’s unconventional romance plot, Maugham adapts Wilde’s legacy, breaking down comic expectations by examining a suitable match that crosses classes. As stated earlier, Freeman challenges himself to find a wife within six weeks. He does not require money or love to marry, but argues that, “if you put a strong healthy man and a strong healthy woman together, love will come. I promise to love anyone who’s not absolutely plain and who has a good temper and a good appetite” (138). The title may lead the audience to suspect that he will choose Smith, but Maugham repeatedly deflects that assumption. Smith and Freeman do not meet in Act I, and Freeman becomes engaged to Emily in Act II. He does not consider his sister’s maid until after Emily breaks their engagement in Act III, and suggests that Smith might be an option. Once Freeman decides to pursue Smith, Maugham is able to reinvent a variety of incidents commonly found in romantic comedies. Instead of an interview about a young man’s prospects, as in Act I of Earnest , Freeman interrogates Smith (180-3) to see if she is fit and capable. When he asks her to marry him, however, she refuses because he’s “a gentleman” (184) and she wants a man with “a strong pair of arms” (186). Practical, physical strength impresses Smith, not family, status or money. Maugham then provides a nice scene of stage business to help Smith reconsider her opinion of Freeman. After she is unable to draw the cork from a wine bottle, Freeman pulls it out with minimal difficulty, proving the truth of his story that before he was a gentleman farmer, he worked as a porter in a hotel. When we see them together again one week later, in Act IV, Freeman tells her, “You know, at first I asked you to marry me because I wanted a wife. Now I ask you to marry me because I want you” (211). He then physically prevents her from leaving the room by grabbing her wrists. Lord Goring may assault Mrs. Cheveley to retrieve a letter in An Ideal Husband , and men like Hankin’s Verreker may say they are not gentlemen, but Maugham’s men are willing to show their coarser, physical side in ways that can make modern audiences uncomfortable. After this final proof that Freeman is no gentleman, Smith finally says

133 yes, tells him her name is Mary and the play ends with a kiss. The unconventional, boundary- crossing match has been made, in time to meet Freeman’s challenge.

This match bothered theatre critics at the time, and still provokes critical debate. Grein did not like the romance between Freeman and Smith, and the reviewer from the Athenaeum thought it was “in questionable taste” (qtd. in Curtis and Whitehead 58-9). Eltis sees Maugham as suggesting that “women only want a virile and dominant male to rediscover their true role as compliant wives” ( Acts of Desire 218), but that seems unfair to Smith. She contrasts the frivolous, privileged women and men in the play, following her own working-class standard of respectability. Smith is a maid, but in contrast to servants in other plays of the period, she expresses her belief that she should be treated with basic respect. After she is fired by Rose in Act IV, she is incensed by the way her former employer spoke to her “like a dog” (209). Smith consistently shows too much strength, resourcefulness and sense of self-worth to remain a servant; it is also hard to imagine her as the compliant wife Eltis describes. She is far more capable than any of the other women in this play, or any of the women in Wilde’s or Hankin’s works, and will likely do well in Rhodesia. Freeman is a different kind of ungentlemanly man. He has done too much work with his body to be comfortable in idle London Society and needs someone like Smith, described by Trewin as “one of the characters, we imagine, Maugham genuinely respects” (7). Neither Freeman nor Smith could fit into Wilde’s world, where love usually happens within the appropriate class, or at least requires outsiders with significant means, such as Mr. Hopper. The two most worthwhile characters in the play come together, but as with some of Wilde’s couples, this unconventional pair needs to leave the country to thrive.

5.7 Home and Beauty

Maugham’s Great War farce Home and Beauty seems to connect not to Wilde’s society plays, but to The Importance of Being Earnest. Maugham plays more with the sillier, physical side of comedy, shows that he understands the qualities of a good farce and then uses the form to comment insightfully on the divorce laws – all with hilarious results. The play was “intended to amuse” (“Preface” vol. III, vii) and Trewin describes it as a “flashing success when it was done during 1919” (10). The play had an initial London run of 253 performances (Barnes 182). Maugham wrote it while recovering from tuberculosis: “I never had the opportunity of seeing it but I believe it made people laugh very much” (“Preface” vol. III, vii). The play is dominated by

134 an unusual love triangle, in this case what Eltis describes as Maugham’s “transformation of the Victorian bigamy play into a satirical comedy” ( Acts of Desire 217). Victoria discovers in Act I that instead of being a remarried war widow, her first husband is still alive and she now has two spouses. Instead of the expected contest to see which husband will get to keep her, in Maugham’s version she wants to replace them with someone wealthier, while they each want “to be the one who will gracefully bow out” (Calder 153).

As with Earnest , Home and Beauty reflects many of the qualities of a good farce identified by Eric Bentley, including humour about food, comic violence, pursuit, and joking made theatrical. Maugham also relies on character to add complexity to this farce. Barnes argues that the husbands are rejecting “marital servitude” (72), but Maugham cleverly and repeatedly shows the audience why these men are objecting less to marriage in general than a union with Victoria. She is pretty and charming, but so impossible as a wife that they fight for the right to be rid of her. She repeatedly says: “I’m not vain and I am unselfish” ( Home and Beauty 240), but continually acts in a remarkably self-serving way. Victoria uses the limited, rationed coal in the house to heat rooms only she uses, rather than shared spaces such as the drawing room where they “could all benefit by it” (242). She is too demanding to keep servants, another clear sign for the audience that she is difficult to live with. Maugham demonstrates her selfishness best in Act II when Victoria enters the drawing room with a box of chocolates. She first chastises her husbands for lighting a fire, then monopolizes it while failing to share any of the chocolate, a rare treat in wartime. If anyone questions her actions or motives, they are “selfish” (242). Victoria is supported in her self-delusions by her mother, Mrs. Shuttleworth, another Wildean older lady. Mrs. Shuttleworth’s pronouncements are less extreme, perhaps, than Wilde’s or Hankin’s older women, but she says:

The difference between men and women is that men are not naturally addicted to matrimony. With patience, firmness, and occasional rewards you can train them to it just as you can train a dog to walk on its hind legs. But a dog would rather walk on all fours and a man would rather be free. Marriage is a habit. (235)

Their relationship makes one think of Gwendolyn and Lady Bracknell, and one could imagine Mrs. Shuttleworth describing Victoria as having “a simple, unspoiled nature” ( Earnest 368). Victoria’s clear and unshakeable belief in her illusions about herself could fit into Wilde’s play.

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As well as adapting farce to create a layered but shallow character, Maugham shows how the form can be used for astute social commentary. Where Wilde uses farce to critique marriage practices, including the emphasis on breeding, with great subtlety, Maugham openly mocks England’s elaborate divorce laws in Home and Beauty . He demonstrates how divorce has become a game that must be played correctly, preferably respectably and with no appearance of collusion. With the divorce sequence, as the reviewer from the Times suggests, Maugham was “at his liveliest,” building momentum “where most farces flag” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson 157). Maugham employs Bentley’s joking made theatrical (Life 235) as he shows the lengths this trio will go to be rid of each other. Returning to Kaiser’s ideas about play, they are subverting rules designed to keep divorce fair through trickery and mischief. Victoria wants to divorce both men quickly to marry the wealthy war racketeer Paton, requiring the assistance of a lawyer with a proven system that will take care of everything. Because women still required more grounds than men when this play was first produced, the decision is made to combine the appearance of the obligatory adultery with cruelty. The lawyer coaches the three of them on how to stage cruelty before servants, including threatening Victoria with a revolver and choking her. Maugham is using the comic violence of the genre to show that even spousal abuse has become part of the game of divorce.

The lawyer will also help to stage adultery, using as correspondent a respectable woman who makes a business of it. They can play cards all night, order breakfast in the morning, then return the lady to his office, creating the required circumstances suggesting the act. Where Wilde repeatedly plays with etiquette, making small breaches of manners seem transgressive, Maugham turns the stages of obtaining a divorce into an extended theatrical joke. He also combines the fantastic and the everyday (Bentley Life 240), presented with “a grave appearance” (242), when the professional correspondent enters and is revealed to be a woman of 55; as Maugham states, “her respectability is portentous” ( Home and Beauty 313). The reviewer from The Times wrote that the funniest moment of the play occurred when the correspondent turns out to be “the very incarnation of prim spinsterhood,” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson 157). Maugham’s farcical world never attains the silliness of Wilde’s, partly because Maugham was more tied to plausibility, but this sight gag recalls Jack’s entrance in full mourning in Earnest . Home and Beauty adapts many of the rules of the genre to make some astute observations about marriage

136 and divorce. Unfortunately, this remarkably funny play is now too dated to be as popular as Earnest .

5.8 Our Betters

Our Betters has a fascinating production history and shows Maugham’s development as a playwright as he again depicts shallow characters with questionable morality, but this time without alienating audiences. The play was written in 1915 but not produced in England until 1923 (“Preface” vol. III, vii), after both Home and Beauty and The Circle. Our Betters had a moderately successful New York run of 112 performances in 1917, but its initial London run of 548 surpasses Maugham’s other plays, including Lady Frederick (Barnes 182). The play unashamedly connects money and marriage in an eighteenth-century manner, measuring what level of aristocrat Bessie’s income can buy her ( Our Betters 366-7). Cordell connects it to the comedy of manners, including the “barnyard manners, of the Restoration” (214). The play is generally considered cynical, and few characters are likable. There also seem to be connections to Wilde, although some of the content is far more explicit than was possible in the 1890s. Sexual impropriety is not only suspected or implied in this play; this time some of it is real and is discussed as openly as was possible for the time, in one instance occurring offstage. The play was risqué enough to provoke extended discussion at the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, to be discussed below. In keeping with Maugham’s general approach to morality, the fallen women in Our Betters refuse to see themselves as sinning. Maugham shows the results of their choices, but as with Mrs. Erlynne or Mrs Cheveley, he refuses to punish them for their actions. He plays with the differences between the private, semi-private and public images of these dubious women in a manner worthy of Wilde, but whether the explanations Maugham provides for their behavior are enough to lead to a form of forgiveness will be considered later on.

Although Our Betters has seven men listed in the cast, in performance the play is dominated by the four women. All their parts are interesting and nuanced; the role that could be dull, the young American Bessie, shows growth in the final act that gives it depth. The characters could be portrayed as no more than stereotyped Americans, but as Trewin writes, “Maugham has imagined his people completely” (9). Trewin also argues that with this play, Maugham avoids the transferable epigram and makes his dialogue more individual:

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We know that he would pull epigrams from a hat if needed but I fancy that, even then, he tried to keep them in character. In Our Betters, we cannot take the words from somebody’s mouth and thrust them in someone else’s. (9)

Maugham maintains a careful contrast between the new arrivals, Bessie and Fleming Harvey, the long-term American expatriates Pearl, Clay, the Duchesse and the Princesse, and the genuine English Aristocrat, Bleane. As with Smith , the arrival of Fleming, a visitor from outside, helps to move the action along and provides a critical voice in the play. He is more of an observer than a raisonneur, however. Our Betters has a number of round characters, but Maugham relies on the Wildean technique of contrasting a smart, sophisticated but fallen woman with a younger, more idealistic one to create dramatic tension.

The play’s action explores how life in England has affected a group of expatriate Americans led by Pearl, Lady Grayston. She has become a powerful figure in Society more through her reputation as a hostess than through her marriage to a minor aristocrat. While acting as a hostess was expected of a Society wife, Pearl uses her status to enhance her own reputation rather than her husband’s. She has good if ostentatious taste in decoration, as shown in Act I by her “sumptuous double room” in Grosvenor Street, Mayfair ( Our Betters 355). The setting of Act One is a contrast to the faded morning room at Abbots Kenton, Suffolk, used for remainder of the play, controlled by Pearl’s unseen husband. Pearl’s good taste in décor is contrasted by her personal appearance, however, revealing her status as a fallen woman. Unlike Mrs. Erlynne or Mrs. Arbuthnot, she seems unashamed, at least semi-privately. She is described in the stage directions as thirty-four, “with red hair and a face outrageously painted. She is dressed in a Paris frock, but of greater daring both in colour and cut than a French woman would wear” (357). Throughout the play the assessments of her are mixed. The Princesse, considered one of her friends, tells her,

You’ve brought all the determination, insight, vigour, strength, which have made our countrymen turn American into what it is, to get what you wanted. In a way your life has been a work of art. And what makes it more complete is what you’ve aimed at is trivial, transitory and worthless. (374)

Pearl is the smartest person in the play, but she has few genuine or likable moments. She complains that because her husband is neither abusive nor unfaithful, she cannot divorce him.

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We see that he might have grounds to divorce her, but has chosen not to. Pearl says that he “wants me to live nine months of the year in the country and have a baby every five minutes. I didn’t marry an Englishman for that” (373). Like Rose in Smith , she is too selfish to have children, and cannot be rehabilitated through one of Wilde’s motherly sacrifices.

Maugham sometimes lets the audience see Pearl’s private motivations to create dramatic irony, but she is always playing a role, and her motives are always self-serving. She is more closely aligned to Lord Illingworth or Mrs. Cheveley than Mrs. Erlynne. She openly seeks power, including power over her friends. She flirts with one friend’s lover, Tony, who entices her to meet him in the tea-house (407-8). After Bessie discovers them, the usually quick-thinking Pearl is unable to fabricate a reasonable set of lies, and the act ends with an excellent curtain when she “turns coolly to Tony” and says, “You damned fool. I told you it was too risky” (415). Pearl drops any façade of respectability in Act III, admitting that she has been in trouble before because of “snitching,” but wonders why her friends find it difficult to forgive the fact that she “finds no man so desirable as one that a friend of mine is in love with” (431). She is not concerned about being caught with Tony before her friends, nor does she feel any remorse for adultery. Her concern is to save herself from “ridicule” (430) by keeping the story within their circle. Pearl is most angry because her elderly benefactor, Fenwick, has found out, and that was “not playing the game” (431). Fenwick is an essential part of her success. As Pearl tells Bessie, “I’ve made myself the fashion. I’ve got power, I’ve got influence. But everything I’ve got – my success, my reputation, my notoriety – I’ve bought it, bought it, bought it (442). The play makes clear, however, that she has bought most of these things with Fenwick’s money. Pearl may be immoral, even fallen, but she is also unrepentant and powerful, “a world away from the repentant fallen woman of the previous century” (Eltis Acts of Desire 223). Instead of leaving the country to find a new life, she “ends the play triumphantly in command” (223). The audience may not like her, but Maugham allows her to retain her dignity and much of her authority.

The only character Pearl cannot control is her younger sister, Bessie. Like Hester Worsley, she is a wealthy, naïve, young American, but Bessie is not as judgemental. She initially seems eager to follow Pearl’s plans to help her marry an English aristocrat, but after her former fiancé Fleming arrives, Bessie reconsiders the life she would lead in England. Fleming questions the way American women use their money to obtain European husbands, asking her,

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Will you break your heart like the Princess because your husband has taken a mistress, or will you take lovers like the Duchesse de Surennes, or will you bore yourself to death like Pearl because your husband is virtuous, and wants you to do your duty? ( Our Betters 398)

Fleming knows the cost of buying a spouse she does not love would be too high for Bessie. He tells her that if she returns to the U.S., her “life won’t be so brilliant or so exciting, but it will be simpler and wholesomer, and more becoming” ( Our Betters 399). In one of the play’s most powerful scenes, Bessie breaks away from her sister, who wants to use her to avoid gossip. Bessie shows her strong sense of self when she tells Pearl: “I should never respect myself again if I stayed” (440). In contrast to many of the characters considered here, Bessie is more concerned with her private than her public self. Barnes argues that Bessie’s epiphany is imposed by Maugham (Barnes 119), but through Fleming’s encouragement to be something better, and her disillusionment about her sister’s life, Maugham creates a believable turnaround, one that has more time to develop than Wilde’s transformation of Hester.

The play includes a number of direct, biting attacks on Society, but Maugham disguises them beneath the surfaces of a comedy of manners, and cleverly distances his critique by making most of the characters wealthy Americans. Wilde suggests there is something better about America in A Woman of No Importance , but the portrayal of Americans in this play is less flattering. With Our Betters , Maugham not only suggests that life outside England is more worthwhile, but also seems to argue that living in England ruins those who settle there. Innes describes the characters as “American women, whose wealth has purchased aristocratic titles through marriage. So the English spectators’ prejudices are confirmed, and the display of shameless immorality is reduced to titillation” ( Modern 258). The play’s enormous success suggests that audiences had no issue with the subject matter. The Americans make a number of remarks about Society, but Maugham is careful to ensure that they are more entertaining than offensive: wit makes them palatable. Many of the best remarks are made by Thornton Clay, or by Pearl herself. Pearl tells Fleming that he will be able to enter Society because “if one wants to be a success in London one must either have looks, wit or a bank balance” ( Our Betters 361) – and Fleming is handsome. Clay is a pretentious, deluded Anglophile, but he has money. Perhaps Clay’s most astute observation is that the English waste not only money but also time (365), a contrast to the Americans in the play who appear to find so much leisure trying. Wilde and Hankin both portray characters who

140 waste large amounts of time as part of their birthright. The characters in Earnest and Hankin’s Stella Faringford may by incapable of doing useful things, but it does not seem to be harmful. Maugham, in contrast, shows us that leisure may be detrimental. Through these American expatriates, Maugham continues to explore the destructive potential of having too much time.

As Maugham exposes the values of these wealthy expatriates, he balances unpleasant social commentary with some unexpected kindness. From the beginning of Act I Bessie is clear that she has no illusions about her relationship with Bleane, telling Fleming, “he wants to marry me with my money” ( Our Betters 360). Pearl insists that she bought Bleane for Bessie, revealing how a Society mother, sister or aunt can encourage a match. She explains how she placed Bessie in a rich setting, praised by important people to attract an aristocratic suitor. Bleane’s basic decency, however, seems to help ruin Pearl’s plan. He may not live in the colonies, but he is a man with a sense of belonging and purpose, who speaks of his home in Kent with genuine affection (378). Bleane proves to be a good, kind man. He knew he was “rather a catch” and that she was “pretty well off,” but says he fell in love with her “and then I didn’t care if you haven’t a bob” (401). In Act III, he tries to convince Bessie that she can find another path, telling her Pearl’s set “isn’t a very good set,” it is just “in the public eye” (443). Bessie can see the value of Bleane’s life, but believes it would be “tedious” and “irksome” to her because she does not love him (444). Bleane assures the audience there is some good in English aristocratic traditions by gently letting her go. Through Bleane, Bessie and Fleming, Maugham also provides a younger, more hopeful alternative to the older, worthless characters in the play, although two of them need to leave England.

Maugham uses the stories of the older Americans in the play to explore how unconventional relationships were encouraged by the difficulties of divorce in Britain. Pearl is partly unmasked in the play but retains her reputation in wider society. She succeeds because only the audience sees the full extent of her manipulations. Through Fenwick, Maugham seems to replace Wilde’s young upper-class female Puritan idealists with a crude, elderly, extremely wealthy man. He makes “himself very much at home” (380) with Pearl, pays her bills and provides her with an allowance, but demands that she live up to his image of her in return. There is tremendous irony in his declaration: “You’re my guiding star, you’re my ideal. You stand to me for all that’s pure and noble and clean in womanhood” (381), when one remembers that Pearl is married to another man and admits Fenwick as the host in her home for his money. After Pearl is discovered in the

141 tea-house with Tony, Fenwick calls her a “slut” (414). He forgives her the next day, but warns her that “If you must deceive me, don’t let me ever find out. I love you too much” (438). Sustaining her mask is the price of her financial freedom. He sounds like Lady Windermere, Lady Chiltern or Margaret Wetherby, saying that he can only love if his ideals are left intact. Through Fenwick and Pearl, Maugham not only expands the possibilities for stage idealists well beyond young women, but also seems to imply that some women can live more easily with hypocrisy than idealized men.

This play was written just twenty years after Wilde’s works, but shows how much had changed, particularly in how sexual morality could be depicted on stage. In the introduction to his 1933 Collected Works , Maugham writes that “we do not believe in jealousy anymore. We no longer look upon a woman’s chastity as her essential virtue” (“Preface” vol. II, xi) – but then says this only applies to comedy (xi). Eltis’s observation that “there is no sexual double standard apparent in the play” ( Acts of Desire 224) seems at least partially correct, although some characters are more sexually liberated than others. Pearl and Clay speak openly in Act I about women taking lovers, and suggest that the Princesse refusing to take one is a fault; yet Clay also complains that “some of these American women are strangely sexless” ( Our Betters 364). It would be easy to condemn and dismiss these women, especially the sexually active Pearl and the Duchesse, but through the Princesse, Maugham tries to illuminate their situation and create sympathy for them. When Fleming condemns the group, saying: “under the brilliant surface I suspect all kinds of ugly and shameful secrets that everyone knows and pretends not to” (395), she tells him these Americans are learning how to have a “leisured class” (393). She believes that some of their actions come from a desire for romance, a fascinating explanation for their behaviour. The Princesse did not see her husband as being after her money, but as part of an historical, noble Italian family. She says that “for centuries they’d been men of war, with power of life and death,” until “he sold himself for five million dollars” (396). By uncovering how purchasing their spouses has affected these American women, the entire system of marriage based on money is called into question. The Princesse tells Fleming she has “learned not to judge [her] neighbours” (418), then contrasts the lives of Pearl’s set with the lives of the English gentility:

It’s not entirely their fault. It’s the life they lead. They’ve got too much money and too few responsibilities. English women in our station have duties that are part of their birthright, but we, strangers in a strange land, have nothing to do but enjoy ourselves. (418)

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The time-wasting that Clay sees as a virtue in the English destroys these aimless Americans. Instead, these characters and their stories seem to suggest that the English life of leisure can be harmful to outsiders.

While Wilde and to some degree Hankin give their characters the freedom and time for unstructured play, they do not generally complain of boredom, and use their time frivolously but not self-destructively. In contrast, Maugham’s characters seem to need constant activity to avoid being bored, and he depicts time-wasting as harmful. In Smith , Our Betters , The Circle and The Constant Wife , he depicts characters who struggle with the problem of having too much time. Unlike the many middle-class women involved in social services and charities in the period (Thompson 252), or characters such as Lady Chiltern, Violet Jackson and Margery Denison, they are not engaged in charitable or political causes. Maugham acknowledges through the Princesse that a sense of duty could give Pearl’s group a purpose, but then seems to imply that the newer leisured classes lack the motivation to do anything useful. Instead, they spend their energy trying to avoid ennui by playing bridge or poker, or playing at love and sex.

In the 1920s, both Maugham and Coward caused some trouble for the Lord Chamberlain’s Office as they began to explore sexuality more openly on the English popular stage. Maugham seems more willing to test the limits of his audience and the censor with his three later comedies, than Wilde was in the 1890s. Our Betters was submitted for consideration twice. According to Calder, it was initially classed as “undesirable” during the war by the Foreign Office: “with the not yet in the war but an important ally nevertheless, the British wanted to avoid anything that might turn American public opinion against them” (Calder 132). The correspondence file in the British Library from 1923, when the play was granted a license, explains that the play was not refused a license the first time, but was withdrawn from consideration by the manager, Dion Boucicault Jr. (4877-0024). After a number of letters, two changes were made to Act II in 1923. The discovery of Pearl and Tony in the tea-house was made by Bleane instead of young Bessie, and Pearl ended the act with “What did I tell you” instead of “I told you it was too risky” (4877-0026). According to Calder, at least one reviewer complained about the change, asking why “stage innocents must be protected from receiving imaginary shocks in imaginary summer houses” (132). In the standard published version of the text Bessie discovers Pearl and Tony, and Maugham states it is the original version (“Preface” vol. III, v).

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The play was licensed for performance in 1923, eight years after it was written and six years after its initial run in New York. When modern critics consider reactions to the play, they tend to assume that the sexuality in the play was the problem, but the correspondence file shows that the readers were less concerned about the implications of the scene in the tea-house than we might assume. Sir Stanley Buckmaster, one of the readers, emphasized that the events in the tea-house were implied but not stated explicitly and recalls that a man and woman are locked in together in a similar fashion in The Merry Widow (Letter 4877-0007). There is no reference in the file to the language used by Fenwick and Bessie to describe Pearl, although Maugham reports that it shocked audiences. He writes in the 1930s:

In the few years that have passed audiences have becomes used to greater frankness, and if the play were ever revived I have little doubt that the word slut used by one of the characters, which made the spectators on the first night gasp with horror, would not fail utterly to express the speaker’s indignation. (“Preface” vol. III, v)

George V had his private secretary, Lord Stamfordham, write on his behalf from Balmoral, expressing concerns about the play. The King had read an article criticizing the censorship of plays in the Daily Graphic , and feared that Our Betters would offend Americans (Letter 4877- 0005). There is a general sense in the file that, as Buckmaster writes, Americans should not be “too thin skinned in these matters” (Letter 4877-007), and the King is reassured when told that the play has already been produced in America, “where presumably American susceptibilities are more likely to be offended than in London” (4877-0017). The censors were no longer concerned about causing offense in the U.S. but remained concerned about offending individuals. While various critics have linked characters in the play to American figures in England at the time, the censors objected to the perceived link between Pearl and Lady Cunard, deciding the original name of Pearl’s country house, Feathers Nevill, was too close to Nevill Holt, a former residence of Lady Cunard (4877-0002). The file states that the name of the house was changed to “Grayston Towers” (4877-0008), although it is called “Abbots Kenton” ( Our Betters 386) in the standard published version of the play. Based on the censorship of this play, it seems sexually adventurous women and mildly coarse language were acceptable on the popular stage at the time but slander was not, drawing a line between Wilde’s broad criticism of Society practices Maugham’s critique of identifiable figures.

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5.9 The Circle

The Circle is generally considered Maugham’s best play. Its initial run of 181 performances in 1921 was long for the 1920s, and it has had some notable revivals, including one in 1944 with John Gielgud as Arnold. It is the only Maugham play still frequently produced (Innes Modern 258). Trewin considers it a better play than Our Betters because The Circle can be “atrociously played and yet [make] every point” (8-9), while Our Betters requires good performances. Trewin also considers it “better-knit” than Congreve’s The Way of the World (2). The first American production grossed $20,000 a week (Calder 168) and Calder calls the play “the most skillfully crafted thing [Maugham] ever wrote for the stage” (159). With this comedy about two love triangles, Maugham again seems to adapt more than one aspect of Wilde’s approach to thoughtful playwriting, crafting a startling yet comedic play that left audiences entertained but also morally uncomfortable.

For readers or audience members familiar with both plays, The Circle seems a deliberate inversion of Lady Windermere’s Fan. The parallels are too consistent to be ignored, an indicator of Wilde’s legacy in Maugham’s work because, as Bloom argues, “in practice inspiration means influence” (14). With this play, as well as with The Constant Wife , Maugham seems to be more clearly in a “revisionary relationship” (12) with Wilde. The play has fewer women’s roles, (three) than the other plays discussed in this chapter, but Lady Kitty and Elizabeth are excellent parts, and at least one of the two women is onstage nearly all the time. The play is driven by parallel love triangles, and they are stronger here than they are in Lady Windermere’s Fan . Maugham allows the audience to meet and evaluate all six participants, while we know little about Lady Windermere’s father and nothing about the man Mrs. Erlynne ran away with. On the surface, this is a play where a young wife is enabled to leave her husband by her mother-in-law, repeating history, instead of being stopped by her mother from making the same mistake. What is comparatively simple in Wilde, because only Mrs. Erlynne knows that Lady Windermere briefly left, becomes layered and surprisingly complex in Maugham because most of his characters are trying to stop Elizabeth. She does not speak of ideals, as does Wilde’s heroine, but Elizabeth has romantic notions about Lady Kitty. She extends the invitation to visit, saying she wanted Arnold to know his mother, but her desire to know Lady Kitty could come from her stated desire for the mother she did not have herself, or, as some critics suggest, to provide a justification to run away with Teddie Luton.

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Maugham employs the Wildean technique of having a fallen woman spoken about before she appears on stage , and Elizabeth’s romantic notions about how Lady Kitty will look and behave are quickly dismissed when we meet her. Instead of the “grave” lady with a “pale face unlined” and “white hair” wearing “a black silk dress with old lace round her neck and old-fashioned diamonds” that Elizabeth imagines ( Circle 203), Lady Kitty is described as “somewhat outrageously dressed. She never forgets that she has been a pretty woman and she still behaves as if she were twenty-five” (208). In photos of the first production, she wears the same modern fashions as Elizabeth and Anna, their guest, but she looks overdone. She is the only lady with anything in her hair, a decorated head band, and a scarf (Manders and Mitchenson 134). She is another fallen woman who indeed appears fallen. Lady Kitty is not a woman trying to return to the Society who has rejected her, like Mrs. Erlynne; she is a fallen woman resigned to living in an irregular relationship partly by choice and partly out of necessity. By reworking a familiar formula, Maugham is able to examine the possible consequences of following one’s heart, while also considering if history truly repeats itself when the people are different.

This play moves back into the world of Lady Frederick , into a higher class than Smith and Home and Beauty . As in a Wilde play, its characters are individuals of importance in Society, the press and possibly the country, and most of the men are current or former politicians. This play has only one set, the drawing room at Aston-Adey in Dorset, but it is described as “stately” and “Georgian” ( Circle 193), the kind of house that “has been described, with many illustrations, in Country Life. It is not a house, but a place. Its owner takes great pride in it, and there is nothing in the room which is not of the period” (193). The room would be expensive to stage well, and it almost takes on a life of its own thanks to the enormous pride Arnold takes in its arrangement and details. There is repeated stage business around Arnold’s meticulous placing of a particular chair (193, 234), emphasizing the value he ascribes to beautiful objects. Maugham has carefully created a world for these particular characters to inhabit, communicating some of who they are through the set perhaps more effectively than Wilde does in his early comedies.

Maugham draws the audience in by creating a sense of urgency at the beginning of the play because not only is Arnold’s estranged mother coming to visit, but his father is also unexpectedly at home nearby. Maugham again uses an arrival to prompt some of the action, throwing us into the midst of the story and allowing most of the exposition to happen naturally. He also shows his mastery of comic writing with this play. The language is less contrived, with few epigrams,

146 and Trewin describes the wit in the play as having a “crispness, a lucid coolness” (2). Many of the best lines come from Elizabeth and Champion-Cheney, but there are also excellent interactions between Lord Porteous and Lady Kitty. In Act I, when Elizabeth is left with her father-in-law to explain that his former wife is coming to stay, the scene is fun and playful. We learn she has a childish habit of sitting in his lap, and he repeatedly calls her “child” (199, 202), but she does not object. When Elizabeth asks if he will be cross with her, they have the following exchange:

C.-C.: How old are you?

Elizabeth: Twenty-five.

C.-C.: I’m never cross with a woman under thirty.

Elizabeth: Oh, then, I’ve got ten years.

C.-C.: Mathematics?

Elizabeth: No, Paint. (202)

Elizabeth may not be quite as smart as Pearl or Constance from The Constant Wife , but she is always able to reply with wit and intelligence. After she tells Arnold she wants to leave, he says: “you weren’t obliged to marry me. You’ve made your bed and I’m afraid you must lie on it.” She replies, using Maugham’s technique for breaking down clichés: “That’s one of the falsest proverbs in the English language. Why should you lie on the bed you’ve made if you don’t want to? There’s always the floor” (235). The play succeeds by being both comic and disconcerting. If Wilde adjusted comedy to convey a message and help his audience learn to be more forgiving, Maugham seems to think they need to be disoriented to listen. As well as reworking a familiar plot in a Wildean way, he also employs dramatic irony, as in the scene from Act III when Arnold seems prepared to gallantly release Elizabeth. Maugham’s dramatic irony, however, is used to deceive rather than protect a character. The audience knows that the allowance of £3,000 and his willingness to allow her to divorce him (255-6) are part of his father’s scheme to make Elizabeth stay.

As suggested above, Porteous and Lady Kitty have a number of comic exchanges. They frequently bicker and through their arguments Maugham shows how important trivial concerns have become in their lives. Maugham again uses card playing as part of the action in this play,

147 and he makes fun out of Porteous’s determination to win. When Lady Kitty refuses to take the game seriously, Porteous tells her, “I’m glad you acknowledge it’s not the same game as I play. But why in God’s name do you call it bridge?” (216). The bridge game falls apart after Luton proves that Porteous has “revoked,” making him angrier still (216-7). Maugham then builds the comic tension by having both Lady Kitty and Champion-Cheney interfere in Porteous’s game of Patience. It is a lovely, subtle scene of comic business; Porteous gets progressively angrier as they tell him where to place his cards, until eventually they say together “the four goes on the five” (218) and Porteous quits in frustration, sparking one of Maugham’s hypothetical fights. The argument between Porteous and Lady Kitty, described by Trewin as “a scene gorgeously, joyfully irrelevant” (12), is so funny because the characters are taking hypothetical possibilities so seriously. They argue about what they would or could have done if they had stayed with their original partners. He would have been Prime Minister, while she would have made Champion- Cheney a cabinet minister. They continue to propose and argue about their imaginary futures until they are shouting about whether she would have been married to the Governor of India or somewhere out of the way. It finally ends when Porteous starts to lose his false teeth and leaves the room. As with some of Wilde’s characters, their fantasies are worth fighting for. The weight they place on the argument emphasizes how trivial they have become, but also how important they still believe they were, and how much they gave up for love.

Maugham proposes a starker choice to Elizabeth than the one Wilde presents to Lady Windermere, partly because Elizabeth does not love her husband. Through Arnold and Luton, Maugham offers Elizabeth two suitors contrasted in looks, sexual energy, wealth and general vitality. Arnold is described as “fair” and “good-looking,” but “bloodless” ( Circle 193), and Maugham seems to imply that he is sexually disinterested, a male version of unnatural women like Rose in Smith. Champion-Cheney seems aware that something may be wrong in his son’s marriage, asking in Act I: “Why haven’t you got any babies?” (204). Elizabeth’s reply that they have only been married for three years seems to affirm that all is not well. Maugham has Arnold tell Elizabeth in Act II: “after all, a man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn’t want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing” (236), carefully confirming for the audience that the fault is his. He is an M.P., and they are important within their circle of English Society, but Elizabeth rejects what Arnold describes as their “distinguished, useful life” (235). She later tells Lady Kitty she is bored by her life of “parties in London. All those middle-aged

148 painted women, in beautiful clothes, lolloping around ballrooms with rather old young men” (249). When he tries to follow his father’s plan by professing his love in Act III, she is doubtful. Arnold tells her,

I’m so proud of you. I admire you so much. When I see you at a party, so fresh and lovely, and everybody wondering at you, I have a sort of little thrill because you’re mine, and afterwards I shall take you home. (254)

Unfortunately, this declaration makes her sound like another beautiful object he has purchased for his home, to be placed carefully in a room like his special chair. This relationship does meet Wilde’s, Hankin’s or Maugham’s standard for a successful marriage.

In contrast, Maugham gives Elizabeth and Luton both a strong attraction and a genuine rapport as a foundation for their relationship. They also seem to have the affection and authenticity that Wilde seeks, as well as the similar tastes and outlook that Hankin values. The audience begins to see their connection in Act I, when Luton describes his home in the Federated Malay States (FMS), a life of unpretentiousness, meaning, hard work and beauty. He is restless in England, but says, “I don’t think anything’s wrong with England. I expect something’s wrong with me. I’ve been away too long. England seems to me full of people doing things they don’t want to because other people expect it of them” (206). Again, Maugham seems to suggest that English life is part of the problem. After Luton says it takes “a woman of courage and endurance and sincerity” to thrive in the FMS (207), and that she must love her husband, they admit their love. They do not touch, and this becomes part of the strength of their on-stage connection. Maugham exhibits a mature understanding of women’s desire; the scenes become sexier because there is no contact, and one suspects that sexual tension is part of why they spar so much. When Luton makes his profession of love in Act II, saying he has never loved anyone before, his declaration is more believable than Arnold’s. As Elizabeth cries and smiles, Luton tells her,

I’d love you just as much if you were old and ugly. It’s you I love, not what you look like. And it’s not only love; love be blowed. It’s that I like you so tremendously. I think you’re such a ripping good sort... I just want to be with you… I’m so awfully fond of you. (224)

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This is passion, combined with the kind of affection and compatibility that Maugham suggests could last. When Luton asks, “Chuck all this, Elizabeth, and come to me,” and she replies “I’ll go wherever you take me” (224), it is hard for spectators to disagree. The anonymous critic from The Times wrote in his review of March 4, 1921, that “their declaration scene is one of Mr. Maugham’s happiest inventions. There is no kiss. They both deprecate sentiment” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson 161). The reviewer goes on to suggest that “they never doubt their love—nor do you. It is a very subtle scene, all nuances and reticences, indicating the deepest passion in the timid, awkward avoidance of its expression” (161). Luton offers Elizabeth the chance for a more physically fulfilling relationship, one where she will be treated as a person rather than an object. Where Wilde allows his women to grow, and Hankin sometimes gives them a voice, Maugham is giving Elizabeth the freedom to choose something improper but real.

In contrast to Wilde’s play, where we hear a little about Lady Windermere’s father and meet Mrs. Erlynne but are told nothing about her lover, the now elderly original triangle is presented in detail in the play. Maugham breaks free of the stereotypes of Wilde and others to write interesting, fully-formed older characters, a significant innovation. Lord Porteous and Champion-Cheney are contrasted from the beginning. Where Lady Kitty’s ex-husband is described by Maugham as dressed carefully and “bear[ing] his years jauntily” ( Circle 200), Lord Porteous is “elderly,” “snappy and gruff” (208). He inarticulately says “Ugh!” multiple times, drinks too much, and is impatient with Lady Kitty. Champion-Cheney flirts with his ex-wife, but tells Elizabeth “her soul is as thickly rouged as her face. She hasn’t an emotion that’s sincere. She’s tinsel” (220). In Act III, Champion-Cheney, as part of his campaign to convince Elizabeth to stay, looks through an old photo album with her. They admire the great beauties of his day, including Lily Langtry and Ellen Terry. Elizabeth remarks on a photo she does not recognize, only to discover it is Lady Kitty. Seeing the photo makes Lady Kitty cry, prompting Porteous to comfort her. Maugham uses the scene to show us the remnants of their love, and the strength of their affection for each other. By the end, she assures him he would have been Prime Minister, he says he would have given her India, and he looks at the photo and tells her she has not changed that much. One senses that their relationship survives partly because they sustain each other’s self-deceptions.

Champion-Cheney initially appears charming, but like some of Wilde’s and Hankin’s characters he is not the gentleman he initially appears to be. He has a sinister side that Maugham uses to

150 create dramatic irony. As Elizabeth tells Luton, “he’s as clever as a bagful of monkeys” (221). In Act III he provides Arnold with the plan to get Elizabeth to stay, although his idea proves to be as old-fashioned as his epigram when he says that “a woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It’s her favourite indulgence” (241). He tells Lady Kitty he enjoys being “wicked” (232) after spending his early years in a life of duty. His pattern now is to find young working-class women, taking leave of them with the gift of a diamond ring when they turn twenty-five. He tells her: “I love old wine, old friends, and old books, but I like young women” (234). Champion-Cheney has an appealing surface, but as Innes suggests, in comparison to his “surreptitiously purchased sex…the flawed relationship of the superannuated adulterers look moral” ( Modern 259). It is perhaps unfortunate that Maugham chose to end the play with his smug laughter, rather than showing us the moment when he realizes his mistake.

Maugham also uses the older triangle to explore the long-term results of an idle life. Champion- Cheney tries to use Lady Kitty’s fate to keep Elizabeth at home, admitting that he might not have saved his wife from becoming “this ridiculous caricature of a pretty woman grown old,” but arguing that she would have been better served by a suitable life with appropriate friends and something worthwhile to do rather than a life “among divorced women and kept women and the men who consort with them” ( Circle 220). In their own way, however, all three have shirked responsibility and lived for pleasure. Champion-Cheney enjoyed the company of young women, but raised a cold, furniture-obsessed son. Porteous travelled and had affairs, but has become a drunk, grumpy old man with badly fitting false teeth. Lady Kitty had a life of romance, but was unfaithful to Porteous, telling Elizabeth that, “Notwithstanding all my temptations I’ve been absolutely faithful to Hughie in spirit” (253). She lost her son and is unable to recognize him as an adult. Barnes sees a similar future for Arnold, who will likely “withdraw into his one love – interior decorating” (126). Maugham has shown the audience how losing their sense of purpose harmed all three.

As well as exploring the effects of an idle life, Maugham also discusses the economic position of women more astutely than do Hankin or Wilde, never permitting love without also considering money. When Lady Kitty tells her story, she forces the naïve Elizabeth to think about finances. According to Lady Kitty, if you are unmarried, you cannot separate, partly because a common- law spouse, unlike a husband, was under no legal obligation to pay support. After confirming that Elizabeth has no money of her own, she reminds her son’s wife that she would have nothing

151 if Luton left her. When Elizabeth foolishly suggests that she could take care of herself and that she does not need money, Lady Kitty wisely tells her she cannot “stand on her own two feet” without some income:

A cook who marries a butler can snap her fingers in his face because she can earn just as much as he can. But a woman in your position and a woman in mine will always be dependent on the men who keep them. ( Circle 250)

For Calder, “the choice confronting Lady Kitty and Elizabeth is comfortable stagnation in England or a much less secure but more passionate life in exile” (160), but their financial situations differ. Lady Kitty gave up the protection of marriage for a wealthy man with a substantial fortune, but if Elizabeth leaves Arnold she will have to depend on Luton continuing to work for a living. Maugham repeatedly uses comedy to consider the position of women, but with this play he is giving them some freedom to act, albeit in immoral ways. There are none of Wilde’s appeals to motherly duty, or frustrating speeches by women like Violet Jackson who can accurately describe their situation without any means to change it. What Maugham cannot do, however, is provide upper-class women with a different upbringing, one that would equip them to earn a respectable living. In this sense, most of his women are nearly as trapped as Wilde’s and Hankin’s.

Maugham continues to explore the ramifications of divorce, but this time marital breakdown is not depicted as a game, but as an act with substantial, long-term consequences. Arnold provides a succinct if harsh summary of his mother’s story in Act I: “The facts are lamentably simple. She had a husband who adored her, a wonderful position, all the money she could want, and a child of five. And she ran away with a married man” ( Circle 196). He denies all excuses for her behaviour, highlighting the embarrassing publicity given to divorce cases by saying, “what a boon it was to the British public. They hadn’t had such a treat for a generation. The most popular song of the day was about my mother” (197). Maugham’s depiction of the earlier breakdown is nuanced and complex, revealing various problems with the laws. Because Lady Porteous refused to divorce her unfaithful husband, he could not remarry. The legal assumption that there is one guilty and one innocent party in divorce is also questioned. Porteous asks Champion-Cheney why, if he says he has “the very greatest affection for Kitty… then why the devil didn’t you look after her properly?” (230). Following the convention at the time, divorce is

152 used as a verb in the play. When Elizabeth initially tells Arnold about her relationship with Luton, she asks if she can divorce him because of the additional stigma of divorce for women, a disparity also discussed by Victor and Amanda in Private Lives. Arnold refuses because of his political career, then threatens to ensure that they will be forced by the law to remain married forever: “twenty-four hours after you leave this house I shall go down to Brighton with a chorus- girl. And neither you nor I will be able to get a divorce. We’ve had enough divorces in our family” (240). This provides a strong curtain to close Act II. Maugham confronts marital breakdown with less judgement, likely reflecting a shift in society’s attitudes. Whereas Wilde pays little attention to Mrs. Erlynne’s divorce, and Hankin sees divorce as something to avoid by breaking unsuitable engagements, Maugham explores the law, the social implications within an aristocratic family, and the way divorce affects individuals and their families.

In Act III, Porteous and Champion-Cheney ask Lady Kitty to tell Elizabeth her story to confirm the true cost of leaving. Porteous says, “tell her, tell her what it means… She’s a child. Not for Arnold’s sake. For her sake” (247). Lady Kitty’s story includes losing friends and the problem of being with a new partner too much, because a man may be in love, but “not in love all day long. They want change and recreations” (251). She explains that she ended up in Florence with “loose women and vicious men” (251), how she was afraid she might lose Porteous and had to bear his infidelities silently (252). Her description of her life is nothing like the romantic love story Elizabeth imagined. Lady Kitty ends by saying, perhaps surprisingly, “what a blessed institution marriage is – for women – and what fools they are to meddle with it!” (252). Just before Elizabeth leaves with Luton, Porteous tells them both that “man is a gregarious animal. We’re members of a herd. If we break the herd’s laws we suffer for it. And we suffer damnably” (261). He seems to be trying to warn Luton that there is more at stake for him than he realizes. Lady Kitty’s final warning, “don’t go. It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it. I tell you that and I’ve sacrificed everything to love” (261), is rejected. Unlike Mrs. Erlynne, Lady Kitty is ultimately unable to convince her daughter-in-law to stay, likely because Elizabeth’s situation differs so much from Lady Windermere’s. Unlike Elizabeth, Lady Windermere loves her husband, has a child, and feels nothing more than friendship for her potential lover, Lord Darlington. Maugham may be building on Lady Windermere’s Fan , but he moves beyond it.

Maugham bravely breaks the conventions of his day in the ending of this play. It becomes clear that Arnold and Champion-Cheney have misplayed the situation when, instead of behaving

153 nobly and giving her up, Luton fights for her in an ungentlemanly way. He agrees with Lord Goring that there is little value in self-sacrifice, telling Elizabeth that “it’s idiotic to sacrifice your life for a slushy sentiment” (260). Luton tells Elizabeth that if she came to him and said she wanted to be free to love someone else, “You have very pretty blue eyes, Elizabeth. I’d black first one and then the other. And after that we’d see” (260). He seems to affirm Maugham’s ideas about love when he says “I don’t offer you happiness. I offer you love” (261). Love may not make you happy, and it is not everything, but when it is genuinely offered and honestly received, it seems Maugham is as unable to resist love as Elizabeth. The older couple aids the younger in the last scene, as Porteous and Lady Kitty lend Luton and Elizabeth their car, providing them with a place to go and a cloak for Elizabeth for the journey (262-3). Porteous then provides some hope that Luton and Elizabeth’s relationship will succeed:

My dear, I don’t know that in life it matters so much what you do as what you are. No one can learn by the experience of another because no circumstances are quite the same. If we made rather a hash of things perhaps it was because we were rather trivial people. You can do anything in this world if you’re prepared to take the consequences, and consequences depend on character. (263)

Success in life and love in Maugham’s works seems to depend on whether one has a sense of purpose. As stated above, the older triangle lost their way after the elopement because they were no longer able to serve the country. Luton has work he should be able to retain, and Elizabeth may find her new life more fulfilling. They have a chance because they should have something meaningful to do.

The message of The Circle appears ambiguous, yet that may be its greatest strength. Trewin describes the play as “a tale of elopement without sentimentality, rope-ladder and conscious moon, but with a car in the drive and two veterans of thirty years’ experience to speed the departure” (10-11). There is pleasure in the multiple ways Maugham surprises the audience to make this outcome plausible. He manages to simultaneously make the case for marriage, not morally but socially, economically and personally, while also convincing the audience that one

154 particular marriage needs to end.19 Wilde needs to keep Lady Windermere at home, and relies on Mrs. Erlynne’s determination to save her daughter from repeating history to achieve what Society requires. In return, he is able to redeem Mrs. Erlynne by giving her the feelings of a mother. Lady Kitty does not ask for such redemption, and Maugham rejects such moral simplicity. Maugham believes audiences are usually more conservative than individuals, saying, “the theatre is a generation behind the culture of the age,” rejecting or accepting ideas “in the mass” with no subtlety, “shocked by things that would not shock the individual” (“Preface” vol. III, ix-x). Maugham was successful enough by the 1920s to push his audience, but that did not mean all would agree.

The first night audience did not like the outcome and the gallery “booed” the ending (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson 162). The Times critic tried to explain the dilemma posed by the play, acknowledging that the audience might not “approve ethically” but that “they approved the solution as the right one to the case as Mr. Maugham had put it to them” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson 162). The play was approved by the Lord Chamberlain’s office, but remained problematic. When BBC Radio broadcast the play in 1935, it was “only after considerable discussion and on condition that certain passages by cut, that it carry a warning that it might be distasteful to certain listeners, and that it be aired very late in the evening” (Calder 74). Desmond McCarthy’s review in The New Statesman in March 1921 sums up the ending this way:

Is this a happy ending? No answer. It is an ending, and hardly that—rather a recurring decimal dot. Life repeats itself; experience does not make for wisdom; men and women revolve in a ‘circle.’ (qtd. in Curtis and Whitehead 119)

The way the play outmanoeuvres rigid morality is one of its strengths. The play does not end in marriage or reconciliation, but instead asks spectators to accept that two young lovers destroying the career of another because he is too cold to love well is a happy ending. The resolution fits neither Wilde’s nor Hankin’s standard for a happy ending, yet it is somehow a satisfying one;

19 As one of my conservative, deeply religious students said about Elizabeth after seeing the play, “She shouldn’t go, but she can’t stay.”

155 this play ends neither with Wildean reconciliation nor with one of Hankin’s unhappy but appropriate endings, but with a more modern open conclusion. Maugham has also successfully shown us how the law can force people into situations that are neither wise nor conventionally moral. By describing the case, in detail but without moralizing, Maugham has likely achieved his goal of asking us to understand and perhaps forgive ( Summing 65), an impossible task if this play is no more than a cynical deconstruction of marriage.

5.10 The Constant Wife

Audiences ultimately accepted the outcome of The Circle and made the sexually transgressive Our Betters Maugham’s greatest success two years later, but it seems they could not accept the resolution of Maugham’s last great comedy, The Constant Wife. It will not be considered in detail here, but it is worth noting three things: the way Maugham links women’s sexual freedom to economic independence; a direct link to Wilde (identified by Eltis); and what could be Maugham’s best single comic scene in Act II. The play opened first in the U.S. in 1926 with an initial run of 295 performances, but lasted for only 70 performances in London in 1927 (Calder 195). Mishaps may have affected the reception of the play in England, including a house management error resulting in too many seats being sold for opening night (Calder 195-6), but Calder suggests that “the play itself may have been more than British audiences were prepared to accept in 1927” (196). According to Nicholson, the play was licensed partly because Cromer felt it was not worth suppressing but also, perhaps, because of Maugham’s reputation (228). It has been successfully revived in more recent years, including a production at the Shaw Festival in 2005.

Eltis explains in some detail that the play was likely inspired by “a scenario sketched out by Oscar Wilde in 1894, in which a simple sweet country girl is unhappily married to an adulterous man of fashion” ( Acts of Desire 220-1), more evidence of Wilde’s influence. In the scenario, a man makes love to his mistress, not knowing his wife is already asleep in the same room. When the mistress’s husband comes to the door, the wife provides them with an alibi. She eventually leaves him for a man who loves her and the story ends with the unfaithful husband shooting himself after his wife refuses to return to him. Wilde sold the story to various writers, including Frank Harris, who used the scenario as the basis for Mr. and Mrs. Daventry in 1900 (221). Eltis strengthens the link between Wilde’s scenario and Maugham’s play, stating that Maugham

156 named his character Constance to honour Wilde’s intended title (221). 20 Laurel Brake also identifies strong parallels between Wilde and Maugham, including the Wilde scenario (125-6). In her view, The Constant Wife is a “mirror-image of An Ideal Husband ,” and she draws on similarities in how characters are named, the author’s personal identities, and the protagonists’ relationship with a friend of the same sex, somewhat surprisingly linking the foolish, adulterous Marie-Louise to Lord Goring. Maugham’s use of a comic older woman, Mrs. Culver, creates another clear link to Wilde. Mrs. Culver shares a number of surprising comic platitudes, especially about men and marital fidelity, but unlike all other such women, she admits she does. Mrs. Culver says that all she has to do is state the obvious: “I’ve discovered that I only have to say it quite simply in order to be thought a most original and amusing old lady” ( Constant 280). Cordell also sees a Wildean influence in this play, especially in the comic dialogue: “the crackling repartee and salty epigrams remind one of Oscar Wilde” (215). Maugham uses Wilde’s premise, his technique for creating action out of conversation, and a self-aware but still Wildean older woman to create a humourous play about marriage and adultery.

The premise of the play is simple, yet it creates much dramatic irony. At first, Constance appears to be the only one unaware of her husband’s affair with her good friend, Marie-Louise, and the big question is not whether but how and when Constance will find out. When it becomes clear that Constance, like Pearl in Our Betters , is the smartest person in the room, the question shifts to how she has missed the affair. The tension created by the secret builds, leading up to the brilliant comic scene in the middle of Act II, when Marie-Louise’s husband, Mortimer, presents Constance with a lost cigarette case he found in his wife’s bed, and tells her “I thought you might like to know that your husband is my wife’s lover” ( Constant 303). Constance takes control of the situation, telling him she was at their home late the previous night and lost a cigarette case borrowed from her husband while sitting on the bed having a chat with Marie- Louise. She carefully includes her husband and Marie-Louise in the fabrication, until Mortimer is convinced he misread the situation and admits to a mistake he did not make:

Mortimer: …When I found the cigarette-case I naturally put two and two together.

Constance: I quite understand, but why did you make them five? (305)

20 Constance was also the name of Wilde’s wife.

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Constance sustains the lie until Mortimer asks for Marie-Louise’s forgiveness, Marie-Louise is able to feign righteous anger at being accused of something she did do, and Constance arranges for Marie-Louise to receive an expensive gift as an apology for being accused. After Mortimer leaves, she refuses to be angry, and when Marie-Louise pretends to be “ashamed,” Constance asks, “because you’ve been having an affair with John or because you’ve been found out?” (307). Constance tells her husband she has spent “the last six months in a desperate effort to prevent my friends and relations from telling me your ghastly secret” (308). She refuses to make a scene partly because she is no longer in love with him, but also because she wants to make a change in their relationship. She tells him she is going to accept a friend’s offer to go into an interior decorating business, because she is “not prepared anymore to be entirely dependent upon [him]” (317). The scene reinforces the link Maugham creates in The Circle between economic success and women’s freedom. Both Wilde and Hankin consider the position of women, but here Maugham is giving Constance a chance to redefine her position within marriage. It is a revolutionary stance.

The third act occurs one year after the events of Act II, and Constance is now an economic success. After Marie-Louise returns from a long trip, the audience quickly learns that she has continued to be unfaithful. This play repeatedly explores the idea that husbands pay for their wives’ fidelity, and Constance rejects the way Marie-Louise breaks that bargain. She tells her friend: “I should respect you more if you were an honest prostitute. She at least does what she does to earn her bread and butter. You take everything from your husband and give him nothing that he pays for. You are no better than a vulgar cheat” (334). In contrast, Constance reimburses her husband for her upkeep. We learn that she has paid him £1,000 for her “board and lodging during the last twelve months” (335), leaving herself money to pay for her clothes and for a trip. John is affronted, but Constance explains felt she could make no real claim on him before because, with servants and boarding schools, she was of little value as a homemaker or mother:

I was only a parasite in your house. You had entered into legal obligations that prevented you from turning me adrift, but I owe you a debt of gratitude for never letting me see by word or gesture that I was no more than a costly and at times inconvenient ornament. (337)

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As Brake suggests, she is confessing to a form of idleness (126), one that differs from Lord Goring’s perceived laziness, but which is also a substantial shift from the destructive idleness we see elsewhere in Maugham. Constance also has a unique position; unlike all the other women discussed here, she has the ability to make a living without reducing her family’s status. More surprisingly, after claiming her right to work, earning substantial wages, and paying for her keep, she also wants the opportunity to behave like her adulterous husband. She is taking a trip with an old suitor, telling her husband they will be discreet and will avoid places where they might meet anyone they know, but they will be “going as man and wife” ( Constant 339). When her husband is horrified, Constance tells him, “I am economically independent and therefore I claim my sexual independence” (344). Her liaison is a temporary arrangement, and she plans to return to her bewildered husband after the trip. Brake describes the situation, saying: “Constance is free to fashion her own life, in which she can exist quite openly, replete with employment, economic independence, and a controlled affair, after which she will return to the marital home” (123). Maugham has linked sexual freedom and money not to keep a woman at home, but to justify a wife’s adventures.

Calder’s suggestion that this play might have been too much for audiences seems viable. In recounting the story of Henry Arthur Jones’s The Case of Rebellious Susan , Eltis explains that Charles Wyndham forced Jones to change the plot. Susan could not behave like her repeatedly unfaithful husband because men would not bring their wives to the theatre to watch a wife engage in adultery without consequences (“Fallen” 231). Maugham’s play was staged thirty years later, but one suspects that Marie-Louise’s casual serial adultery, and Constance’s calculated affair, were still disturbing to husbands. This play explores the manners of its period with wit and intelligence, and Maugham attempts to present Constance’s case in a way that leads to understanding – although this time he may have asked too much of his audience.

Maugham is unique among the playwrights discussed here. He wrote over a longer period of time and wrote more plays than either Wilde or Hankin. Coward wrote many plays, but began his career in the 1920s, thus most of his works fall outside the scope of this study. Maugham’s outlook had time to change as audience tastes and opinions shifted. A man such as Lady Frederick ’s Paradine Fouldes, who is wise and kind but ultimately focused on food and personal appearance, would have to be more socially or politically engaged to be treated with respect in the later plays. Maugham’s portrayals of women also shift over time, from ladies who appear to

159 be fallen but are innocent to women who are comfortably promiscuous in semi-private settings to an adulterous wife who will retain her respectability by remaining impeccably discreet. Maugham’s characters are not always likeable, but they are usually smart and, like Wilde’s, they often thwart audience expectations. Particularly at the end of his playwriting career, Maugham carefully justifies the decisions his characters make. They do not always get what they deserve, but there are usually consequences to their actions. Maugham creates comedy that is, perhaps, truer than Wilde’s or Hankin’s to portraying how people live—in a world where sometimes nasty people are successful, where sometimes wives do leave their husbands and live in sin because the divorce laws are too difficult to overcome, where sometimes people are better than they seem, and where one’s private, semi-private and public personas may differ greatly. Trewin suggested in the 1950s that Maugham warranted and would receive further critical scrutiny (2). There is still much work to be done.

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Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward: The End of Manners 6.1 Introduction

Noel Coward completes this study of Oscar Wilde and his influence on selected playwrights working in London up to 1930. On the surface, Coward seems the most obvious follower of Wilde, but that may come from our understanding of the parallels in their personas – their sometimes eccentric modes of dress, the performative quality of their lives, and their association, in the mind of the public, with a certain elegant and refined, if cavalier, dandyism. The parallels in their work are harder to define. Coward explores how people behave badly in a changing world, but while he acknowledges the power of manners, his characters often break the standards of etiquette. Coward’s early plays reflect Wilde by employing stage details to create and comment on his characters, disrupting audience expectations about comedy and portraying characters who suffer few consequences for behaving badly. He also continues the development of dialogue as plot, and, particularly with Hay Fever and Private Lives , playfully adapts qualities of farce. Both playwrights understood how to make good theatre out of adults acting like children.

Coward’s familiarity with Wilde is easy to establish. In his autobiography, Present Indicative , he writes that as a youth he “read a lot of Oscar Wilde and Omar Khayyam and Laurence Hope” with his friend Stoj (Esmé Wynne) (44). In the Introduction to Volume II of his Collected Plays , Coward discusses Wilde’s “comedy-dramas” alongside the “Drawing-room Dramas” of Somerset Maugham and Arthur Wing Pinero (viii).21 He refers to Pinero’s Second Mrs. Tanqueray and His House in Order (1906), then praises the dressing scene in Lady Frederick (ix). Coward sees these plays as being about a different world, although they were written just a few decades earlier, because “it is easy enough nowadays to laugh at these vanished moral attitudes but they were poignant enough in their time because they were true” (ix). He notes the difference in manners, suggesting that with the old standards went “much that was graceful,

21 Coward groups The Second Mrs. Tanqueray with Lady Frederick and Smith .

161 well-behaved and enduring” (ix). Coward contrasts the works of earlier playwrights, including Wilde, with his own plays, acknowledging the transition from a polite world to one where characters are so often rude and graceless. Coward’s early works appear to be in an agonistic relationship with late-Victorian and Edwardian plays, as he both adapts and rejects elements of them, including the classic drawing room setting itself.

There are a number of theatrical connections between Coward and Wilde worth noting, given the labyrinthine nature of influence. Peter Raby sees links to Wilde in Coward’s theatrical employment – Coward worked for Charles Hawtry, the first Lord Goring – and his social connection with Aubrey Beardsley (“A Weekend” 131). Jean Chothia, in “Playing with the Audience,” connects Wilde and Coward through their comic technique and their choice to work in the popular theatre:

like Wilde, Coward wrote for performance in mainstream theatre and, presenting himself as an entertainer, he, too, necessarily wore a mask. Like Wilde, he was also a remaker borrowing from and writing variations on other people’s works with immense facility. (103)

Sos Eltis believes that Coward built on the same Wilde scenario that inspired Maugham’s The Constant Wife , although in Coward’s adaptation, This Was a Man , a husband witnesses his wife’s affair ( Acts of Desire 226). It was not one of Coward’s successes, with a short New York run in 1926 of 31 performances, and a longer run in English in Paris in 1928 of more than 150 performances in repertory (Mander and Mitchenson Coward 144). The play was refused a license by the Lord Chamberlain in 1926 and Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson do not list any British productions. Perhaps the clearest link to Wilde comes later in Coward’s career, through his version of Lady Windermere’s Fan , the After the Ball (1954). Day calls it an “ill-considered venture,” partly because Coward did not respect Wilde enough and tried to replace Wilde’s words with his own in the libretto (579). There were also issues with casting in the production – Coward complains that the Mrs. Erlynne could neither sing nor play comedy – but both Day and the reviewer of the first London production observe a clash between Coward’s values and the original play (Day 583, qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson 458). Although After the Ball had an initial London run of 188 performances at the Globe Theatre (Mander and Mitchenson 450), it is not considered one of Coward’s successes.

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The greatest similarity between the two playwrights may be the way Coward also allows his characters to be silly . Christopher Innes writes that Coward “negate[s] the root quality of seriousness itself, as Oscar Wilde had done in The Importance of Being Earnest ” ( Modern 264). Coward’s playfulness, embodied particularly in Hay Fever and Private Lives , also seems to build on Wilde by including a deep commentary on the society it portrays. In fact, as Innes writes, “the more frivolous his work seems the more profound its implications actually become” (265). Critics also link Coward and Wilde when they consider the shift in dialogue that occurred between 1895 and 1925. While both playwrights create action through conversation, Peter Raby sees Coward’s dialogue as at once “polished, sophisticated, witty” and “a little looser, more fluent, more natural, less continuously striving for effect” (“A Weekend” 140) than Wilde’s. Both playwrights were also particularly adept at carefully setting up audience expectations and then overturning them, and Coward follows Wilde’s tone more than Hankin’s rejection of traditional happy endings or Maugham’s request that audiences accept behaviour that breaks the rules. Coward asks audiences to question not only the value of the rules, but also the value of having rules. Etiquette and social expectations fall apart until, as Alexander Leggatt writes, “Elyot and Amanda [from Private Lives ] confront their demons in a secluded apartment (just down the road, I imagine, from where Ernest Worthing is buried)” (82). Their characters inhabit different worlds, but Coward’s and Wilde’s worlds share similarly contradictory rules.

6.2 Coward’s Context and Technique

Coward’s approach to playwriting is harder to define than Hankin’s or Maugham’s. There are many details in his letters, prefaces and autobiographical writings about his inspiration and about where and when he writes, as well as details about casting, productions and contracts, but fewer about his approach to the craft. As a former child actor and lifelong performer, Coward was a man of the theatre in ways that Wilde, Hankin and Maugham were not, and he writes at length about his collaborations with designers, actors and theatres. As with Maugham, he was unable to guarantee success for all of his plays; he may have understood what appealed to audiences, but he also sometimes clashed with the Lord Chamberlain. Terrence Rattigan sums up Coward’s critical reception: “he is a brilliant man of the theatre, a fine craftsman and a superb entertainer. They admit, as ever, his wit, and doubt, as ever, his wisdom. They grant, as ever, his skill, and deplore, as ever, its shallowness” (xvii). Writing in the 1950s, Rattigan refutes the complaint that Coward has not changed. “In the history of the theatre no other fashionable playwright has

163 held sway for quite so long” (xvii). Rattigan puts Coward ahead of Maugham, who cut short his own career, as well as Pinero, Henry Arthur Jones, J.M. Barrie and John Galsworthy, and dismisses Bernard Shaw because he was not “fashionable” (xvii). Remaining popular for so long required more than a mere sense of what is fashionable, however. Coward’s staying power also confirms his understanding of how to both intrigue and titillate audiences without offending them.

Coward was not only a man of the theatre; like Wilde, he was also a man of his time. In his study of Coward’s plays, Coward the Playwright , John Lahr asks: “But how to dramatize the change in the manners and the pace of English life?” (40). Coward embodies the changes of the 1920s not only in his subject matter and characters, but also in the sometimes frenetic tempo of his plays. Coward’s strength was his ability to critique while entertaining. While Hankin was more popular outside London than in the West End, and Maugham can rely too much on dramatic irony to be fun, Coward retains a sense of playfulness in nearly all his plays, showing the importance of being frivolous. The term is used repeatedly in Private Lives , especially to describe Elyot’s behaviour. Lahr suggests that “only when Coward is frivolous does he become in any sense profound” (3). When Coward combines playfulness with speed, both in dialogue and on-stage activity, he creates some of his best work and takes Wilde’s reworking of farce in new directions.

Coward also builds on the earlier playwrights in his approach to depicting changes in morality. Wilde, Hankin and Maugham make clear moral statements, although they sometimes portray characters who violate the accepted standards. Innes argues that Coward wanted no “moral” drawn from his plays ( Modern 262) and says Maugham considered Coward’s works “materialistic and intrinsically immoral” ( Modern 262). Maugham says that he did not judge; Coward’s characters openly defy accepted rules and refuse to be judged. Rattigan saw Coward’s lack of a moral stance as a source of his longevity. Of the plays in this chapter, The Vortex and Easy Virtue make clearer moral statements and have not aged as well as Hay Fever or Private Lives . For Rattigan, Coward “writes with wit; and wit is a quality that does not date” (xviii), perhaps explaining the longevity of Earnest , as well as some of Maugham and Coward’s plays . He also explains why other plays falter:

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The things that do date, in the theatre, are attitudes of mind inspired by purely contemporary factors – political opinions, for instance, or moral judgements, or messages on How to Save the World. All such paraphernalia are happily mainly absent from Coward’s work. (xviii)

Rattigan rejects the idea that a writer should move on from comedy into serious drama (xix), something Maugham tried to do unsuccessfully before he gave up playwriting. For Rattigan, Coward “is interested only in humanity, its quirks and foibles, its vanities and idiocies, its prejudices and pomposities, and these things, as Congreve and Sheridan have taught us, are changeless” (xviii). By linking Coward to the comedy of manners, Rattigan reinforces the link between the playwrights in this study and the earlier genre, while also highlighting the strength of Coward’s wit and insight.

Writing in a comparatively liberal time, Coward speaks more openly about sex than either Wilde or Hankin, and more playfully about it than Maugham. Lahr argues that for Coward “sex was high on the list of subjects to be liberated from the prison of Victorian propriety” (40). Both Coward and Maugham seem to see sex as natural, but also as potentially destructive. Coward explores the way sexual desire can lead to bad decisions in The Vortex and Easy Virtue , and exploits an overwhelming sexual attraction to drive Private Lives . Raby describes his approach as follows:

In Coward’s plays the reality of sex is far more prevalent. And whether the treatment is serious – as in the The Vortex and Easy Virtue , – or comic as in Hay Fever and Fallen Angels – the overall impact seems much the same: sex is disruptive, compelling, even overwhelming, while sex and marriage are difficult, perhaps impossible, to reconcile. (“A Weekend 139)

The sexual drive is part of the fun of Hay Fever , as the characters rapidly switch between objects of desire. Raby says “sex, or romance, is an essential ingredient of the country house visit” (139), but Coward ultimately keeps all the Bliss family’s liaisons innocent. Sex and romance also figure in The Vortex , where couples break up and reform at a country house. Raby links this play to A Woman of No Importance (139), but Mrs. Arbuthnot is more honourable and a better mother than Florence. Although Coward may portray more liberated attitudes to sex, Eltis argues that he still needed to be careful: “a life-long opponent of punitive laws on sexuality,

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Coward was nevertheless uneasy with overt campaigning for increased sexual rights and freedoms, whether heterosexual or homosexual” ( Acts of Desire 226). On the surface, Private Lives is both blunt and playful about sexual matters, but, as the title suggests, infidelities within the play are still private – all the characters are aware that when the situation is made public there will be repercussions. Where Wilde and Maugham allow some secrets to be kept, such as Mrs. Erlynne’s identity and Constance’s trip with her old suitor, Coward places his characters in the moment between scandal and discovery. He can be playful in his approach to moral lapses, but that does not mean the ramifications are being ignored.

Another connection to Wilde, Hankin and Maugham is the way Coward uses dialogue as action. He eschews the elaborate plots of the earlier playwrights, including their connection to the techniques of the well-made play. Chothia refers to the major plays as “comedies of manners” (113), then provides this assessment of Coward’s plots:

The action in Coward’s comedies, although it can seem frenetic, takes place largely in the dialogue, leading to successive permutations in relationships which, while they may be increasingly forbidden, are, we can hardly deny, increasingly appropriate (Chothia 107).

The Vortex and Easy Virtue seem at first to be following the pattern of a society drama or comedy, but in both cases expectations about how the story should end are thwarted. Lahr argues that in Coward’s post-war world, the old well-made formulas no longer worked (41), encouraging his development of a more modern drawing-room drama with “a new pace and new people” (42). Coward also emulates Wilde’s party scenes in The Vortex and Easy Virtue , filling his stage with well-dressed people who are not essential to the plot, but who speak with wit and help create the world his characters inhabit. Another important aspect of Coward’s characters is that some of them are performers. Just as Algernon begins Earnest by playing the piano (357), the Bliss family and Amanda and Elyot perform as part of the action, sometimes just for themselves and sometimes for others. Chothia believes we are drawn to the characters who perform, “and we are led to recognize performance, and to relish it” (106). Talent separates Coward’s characters from the equally wealthy, high-status characters we see elsewhere (Lahr 42). The question that remains is whether, compared to Wilde’s, Hankin’s and Maugham’s aristocrats and politicians, the fate of Coward’s artists matters enough to audiences.

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On the surface, Coward’s heavy use of dialogue seems to support the accusation that his plays are plotless, something he acknowledged about Hay Fever. With Hay Fever and Private Lives , however, Coward replaces plot with a sense of speed and physical action. Chothia notes that Coward’s characters are often on the move, in transit (107). Hay Fever is driven by the premise of a pleasant country house weekend, but after the guests arrive, anticipating what they and audiences expect from such a weekend, they are ignored, insulted and made players in romantic games they cannot understand. They eventually retreat and the family returns to their usual habits, ready to behave the same way with the next set of unfortunate guests. While Private Lives is a comedy with two overlapping love triangles, it is driven by the pursuit of farce – Act I ends with an escape, Act II with being caught, Act III with a second escape. The play may be over, but the chase will continue. Leggatt writes: “Noel Coward is particularly fond of having characters creep off with suitcases at the end of a comedy” (145), a reasonable way to describe the endings of both plays. After the Bliss’s guests and Amanda and Elyot escape, both the Bliss family and Victor and Sibyl will continue arguing after the curtains go down. There are no marriages, engagements or elopements, no resolutions of a longer story to be found. Coward builds on the reworking of conventional endings by Wilde, Hankin and Maugham – until he rejects ending his plays at all.

Coward follows the example of Wilde, Hankin and Maugham by also using specific stage directions for setting and costume to help create his characters. He takes this technique in a new, modern direction, however, by using house architecture in his designs to comment on the families he is depicting. While critics often describe his works as drawing room plays, only one act of one play discussed here takes place in a drawing room – Act One of The Vortex , which takes place in the drawing room of Florence’s flat in London (427). Private Lives is set in , beginning on a hotel terrace and continuing in the main room of a Paris flat. Easy Virtue , Hay Fever and the second act of The Vortex , however, are not set in drawing rooms, but take place in living halls. These halls gradually became common during the Victorian overhauls of country houses, but by the 1920s, living in a country house that centred around a living hall probably indicated a desire to be fashionable and/or move up socially. Coward uses architecture to place his characters in a different social milieu than the country-house dwellers in Wilde’s, Hankin’s or Maugham’s plays. Clive Aslet, in The Last Country Houses , describes living halls as fixtures of the smart country house, made popular by homes like West Dean and Polesdon

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Lacey that were favoured by the Prince of Wales’s set at the end of the nineteenth century (24, 66). Living halls suit plays in transit, allowing for access to the outside world, the garden and any desired spaces within the home, while also acting as spaces for characters to pass the time. They allow Coward to play with genre; living halls are used in this period for farces like Ben Travers’s Rookery Nook . Coward is using production details to communicate with the audience, adding the structure of the country house itself as a signifier.

While all the playwrights included in this study examine the rules of Society, Coward and Wilde excel at showing the theatrical nature of these rules. Wilde’s use of the rituals of courtship, mourning and tea drinking in Earnest , for example, reveal their performative nature. Dan Rebellato argues in “Noel Coward’s Bad Manners” that Coward makes the regulations of Society theatrical (56), exposing the “rules of etiquette as little more than scripts, guidelines for performance” (57). Rebellato links Coward’s interest in manners to the rising importance of etiquette at the time, as books were published on how to behave, making manners a commodity to be “bought, adopted, performed” (50). Coward explores what happens when characters cannot or will not follow the rules, sometimes because they lack knowledge or self-control, as in Hay Fever and The Vortex , sometimes because they obey their own rules, as in Easy Virtue , and sometimes, as in Private Lives , because the situation is so far outside accepted bounds that there are no established rules. Coward and Wilde also use large social settings to engage social mores in some of their plays, working with far larger casts than either Hankin or Maugham. Easy Virtue has a listed cast of nineteen that does not include other unnamed party guests; a picture from Act III of the first production at the Empire Theatre in New York in 1925 has twenty-four actors watching Larita make her entrance (Mander and Mitchenson Coward ). Following Earnest , however, Coward also works in worlds that are, as Lahr describes them, “defiantly private and self-obsessed” (42), while Robert Bryden believes “Coward’s characters have to inhabit private worlds” because their “talent makes them impossible to live with, even for a weekend” (54). Both Coward and Wilde excel at disrupting audience expectations of comedy, using production details to help define their characters for spectators, and allowing adults to behave like children in ways that comment on the values and rules of polite society.

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6.3 The Vortex

Coward’s first big success as a playwright, The Vortex , may seem out of place here, but the play has close ties to Maugham and shows some of the ways Coward builds on Wilde’s work. Coward was only twenty-four when he wrote it, and like Maugham with Lady Frederick , he had some trouble getting it produced (Coward Present 170-1). He eventually launched the play at the Everyman Theatre, Hampstead, a small venue used to test out productions. After an initial run of twelve performances there in November 1924, the play went on to a successful London run of 224 performances (Mander and Mitchenson Coward 92). After this play, however, Coward vowed never to act himself in such a long run again, saying he would limit himself to three months in London and three in New York (Coward Present 233). He was eventually replaced in the role of Nicky by John Gielgud (216). Coward’s desire to remain free to pursue his other interests affects the length of the initial runs of some of his future productions.

The play tells the story of a crisis in the relationship between Florence Lancaster and her son, Nicky, beginning as he returns to London from Paris with his fiancée on Wednesday, and ending on Sunday at their country home. The play may have opened in a small theatre, but the production pictures from the Everyman indicate open but opulent rooms, large enough to fit group scenes with a cast of ten. Coward uses the décor of this space to help define his fashionable characters. There is modern art on the walls of the flat in London, and the living hall for Act II is open enough to allow for dancing and an on-stage grand piano, but has few places to sit (Mander and Mitchenson Coward ); both settings have a gramophone. The settings match Florence’s concern for style, but do not seem comfortable or cosy.

The initial run of The Vortex may have been positively affected by the trouble its depictions of sexual immorality and drug use created between Coward and the censor. David Thomas, David Carlton and Anne Etienne write that “Noel Coward’s morally ambiguous comedies from the 1920s, notably The Vortex (1924), caused the censor some problems” (111). As he did with Our Betters , George V queried the licensing of The Vortex (240-1). One reader stated that “this picture of a frivolous and degenerate set of people gives a wholly false impression of Society life and to my mind the time has come to put a stop to the harmful influence of such pictures on the stage” (qtd. in Nicholson 261). Eltis suggests that for some on the board “upper-class women must at least be believed to be chaste or class respect could be lost and social hierarchies

169 threatened” ( Acts of Desire 226). There were concerns that such plays would encourage class hatred (Nicholson 261), but the Advisory Board disagreed. They wondered how they could show the improper conduct of the poor unless the rich were also shown behaving badly. They argued that “the imbecilities of a ballroom and the follies and vices of prosperous and irresponsible people are just as fit a subject for the stage as the coarser vices of poorer folk” (qtd. in Nicholson 262). The play was still nearly refused a license “because of the unpleasantness of its theme,” but Coward says he persuaded Lord Cromer, in person, “that the play was little more than a moral tract” ( Present 194). The play opened as planned.

The Vortex appears at first to follow the pattern of what Coward describes as a comedy-drama, a play like Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan or A Woman of No Importance . The play owes a debt to both these plays in the way it addresses the issue of a fallen woman who is also a mother, and the way she is discussed by other characters on stage before we meet her. But Coward’s play starts to build a different kind of energy in the second act, and loses its humour in the third. Coward also felt the play needed a new kind of theatre practice to sustain the dramatic tension of the piece. He writes, “in The Vortex we made it a rule not to take any curtain calls until the end of the play” (224). This practice was not new in the U.S. but “in London, where the public were inured to watching a row of actors bowing and smiling after every act, it was considered to be quite an innovation” (224). Mander and Mitchenson report that there was a programme note asking audiences “not to demand the raising of the curtain at the ends of Acts I and II, but should they desire it it will be raised at the conclusion of the play” ( Coward 100). Where Wilde used fashion and stage design, Coward again goes further, adjusting theatre practice to service his productions.

Coward’s approach to morality in this play is complex. He avoids public humiliation for his characters in a Wildean way, and does not condemn them for their behaviour, but he criticizes selfishness and the refusal to accept family responsibility, treating parenthood as an obligation that should not be shirked. This play combines an open secret, Florence’s repeated affairs with young men, with a withheld one, Nicky’s drug addiction, a risqué subject for the time.22 In

22 Day suggests that the drug use in The Vortex was inspired by the death of a young actress Coward knew, Billie Carleton, who overdosed on cocaine in 1919 (53).

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James Agate’s review of the production for The Sunday Times , he writes: “The first act is a- shimmer with wit of the best theatrical kind – the non-literary sort that has to be spoken in the situation. The milieu is that of Our Betters , without the Americans” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson Coward 96). The Englishness of the characters, as well as the subject matter, may have contributed to the strong response to the play; Coward is not softening harsh portrayals by depicting characters from somewhere else. Innes argues that The Vortex presents high society as “an ethical and emotional wasteland,” a “culture where appearances substitute for values” (Modern 265). Coward has replaced Wilde’s manners before morals with something more destructive.

Act I mimics Our Betters as another group of seemingly purposeless characters discuss their hostess in tones that imply they dislike her. Whereas in Wilde’s and Hankin’s plays attendance at social gatherings may be a duty, in Maugham’s and Coward’s works characters focus on being amused, sometimes through unkind gossip. There is humour here, as they openly discuss Florence’s sexual behaviour, referring to young Tom Veryan as her “present” in a way that makes it clear he is one of a series ( Vortex 428). Florence lacks the wisdom of Maugham’s Lady Frederick; as her friend Helen says, “it’s too late now for her to become beauitifully old, I’m afraid. She’ll have to be young indefinitely” (429). Leggatt suggests that one of the innovations of this play is the use of Helen, a woman, as the raisonneur (164). She is certainly the wisest and most observant figure in the play. Helen describes Nicky as like his mother, saying he “will be perfectly happy as long as he goes on attracting people; he loves being attractive” ( Vortex 429), a comment that supports Lahr’s assessment that “ The Vortex is about gaining and maintaining charm” (19). The crisis in Act III is prompted by both Florence and Nicky losing their lovers, and the realization that their charm has failed them. They have greater difficulty maintaining their masks than Wilde’s Mrs. Erlynne and Lord Goring, perhaps because instead of having more beneath their facades than we might expect, Nicky and Florence have less. Without a defined role like the dandy to project, their self-image falters when it is no longer supported from outside.

Coward begins to show us the flaws in Florence in Act I. She relies on her husband’s love, but excuses her affairs because he “never understood me” and “he’s grown old and I’ve kept young” (Vortex 439). Coward lists no age for either Florence or David, her husband, but describes Florence as “brilliantly dressed almost to the point of being ‘outrée.’ Her face still retains the

171 remnants of great beauty” (433), while David is described as “an elderly gray-haired pleasant man” (445). Coward does not directly comment on whether this is a mismatch, but it seems to be more than the usual five-to-ten-year age gap of wealthy marriages. Helen tries to warn Florence that she needs to grow up, and we learn that both her lover Tom and her son Nicky are twenty-four. Florence is unhappy with her son’s engagement and we sense that it is partly because she cannot let him grow up without growing older and maturing herself. Like Mrs. Erlynne, Florence knows that as her son grows up her age will catch up to her, but she refuses to acknowledge it.

At the beginning of Act II, Bunty cannot tolerate Florence’s “self-deception” (473), but Nicky defends his mother, telling his fiancé: “Can’t you imagine the utter foulness of growing old? ‘Specially if you’ve been lovely and attractive like she was” (474). By the end of the act, Tom and Bunty have come together and Nicky and Florence catch them kissing. Florence’s reaction is loud and hysterical, sins in a country house milieu where privacy is maintained and some indiscretions are expected. Nicky has been playing the piano sporadically during the act, but here the music seems to mirror the emotion of the scene, and Agate says that Nicky “covers up his mother’s outburst of jealousy with a crescendo of discordant jazz” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson Coward 97). Florence initially wants Bunty and Tom to leave, then wants Tom back. She lacks the self-awareness that Wilde, and Restoration playwrights, valued in their characters.

Act III occurs a few hours later, in Florence’s bedroom. Coward shifts here from a large comedy-drama to a small, dramatic scene, one Agate felt was too long (97). After Helen fails to break through Florence’s wall of self-deception and Nicky is left alone with his mother, secrets are revealed in this private setting. Nicky learns that his mother has had many lovers, including Tom. Florence tries to hold on to her illusions about herself, saying “I’m different from other women” ( Vortex 491) and insisting that she cannot be ordinary. Nicky tries to show her how her lies have affected them all, calling her “weak and selfish” (494), but he is unable to reach her until he shows her his drug paraphernalia (496). Somewhat surprisingly, Coward falls back on motherhood, as Wilde does with Mrs. Erlynne, to try to make a fallen woman behave. Attitudes to marriage and sexuality may have changed by the 1920s, but it seems motherhood was still an unavoidable duty. Nicky tells her, “you’re going to be my mother for once” (498), and the play ends as they pledge to be different.

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Critics sometimes consider Wilde’s changes of heart too abrupt, but this one is far less believable. Eltis suggests that with this play, “the nineteenth-century perception of female sexual virtue as a vital social cohesive clearly retained its potency” ( Acts of Desire 226), in part because the play ends with a woman pledging “to be a more dutiful wife and mother” (225). Day sums up the prevailing attitude to Nicky and Florence’s late night promises when he writes: “The two of them vow to give up their self-destructive ways, but the audience is left with a strong feeling that this is not likely to happen” (109). Certainly, neither character seems strong enough to sustain such dramatic change. Lahr suggests “outrage was the price The Vortex paid for making the public think” (20), a sign that Coward was already learning how to use theatre to prompt public discussion. With this play, Coward “enlarged the limits of what was theatrically acceptable” (25), expanding what was possible on stage, and making future works like Private Lives possible.

6.4 Easy Virtue

Although Easy Virtue was written after Hay Fever (Coward Present 179), the play is more like The Vortex , partly because Coward was deliberately attempting to update the problem play. He writes in his autobiography:

My object in writing it had been primarily to adapt a story, intrinsically Pinero in theme and structure, to present-day behaviour; to compare the déclassée woman of to-day with the more flamboyant demi-mondaine of the nineties. (229)

He succeeded to a degree, and critics saw the link to Pinero (“Introduction" Collected vol. II, x). The play presents the case of a young man who marries an older, divorced woman with a past, then brings her home to the country to live with his narrow-minded mother and sisters and his more rakish father. In Coward’s play, however, the fallen woman, Larita, is far more capable and independent than Pinero’s Paula Tanqueray or Mrs. Ebbsmith. Easy Virtue may also remind one of Hankin’s The Cassilis Engagement , as we watch the city wife grow increasingly bored with life in the country, while the young husband, John, gradually drifts towards a young woman he grew up with. This divorcée’s refusal to be ashamed, her fashionable dress, her intelligence and her self-awareness also recall Mrs. Erlynne. As Raby writes, “Larita’s model is Mrs. Erlynne. She finds life immensely amusing, but her sharp-eyed analysis includes herself and embraces the pain of truth” ( “A Weekend” 141). Coward knew he was writing a different kind

173 of fallen woman, one more in keeping with his times: “women with pasts to-day receive far more enthusiastic social recognition than women without pasts” (“Introduction" Collected vol. II, ix). He carefully maintains a sharp contrast in the play between the worldly Larita and the supposedly socially acceptable but narrow Whittakers, who are far less interesting.

Easy Virtue premiered in New York rather than London, with the American actress Jane Cowl in the central role. According to Britannica.com, Cowl was “acclaimed the most beautiful woman on the American stage” around this time, but notes and reviews about the play do not clearly specify if the role was played with an American accent. After opening in November 1925, the production lasted for 147 performances (Mander and Mitchenson Coward 114), then went on to what Day describes as a “solid run” of 124 in London (120), possibly enhanced by some problems it encountered in Manchester. If Our Betters and The Vortex gained audience through clashes with the censor, Easy Virtue piqued curiosity after the Manchester Watch Committee objected to the title. For the Manchester run, the play was retitled A New Play in Three Acts (Coward Present 236). Day reports that it drew large audiences who “now had to see what all the fuss was about” (120), before it moved on to London in June 1926 (Mander and Mitchenson Coward 114). Coward may have been reworking a traditional form, but he was innovative enough in his approach and subject matter to create controversy.

The play follows the Wildean technique for generating interest in a fallen woman by having us hear about Larita without meeting her for most of the first act, as we do with Mrs. Erlynne and Mrs. Arbuthnot, a technique also employed to some degree by Maugham with Lady Frederick and Lady Kitty. Mrs. Whittaker is described by Coward as having “the jaundiced eyes of a woman who subconsciously realizes she has missed something, which means in point of fact that she has missed everything” ( Easy 499). She begins the play distressed by her son’s marriage because he has wed someone they have not met but whom she is sure is unsuitable. She seems to feel her upper-middle-class status could be threatened by an inappropriate match. Her husband, the Colonel, tells her, “I fail to see the object of working yourself up into a state before you’ve set eyes on her” (508), but she continues to upset herself, crying and fussing, refusing to be comforted by the idea that social barriers are easing. The Colonel refuses to join the family’s speculations, saying “I’m waiting with an open mind – and whatever John’s wife is or has been, I shall do my utmost to make her happy and comfortable here” (514). Coward is employing another unusual raisonneur figure: the Colonel is worldly, admitting he has had “lapses from

174 grace” (513), but he also seems powerless in this house full of judgemental women. They are not as socially powerful as Wildean older ladies, but they do seem to exercise some control in the local community. When Larita arrives, she is described as “tall, exquisitely made-up and very beautiful. Her clothes, because of their simplicity, are obviously violently expensive” (515). She embodies much of what Mrs. Whittaker feared, but Coward employs Wilde’s tactic of rehabilitating a fallen woman though her fashionable but tasteful clothes. Like Mrs. Erlynne and Lady Frederick, Larita is more acceptable because she dresses well, at least until the final act of the play.

Coward examines the limits of etiquette in this act as the family fails to maintain a façade of politeness while the outsider displays good manners. Larita shows that she can skillfully read and react to the feelings of others, telling Mrs. Whittaker that politeness is “hopelessly inadequate” in their situation (515). Throughout the scene, Larita’s warmth and wisdom is contrasted to Mrs. Whittaker’s coldness. Lahr sees Larita’s politeness as significant: “In Larita Whittaker’s losing battle with the rigidity of upper-middle-class English life, Coward tried to show charm as an act of moral courage” (26). Her forthright but sensitive behaviour underscores the weakness of Mrs. Whittaker’s etiquette and stiff morality. Like Wilde’s Puritans, Mrs. Whittaker is initially too bound by her sense of morality to be kind. Larita admits she was married before, is surprised John did not warn them about her past, and acknowledges she is likely older than they were expecting. We are not specifically told Larita’s age, but she is old enough that the Colonel assumes there will be no children ( Easy 521), a situation that could affect the family in the future if the only son has no offspring.

The second act is set three months later, again in the living hall. It is the afternoon before a party to introduce Larita to the county. As described by Coward, it is an English summer day “which means that unless you hurl yourself about on tennis-courts or indulge in some sort of strenuous exercise all the time, you get extremely cold” ( Easy 532). Coward uses the weather to generate humour, as various family members try to make Larita leave the hall and her book to either play or watch the tennis. She refuses the tennis, but eventually dons her fur coat for warmth (532-6), a choice that suits Larita but would look odd on stage. Coward uses the coat to reinforce how out of place she is in this home. The Colonel is the only family member able to assess her situation with any accuracy, correctly describing her as “bored and cold” (537). They play a frantic round of the French card game bezique until the cards are thrown away and Mrs.

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Whittaker catches them (538). The scene creates a sense that they are co-conspirators, capable of fun in a house that often lacks it, and distinguishes them from the rest of the family. The Colonel is wise enough to know that living in the family home is affecting their marriage, calls his son “inconsiderate,” and wonders if London would be better for them (540). Unlike Mrs. Whittaker, or Mrs. Cassilis, he seems willing to support his son’s marriage and his comment implies there is sufficient money for the move. Money is not discussed openly in the play, but it seems both Larita and the upper-middle-class Whittakers have sufficient income to be comfortable; neither partner married for money, in spite of Mrs. Whittaker’s later accusations. Like the earlier playwrights, Coward is exploring marriages based on something other than social or financial convenience.

After the Colonel and Larita exit, Coward shows us that the other Whittakers want to be rid of her. Mrs. Whittaker and Marion do not “approve” of divorce, but in this instance, it is essential (542-4): they obviously believe Larita will oblige them by being adulterous. Their situational ethics are contrasted with Larita’s less conventional but more consistent values. While Larita states throughout the play that she married for love and holds to it, in the next scene we see that John’s feelings for her are fading. He is drawn to his old friend, Sarah, but she is unimpressed, calling him “an utter cad … not fit to wipe Lari’s boots” (550). Larita knows she is losing John, but when she tries to confront him, her much younger husband tells her she “is behaving like a child” (556). When she tells him his feelings for her were not deep enough for marriage, the audience, aware of his declaration to Sarah, would know Larita is right. Coward does not consistently use the layers of dramatic irony we find in Wilde or Maugham, but he sometimes sets up situations like this one where the audience knows that a character is lying. When John begins to speculate about Larita’s history, Coward reworks the expected behaviour of a fallen woman with secrets. She tells him:

Whatever happens in the future, dear, I want you to remember one thing – I’ve never deceived you and I’ve never lied to you. There are many things that I’ve purposefully left unexplained, because they don’t concern you in the least and don’t apply in any sense to our life together. (562).

When they came together, their relationship was founded on a shared modern outlook, “on trust” (577), but John cannot sustain new values in this old, restrictive setting. There is no shame and

176 no desire to hide the existence of secrets for Larita, but she believes herself entitled to retain some privacy.

The conflict between Larita’s guarded honesty and the hard ethics of the rest of the house becomes a crisis when the younger sister, Hilda, presents all the family but John with an old newspaper cutting about Larita. The audience does not learn the full details, but it seems fifteen years ago Larita was declared the cause of a suicide and is living under a new name. She was also publicly linked with several men. When the women in the house treat this as a disaster, Larita replies to their judgements, saying, “my life is my own, and I don’t intend to be browbeaten” (580). She calls all the family but the Colonel hypocrites, then contradicts their belief that she married for money or status. She tells the family, “I love John more than I can ever say, but it’s not blind love – unfortunately – I can see through him. He’s charming and weak and inadequate, and he’s brought me down to the dust” (581). She refuses to be labeled, makes it clear she has lived by her own standards, and believes herself justified because of the affection she felt for the men in her life. She contrasts her supposedly immoral life with her early marriage: “The only time I ever sold myself was in the eyes of God to my first husband— my mother arranged it” (581). Once Larita had financial independence, it seems she also claimed her personal and sexual freedom. Coward uses Larita’s perspective on the relationship to contrast the loveless marriage of the elder Whittakers, which emphasizes duty but lacks affection. He is beginning to express his requirements for a successful marriage while also asking for a different approach to fallen women than either Wilde or Pinero, neither forgiveness nor a tacit acceptance of the status quo, but the acceptance of a new set of values.

The third act is set up by the final moments of the second one, as Mrs. Whittaker attempts to regain control by insisting Larita remain in her room during a party held in her honour. Larita clarifies the preposterousness of the situation when she asks, “You intend to confine me to my room like a naughty child?” (584). Coward avoids strong curtains in this play, as he does in The Vortex , choosing instead to end with a strong sense of anticipation. Instead of reaching a strong climax, the second acts of both plays end with a sense that something big is about to happen. The next act begins as the party, a large gathering with many well-dressed guests, is well underway. Mrs. Whittaker and her daughters have told their visitors that Larita is too ill to attend the gathering, but just as some of the older guests start to leave, she enters wearing a white, low-cut dress and far too much jewelry. As described earlier, Coward makes sure there

177 are a number of people on stage to see her, humiliating Mrs. Whittaker. In his review of the London production for The Sunday Times , James Agate described the scene:

The offended lady, bedized to outvie the Queen of Sheba, descending from her imprisonment first to stagger a county with a greater show of jewels than comparts with married life and then to rout it with a courtesan’s insolence, aroused sympathy and the fighting instinct in every member of the audience. (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson Coward 124)

Larita refuses to support the family’s story, saying “If you have been building up a few neat social lies on my account, it is very unwise of you – I don’t live according to your social system” (Easy 596). These Puritans are shamed publicly because they are unable to change and refuse to learn compassion. In “Moving with Coward,” Frances Gray contrasts Larita’s reaction to past fallen women: “An Edwardian adventuress would here be required alternatively to brazen it out with corsets at full power or to collapse in moral meltdown, perhaps passing society’s judgement on herself with a revolver in a locked room” (94). In keeping with Coward’s different approach, however, Larita neither despairs nor fights. Instead, she gradually makes her exit from the family, telling John she will make sure he can divorce her. Larita leaves the house with her bags and her maid, joining Mrs. Erlynne and Maugham’s Lady Kitty on the continent.

Agate wanted Coward to take a more balanced approach and present “both sides of the case” because he has some sympathy for Mrs. Whittaker: “the mother was a little narrow-minded, perhaps, …not unnaturally prejudiced against daughters-in-law arriving without credentials from nowhere in particular” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson Coward 123). He also considered the portrayal of the family implausible, designed to ensure that the audience preferred Larita. The Whittakers do seem more out of step with their times than can be explained by conservative values. In this instance, Coward seems to place making his argument about fallen women above meeting Wilde’s standard for an accurate portrayal of an upper middle class family. His characters seem to have ample money, but it seems likely it is new money because Mrs. Whittaker is so fearful of maintaining her position if there is any scandal. They hold to a high moral standard, and Marion talks of God, but their values appear out of step with their social habits; they are more interfering and less charitable than the Jacksons in The Return of the

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Prodigal . This play may take a new look at fallen women, from a new perspective, but the view of the moral family was likely old-fashioned in 1925.

6.5 Hay Fever

With Hay Fever , Coward employs a different set of Wildean strategies, drawing particularly from The Importance of Being Earnest . Written before Easy Virtue , Hay Fever seems less old- fahioned and more innovative, perhaps because of the play’s source. A number of critics discuss the way Coward drew inspiration from time spent in the household of the American actress Laurette Taylor. Coward describes them as a difficult family, a couple living with two young adult children, who liked to play games, argue about the rules, and desert their guests:

It was inevitable that someone should eventually utilize portions of this eccentricity in a play, and I am only grateful to Fate that no guest of the Hartley Manners [Taylor’s husband] though of writing Hay Fever before I did. ( Present 136)

In spite of its real-life inspiration, and the apparently recognizable link to Taylor and her family, this play did not lead Coward into a conflict with the censor. The play gave Marie Tempest, the first Judith, a great role, although in this instance Coward was happy with the casting but did not write the part specifically for her. After some initial difficulties finding a producer, he was pleased to have the play on stage with a leading lady who would draw audiences: “ Hay Fever is considered by many to be my best comedy” (“Introduction” Parade xi), he wrote.

Actors who saw a preview liked the play but thought it “too theatrical in flavor and too thin in plot” (Coward Present 214), while Coward says the critics “referred to the play variously as being dull, amusing, thin, slight, tedious, witty and brittle” (215). Audiences who saw the play after it opened in London in 1925 loved it, however, and it ran for 337 performances at the Ambassadors Theatre (Mander and Mitchenson Coward 103), a remarkably long run for the time. The unnamed reviewer from The Times writing in June 1925 describes the terrible treatment of the guests and the flirting, then adds: “it will be seen that it is all, as usual, Mr. Coward’s fun. All the better fun, be it added, for being punctuated, as usual, with Mr. Coward’s wit” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson Coward 108). By using his playful side in a Wildean manner, Coward was able to please audiences by substituting fun for a conventional story.

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Coward understood this is an unusual play, that “it has no plot at all, and remarkably little action” (“Introduction” Parade xi). Yet the audience reaches the end of a performance of Hay Fever feeling like a lot has happened, partly because, as Innes suggests, “cause-and-effect” is replaced by a series of “activities” ( Modern 274). To make this structure work, Coward, like Wilde with Earnest , incorporates some of the traits of farce. Returning to Eric Bentley’s analysis of the form, Hay Fever is a play about a family doing unthinkable things; there is some pursuit, an eventual escape and frenetic activities to create a sense of speed. The play becomes a sustained theatrical inside joke that the family shares with the audience but not the guests, and if farces are “a regression to the irresponsibility of childhood” ( Life 298), the Bliss family spends most of their time in a farcical space. Like the young people in Earnest , they exist in a constructed world free of normal social consequences.

The family invites guests to their home without either the means or the skill to make them comfortable, an enormous breach of the expected hospitality of a country house weekend. They are mischief makers, subverting the rules of etiquette and fair play. Most of the first act is spent gradually revealing that all four family members have invited guests for the weekend without telling each other or the staff, and that all the visitors will be arriving shortly. Each family member has invited their own guest: young Sorel the older diplomat, Richard; her brother Simon the modern Myra; their mother young, sporty Sandy; and their father innocent, young Jackie. Where Wilde has Cecily and Gwendolyn break the social contract of tea, the Bliss family undermines a whole series of rules. They have a large country house, again with a living hall, described as “very comfortable and extremely untidy” ( Hay Fever 501). As suggested earlier, such a space with its many doors suits a play with farcical elements. Unfortunately, this is a smart house that a single servant, a former dresser, simply cannot keep smart. Just as Victoria in Maugham’s Home and Beauty is too selfish to keep servants, it seems the Bliss family also drives them away. When she learns with far too little notice about all the guests, Clara tells them it is not fate that leaves the home unprepared, but “arrant selfishness” (517). Like Algernon in Earnest with the cucumber sandwiches, the family relies on servants to support their behaviour.

The guests’ arrival and departure best illustrate the carelessness of the Bliss family. The guests are not met at the train or the door. Their luggage is left on the step until Richard and Sorel bring it all in. Sorel is the family member who recognizes and comments on their lack of manners, and we learn that part of her attraction to the much older Richard is his knowledge of the rules. No

180 age is given for Richard, but photos from the original production of Athole Stewart show a gray- haired man who looks at least as old as W. Graham Browne, who played the father, David (Mander and Mitchenson Coward ). The guests feel so deserted that Richard and Jackie wonder if the solace of afternoon tea will be denied them as well. When tea is served, this ritual also fails to bring people together, as the manners and social skills of Richard and Myra cannot save the situation: “The Blisses won’t make polite conversation. They continue to be vague and uninterested in their guests” (Lahr 51). The next morning, when the guests cannot stand this inhospitable home and family any longer, their exit is assisted by the inattention of the family, who are arguing over breakfast. The production pictures show the guests passing right behind the family with their luggage, in a way that seems to imply they must be seen but are being deliberately ignored (Mander and Mitchenson Coward ). The play ends as the family reacts to the slamming of the door, declares the guests rude, David says, “People really do behave in the most extraordinary manner these days” ( Hay Fever 576), and the family resumes its breakfast. The family expects better treatment than they are capable of offering. Where Wilde playfully used small breaches of etiquette within a farcical context, such as Cecily’s attack on Gwendolyn by serving her cake instead of bread-and-butter, Coward playfully makes the action out of the destruction of a country house weekend, full of unthinkable breaches of good manners.

Another change from the usual country house play is the pacing. In his article “A Hasty Kind of Genius: Noel Coward’s Hay Fever ,” Donald Anderson suggests that some of the speed of the play is created by Coward’s attempt to reflect how people actually talk (50). Coward felt the play marked a shift in his writing, that in Hay Fever “my dialogue was becoming more natural and less elaborate, and I was beginning to concentrate more on the comedy values of situation rather than the comedy values of actual lines” ( Present 179). The second act of the play begins at speed with a fast-paced word game, and the romantic entanglements that follow sustain the sense of momentum through to the end of the act. We jump into Act II after dinner, and the stage directions inform us that “Everyone is talking and arguing. The following scene should be played with great speed” ( Hay Fever 534). They are playing an adverb game called “In the Manner of the Word,” suited to this family of performers but a trial for the guests, and requiring much moving around and acting. As they try to learn the rules, help choose a word and then perform designated actions in the manner of the word, the guests are confused and insulted. Jackie offers “Appendicitis” as an adverb, while Richard works well with “saucily” – until he

181 discovers he has used the wrong word (537-8), The game falls apart when Sorel, the one family member who seemed to have some manners, has a fit of temper. Watching these adults petulantly play games on stage makes good theatre, however, and is more theatrical than Maugham’s card games.

The breakdown of formal game-playing leads to a series of new games, as each family member takes a greater interest in someone else’s guest than they showed in their own in Act I. In less than two pages, Coward realigns all the connections. Judith is left alone with Richard, who eventually kisses her, causing her to shift into theatrical mode. Coward describes her as “enjoying herself” (545) as she turns the kiss into an elopement before pushing the bewildered diplomat into the garden. Judith then catches Sorel and Sandy kissing in the library, and nobly gives her daughter to her guest. Sorel has returned to some level of sense, and tries to gently disconnect herself from Sandy. She makes the game clear: “I was only playing up—one always plays up to mother in this house; it’s a sort of unwritten law” (548). Sorel then carefully explains that it was not love, just the circumstances, undermining both the scene and a thousand comedies:

You kissed me because you were awfully nice and I was awfully nice and we both liked kissing very much. It was inevitable. Then mother found us and got dramatic—her sense of the theatre is always fatal. She knows we shan’t marry, the same as you and I do. (549)

Then David and Myra enter, and he assaults her until she gives in. When they are caught by Judith, husband and wife “negotiate the situation like seasoned troopers who have been here before” (Anderson 54). The act begins to wind down after Simon returns to announce his engagement to Jackie and a hopelessly confused Richard returns from the garden. There may not be much plot in this scene per se, but it certainly feels like much has happened, as couples form, break apart and reform in a way that reveals the game playing in all country house romances. Coward seems to be playing with the conventions of farce and comedy in a Wildean way, overturning expectations and creating a sense of action by having a series of events occur with some speed.

Maintaining the sense of farce, Hay Fever becomes an extended joke, ultimately examining “artists and the function of theatre” (Innes Modern 271-2). Because the Blisses are so busy

182 performing, they are incapable of treating anything, including the basics of hospitality, with due respect. As Jack, Algernon, Cecily and Gwendolyn play with mistaken identity and imaginary roles, friends and relationships, this family understands that there is something performative about their lives and behaviour. The audience is let in on the joke in Act I when Judith tries to learn the names of the flowers as if they were lines in a play, but cannot master her new role. She tells her children, “I’m much more dignified on the stage than in the country—it’s my milieu . I’ve tried terribly hard to be ‘landed gentry,’ but without any real success” ( Hay Fever 515). She performs everything, “puts a well-mannered face on every tribulation she can manufacture” (Lahr 53), and once she starts, she cannot stop the game (53). As Sorel tells Sandy, the family always plays along, almost as though they are appeasing a difficult child. Judith is at the centre of the shenanigans in Act II, but the guests do not know it all revolves around her. When Myra rebels against her role in the game at the end of Act II, she must be silenced because she refuses to play. The family unites against her, using “language in a way that is entirely comprehensible to them but leaves their guests high and dry” (Eltis “Bringing” 213). They react by staging, for the second time, a scene from one of Judith’s plays, a “melodrama about emotional games, illusions, and family discord” (Anderson 47). The inside joke completely excludes the guests, who remain unaware that they are seeing a play even as they become its second audience. The play-within-a-play also ends with an obvious link to Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance. Both it and the second act end with “Don’t strike! He is your father!” ( Hay Fever 560), an echo of Mrs. Arbuthnot’s “Stop, Gerald, stop! He is your own father!” at the end of Act III of A Woman of No Importance (503). Performance seems to be the only thing this family is able to treat seriously.

The childishness of the family permeates this play, and strengthens the farcical atmosphere. They live in a theatrical, created world where the lines between performance and reality are blurred. Like the characters in Earnest , they seem unaware of any potential consequences for their actions, and it seems there will be none. As Innes suggests: “There is no pain for these artists in any of the revelations of discoveries that have occurred, since their adulteries, elopements and engagements only existed in their own fevered imaginations” ( Modern 275). Once the guests are gone, there is no need to apologize, no sense that their behaviour will change, it seems likely the next unfortunate visitors will suffer a similar fate. Coward uses some of Wilde’s techniques, building on aspects of farce, to depict a new group in Society, one failing

183 to learn the old rules because, for them “nothing could be more damning than to be normal” (Lahr 44). They seem to lack purpose, but that gives them more time to play. This family never seems bored. Bryden suggests that one message of the play is that “the talented are brilliant in their own sphere, but only with grave national danger can you let your daughter marry one” (“Halfway” 54). The Bliss family is fun to watch, but like the shallow characters in The Importance of Being Earnest , or Victoria in Home and Beauty , they are too self-centred to live with.

6.6 Private Lives

It seems fitting that a discussion that began with Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan , a play that brought the comedy of manners back to the English stage, helped changed the way fallen women were treated in theatre, and is still performed today, should end with a play that was equally revolutionary in its equality, energy and frank discussions of sex, and also remains part of the repertory. Lahr writes that in Private Lives , the “old values” are gone, along with “old narrative stage conventions” (59). The play manages, like Wilde’s best work, to both embody its time and somehow to speak beyond it. Lahr describes the play as “a plotless play for purposeless people” (59), but Coward treats lacking purpose differently from Maugham. Instead of condemning such a life, Coward seems to see it as fine if one is either artistic or entertaining. Rattigan thought the play was one of Coward’s best:

Private Lives deals with a theme of timeless and universal significance – the equation of love and hatred – and that it deals with it not only with grace and wisdom and hilarity, but with an objective truth that endows it with that touching quality that is so often the concomitant of great comedy. (xx)

This is perhaps the secret of Private Lives. It is funnier than either The Vortex or Easy Virtue , but seems deeper than the equally hilarious Hay Fever because it is tinged with other emotions. Coward adds nostalgia, regret and passion to the usual comic staples of love and jealousy, and has fun with them all. We see Amanda and Elyot struggling with the aftermath of their socially unacceptable behaviour, but this time there is no Wildean forgiveness, no retreat back into Society. Instead this play provides a less complete, more ambiguous, perhaps more modern ending.

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Private Lives was written to showcase Coward and his favourite performing partner, Gertrude Lawrence. In a letter to Gladys Calthrop, he describes the play as “completely trivial except for one or two slaps but it will be fun to play” (qtd. in Day 170). Coward considered the play “a shrewd and witty comedy, well-constructed in the whole, but psychologically unstable” ( Present 322). He also felt thoughtful casting was critical for the piece because it required two experienced comic actors to handle the forty minutes of dialogue before the fight in Act II (“Introduction” Parade xiii). In addition to Coward and Lawrence, the original production also included Laurence Olivier as Victor. The play had a London run of 101 performances at the Phoenix Theatre beginning in September 1930, limited by Coward’s three-month rule. He reports that “our three months’ limited engaged was sold out during the first week” (Coward Present 338). The play could have run much longer. Ivor Brown, reviewing the play for the Weekend Review in October 1930, seems to have trouble reconciling how “so flimsy a trifle” can also be “a species of magic,” but praises its sense of “improvisation” (qtd. in Mander and Mitchenson Coward 213). There is something special about Private Lives, and both Coward and Brown sensed it.

Part of the fun of Private Lives is the structure of the play. From the beginning, the symmetrical staging with the two identical terraces creates a sense that things will happen in parallel. Much is repeated in this comedy; the surprise comes through seeing how it will play out. The play also reverses more than two thousand years of comedic tradition by beginning rather than ending with marriage, thus building on Wildean paradox. Innes writes:

Conventional romantic comedies end with the marriage of all eligible couples, signalling social renewal through sanctified union. Coward’s love story reverses the pattern and inverts its symbolic significance, opening with marriages that immediately fall apart – then holding up as the ideal a relationship where quarrels are proof of passion, while peaceful amity betrays indifference. ( Modern 279)

From the beginning, Coward subtly reveals that both new partners are unsuitable. Elyot says he wants a different kind of love that is “wise, and kind, and undramatic… to smooth out your nerves when you’re tired” ( Private Lives 186), but it sounds far too dull for him. Victor follows the husbands in too many plays of the period by calling Amanda “poor child,” but she refreshingly tells him not to be “pompous” because she was “never a poor child” (192). She then

185 tells him she loves him “much more calmly” than she loved Elyot (192). Both Victor and Sibyl annoy their new partners, asking about their first honeymoons, insisting their new spouse was the wronged party in the earlier marriage, and steadfastly refusing to leave the hotel and go to Paris when asked. Amanda may tell Elyot not to be melodramatic, but his assertion that “There’s no escape, ever” (205) sounds right. Coward has trapped Elyot and Amanda in a loop, of sorts, that they can only escape together.

Repetition and parallels continue to drive the play, but in Act II at the flat in Paris they are embodied more in the dialogue. We watch Amanda and Elyot approach and then retreat from fighting twice by using their code word but, as Edgar suggests, we know this tactic will inevitably fail.

when the escaped Amanda and Elyot have obliging reiterated the code of ‘Solomon Isaacs’ as an emergency stop mechanism at moments of potential catastrophe, we know that when one of them and then the other has used it successfully, the first one will try it a third time and it will fail, not because of the observable psychology of the situation but because that’s how things happen in plays. (13)

Coward reinforces the parallels between their new marriages, but also emphasizes the connection between Amanda and Elyot through the dialogue. They are far more playful with words, and more adept at “innuendo” and “subtext” (Lahr 64) than their new partners. How music and performance become part of the action is difficult to assess from the written text of the play, but Amanda and Elyot sing, and Elyot plays the piano, another subtle form of communication (Private Lives 197, 230). Amanda and Elyot are not artists or writers, but they do follow Nicky and the Bliss family by performing, reminding the audience that much of ordinary life is a show.

In Private Lives , as in Earnest , the “characters play by their own rules” (Lahr 86). Amanda and Elyot function far better as a couple when they are playing than when they attempt to be serious. The Paris apartment setting of Act II is perfect for their fantasy world. Leggatt writes that

it looks like a perfect place of escape for lovers to be alone. The apartments above and below are empty, the one phone call is a wrong number, and as the act opens Elyot and Amanda have finished dinner, sent the maid home, and are lounging about, Amanda in pajamas and Elyot in a dressing-gown. (81)

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Masters of flippancy, one can start a flight of fancy and the other usually plays along. In Act II, Amanda is able to shift the tone of a tricky conversation into fantasy, making it progressively sillier, until Elyot talks about Lady Bundle “at supper blowing all those shrimps out of her ear trumpet” ( Private Lives 197). Elyot wants them to refuse to be serious, to “enjoy the party as much as we can, like very small, quite idiotic school-children” (232). They are trying to occupy the kind of farcical space inhabited by Jack, Algernon, Gwendolyn and Cecily, where silliness rules and actions have few consequences. They are safely in love as long they remain in this private space, and avoid discussing their past relationship, their years apart, their present situation or their possible future. They are eventually unable to sustain their sense of play and begin to fight again, until they are rolling around on the floor as Sibyl and Victor come in. Coward’s careful construction of the parallels between the couples and the advances and retreats of this act all end in comic violence worthy of low farce.

One possible reason why Elyot and Amanda cannot inhabit the child-like space of Earnest is that they are in an adult, openly sexual relationship. Like Maugham, particularly in plays like The Constant Wife , Coward tries to deal with the subject more openly, gradually shifting how sexual matters could be discussed on stage. With this play he discusses not only the fact of sex, the need for sex and children in a normal relationship, or the link between economic independence and sexual freedom, but also some of its practicalities. Beginning with The Vortex , Coward portrays characters who are sexually active, and at least implies it on stage. Florence’s affairs were not new to the stage, but the implication in Act I that Nicky and Bunty knew each other intimately prior to marriage was unusual (451-2). Larita in Easy Virtue takes pride in being more open about sexual matters than the other women in the play. By Private Lives, sex draws Elyot and Amanda together, but also drives them apart. Coward uses frank discussions of sex to have Amanda hurt Elyot, first by having her admit to a series of lovers between their separation and reunion, then by having her reject him because it is too soon after dinner. There is much wit in this act, as they argue and play and argue again, but Leggatt suggests that sometimes it is “an angry, hurt wit” because comedy does not heal everything (138). Amanda and Elyot cannot sustain behaving like young children, inhabiting a space full of play like the world of Earnest , because they are in an adult relationship with grown up emotions like jealousy and desire. Jealousy in theatre nearly always leads to ridicule or violence; it does not fit into Wilde’s innocent world of child-like play.

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As suggested earlier, the situation Amanda and Elyot create is beyond the help of etiquette. Some critics suggest that they are living in a world without consequences, but a close reading of the play contradicts that idea. Social criticism is not at the forefront of Private Lives , and Coward does not work with the level of detail we see in Wilde’s work, but these characters are wealthy enough to have some social status, and are aware that their situation will have implications. Amanda and Elyot are hiding in the flat, stating that they have stayed in the past three nights. They make excuses, but they seem to be avoiding people they know, enjoying this interval before they face the judgements of others. Amanda acknowledges that they are “living in sin” and “in the hell of a mess socially” ( Private Lives 219). After Victor and Sibyl arrive in Act III, both couples begin to negotiate their separations in a way that acknowledges the realities of the divorce laws. Once Amanda assures Victor that she would “rather marry a boa constrictor” than Elyot (255), he offers to let her divorce him, the gentlemanly option to protect a woman’s reputation. Sibyl is also aware of appearances in this strange situation, and announces that she will wait a year to divorce Elyot. All their plans go awry, however; Amanda and Elyot reunite before breakfast is over, Victor and Sibyl begin to fight and the flight and pursuit begin again. The play ends but the action continues, as it did in Hay Fever.

6.7 Conclusion

Coward may seem an obvious successor to Wilde’s dramaturgy and style, but there is more to Wilde’s influence on Coward than flippancy in dialogue and playfulness in action. Coward also reflects Wilde’s use of paradox, far more strongly than do Hankin or Maugham. Coward seems to rely on motherhood to resolve The Vortex , but Florence lacks the self-awareness and strength of Mrs. Erlynne or Mrs. Arbuthnot. He presents a woman with a past in Easy Virtue , but Larita is unrepentant and unashamed, even though she has been exposed publicly. She is more at peace with herself and her past than any earlier fallen women, including Pearl and Mrs. Erlynne, setting and following her own moral standard. When the Bliss family continually breaches the rules of etiquette, they cannot take pleasure from their transgressions the way Algernon and Cecily do in Earnest because they do not know the rules. Private Lives cannot end with marital reconciliation because Elyot’s and Amanda’s relationship is too complicated, and they seem unable to exercise self-control. All these outcomes suit Coward’s characters, and seem a step forward from the world of Wilde, Hankin and early Maugham. These are modern people, living in a different,

188 post-Great War world. Where Wilde questioned Victorian values, Coward’s comedies instead look forward, showing us the beginnings of modern society.

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Conclusion

This dissertation grew out of a belief that Wilde’s approach to comedy, and its potential effect on some of the plays that followed in the first few decades after his downfall and death, deserved more consideration. It is easy to overlook the depths of Wilde’s comedies as we are entertained by Wilde’s epigrams and his skill with Bentley’s “joking made theatrical” (Life 235). A funny play is a rare and special thing, but more than a sense of humour is required for plays to remain popular with audiences across decades. Wilde’s reworking of existing forms and , his detailed, accurate depiction of Society’s behaviour and values, his determination to demand forgiveness and a future for fallen women or men, and his questioning of what it means to behave badly, when combined with his dexterity as a comic playwright, remain special. He consistently shows that comedies can be complex in their portrayals of characters, social issues and changing values. There is likely more work that could be done exploring the nuances of Wilde’s characters, lines, and stage directions and their meaning for the original audiences of his plays. By providing a way for comic playwrights to be both fun and deep, Wilde created space for Hankin, Maugham and Coward.

There is more work to do on the playwrights who followed Wilde. Hankin is underestimated as a playwright and his works would stand up to further scrutiny. Again, there are many nuances in his dialogue and stage directions that a modern audience might miss, such as the way he communicates detailed information about social class by having Mrs. Jackson move a chair. While he did not enjoy the London popularity of Maugham or Coward, the reasons behind his success in regional theatres deserve consideration. Did London audiences object to his endings, or did he take his critique of Society and its values too far?

Maugham’s plays have received comparatively little critical attention and this dissertation has chosen to focus on just a few of them. There are a number of other plays that warrant additional examination. Maugham’s use of the colonies and continent as places to send troublesome characters is a link with Wilde, but may also be a tactic in other plays of the period. Also, Maugham and Hankin include more working-class characters than Wilde or Coward. There is work that could be done both to explain why the working classes are left out, and to see what they contribute when they are depicted. Hankin and Maugham show that young working-class

190 women have more freedom than women from the upper classes, who must marry well to have any autonomy.

Coward continues Wilde’s legacy, but also shows a new way forward. As suggested, if Wilde, Hankin and Maugham’s characters struggle because they break the rules, Coward’s refuse to acknowledge that there are rules. They happily disregard social expectations, but perhaps that is also why they are so often on the move. They may be better at showing how to break with social expectations than living in a society when there is no standard for conduct.

The links between Wilde and Joe Orton or Tom Stoppard are often cited, but there may also be other successors to Wilde’s style of comedy. When one perceives of being Wildean as more than wit or silliness or the use of certain character types, there are likely traces of his influence throughout twentieth-century British comedy and beyond. In addition to the playwrights discussed here, there appear to be links between Wilde and a variety of popular British comic playwrights, including Ben Travers, Terrence Rattigan and Alan Ayckbourn. Ben Travers’s Aldwych farces are not as socially astute as farces by Wilde or Maugham, but he is adept at adding weight to comical onstage situations. An audience in the 1920s would recognize that a series of innocent acts in Rookery Nook have created circumstances suggesting adultery, witnessed by a servant. The stakes in this farce are higher than they appear today because under such suspicions a young husband might lose the wife he loves. Rattigan’s comic plays, like French Without Tears (1936) show traces of Wilde’s style of comedy, but his more serious plays suggest another direction for future research. Rattigan’s tragic depiction of characters terrified of being boring in After the Dance (1939) implies that there may be more plays to uncover that explore the effects of idleness. Finally, Ayckbourn seems to continue Wilde, Hankin, Maugham and Coward’s investigation into the requirements for a good marriage through plays like Bedroom Farce . As three couples in three bedrooms in three different houses deal with the aftermath created by a fourth couple’s perpetual feuding, he is able to critique modern marriage. The conditions for a successful stage marriage would make a fascinating study.

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