Oscar Wilde CLASSIC Lady DRAMA Windermere’s Fan Performed by Juliet Stevenson Samuel West Emma Fielding Michael Sheen Sarah Badel and full cast NA211112D 1 Act 1 25:04 2 Act 2 28:03 3 Act 3 21:25 4 Act 4 24:40 Total time: 1:39:12 2 Lady Windermere’s Fan Cast Lord Windermere Samuel West Lord Darlington Michael Sheen Lord Augustus Lorton Derek Waring Mr Dumby Peter Yapp Mr Cecil Graham Nicholas Boulton Mr Hopper Benjamin Soames Parker Rod Beacham Lady Windermere Emma Fielding The Duchess of Berwick Sarah Badel Lady Plymdale/Lady Agatha Carlisle Elaine Claxton Lady Jedburgh/Rosalie Delia Paton Mrs Erlynne Juliet Stevenson 3 Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere’s Fan Oscar Fingall O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was aesthete, and were parodied in Gilbert and born in Dublin on October 16, 1854. His Sullivan’s opera Patience (1881). The father was a distinguished surgeon and his following year Wilde took advantage of the mother a poet. After attending Trinity opera’s success by embarking on a lecture College in Dublin, Wilde won a scholarship tour of the United States, during which time to Magdalen College, Oxford in 1874, he wrote a play, Vera, later produced in where he took first class honours and was New York. awarded the Newdigate Prize for poetry. The same year Wilde published a At Oxford Wilde, under the influence of selection of poems, and these were the critics Walter Pater and John Ruskin followed by The Happy Prince and Other and the painter James McNeill Whistler, Stories (1888), The Picture of Dorian Gray espoused the ideals of the ‘aesthetic’ (1890), Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other movement, which asserted the importance Stories (1891), The House of Pomegranates of art in society and its power to influence (1891), and a play, The Duchess of Padua the progress of civilization. which was produced in New York in1891. Wilde’s wit, his extravagant modes of His Salome (1893) was refused a license for dress, his attitude of contempt for the London stage, and was produced in traditional sports and energetic pursuits, Paris by Sarah Bernhardt. caused him to be seen as an effeminate In 1884 Wilde married Constance Lloyd, poseur by his more reactionary fellow by whom he had two sons, Cyril in 1885 students, and resulted in his receiving a and Vyvian in 1886. In addition to his ducking in the Cherwell and his rooms literary output, Wilde supplemented his being wrecked. living by journalism, contributing to various Having moved to London, Wilde’s popular periodicals. handsome looks and brilliant conversation In 1891 Wilde embarked on a succession soon established his position in society. His of plays which were to earn him popular long hair, velvet coat and flowing tie acclaim and an assured place in the became the recognised image of the poetic history of English dramatic writing; Lady 4 Windermere’s Fan (1892), A Woman of time obliged all sexual activity outside No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband marriage to be carried on in secret, an (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest attitude which resulted in the well-known (1895). hypocrisy of the Victorian age. Sexual During this period a homosexual activity between members of the same relationship, which was to have disastrous sex was never openly admitted; consequences, developed between Wilde homosexuality was a criminal offence and and the young Lord Alfred Douglas. Wilde, in company with other practising Douglas’s father, the Marquis of homosexuals, was obliged to hide that Queensberry, learning the nature of his aspect of his life. son’s friendship with Wilde, publicly insulted In the case of men, extramarital affairs him, and Wilde, mistakenly as it turned out, might be overlooked providing they were decided to sue Queensberry for libel. During conducted discreetly and did not interfere the course of one trial at which the jury with the semblance of an orderly social failed to agree and resulted in a consequent existence. But equality between the sexes, retrial, Wilde’s homosexual activities were though widely discussed, was far from revealed and he was condemned to two being established. The rules of sexual years’ imprisonment with hard labour. While conduct for women were considerably in prison Wilde wrote a long accusatory stricter than those for men, and women letter to Douglas, later published as De who broke them suffered severe Profundis, and a powerful narrative poem, consequences in terms of society’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol. After his release retribution. Wilde moved to Paris where he lived In an age when women of the upper under a pseudonym and died in poverty on classes were not expected to earn their 30 November, 1900. living, and where society did not provide In order to appreciate the attitudes any means for them to do so, there were which underlie the narrative of Lady few avenues open for a woman without a Windermere’s Fan, it may be helpful to husband or a fortune. In cases where consider the prevailing public morality of a beautiful woman’s determination to the era in which it was written, and the live well outweighed her fear of society’s author’s own ambivalent position. opprobrium, she was free to choose a more The rigid social and religious rules of the comfortable way of life in which her looks 5 and ability to please were financially goodness – understanding, sympathy and rewarded by wealthy admirers. But such compassion. women were obliged to live a demi- Through rediscovering her maternal mondaine existence outside the magic circle feelings, Mrs Erlynne shows herself capable of ‘decent’ society; they might be popular in of the selfless sacrifice of true love. Lady the company of men, but they would never Windermere understands that she has be received by their wives. It is into this misjudged Mrs Erlynne, and discovers within category that Mrs Erlynne falls. herself the frailty she has condemned in The theme of Lady Windermere’s Fan is others. She learns that there are no ‘bad’ or ‘goodness’; the difference between society’s ‘good’ people, but that the complexity of perception of what it means to be ‘good’, human nature embraces all such qualities. and true ethical goodness; between the Thus Wilde sends a message to his audience public stance of morality, and the private that those who are forced to live outside kindness of a generous nature. Mrs Erlynne, the boundaries of ‘respectable’ society are having left her husband and child for a lover not neccessarily evil, and that those who who deserted her, is seen by society as a consider themselves without stain would do ‘bad’ woman and has been punished for well to look deeper, and accept the failings contravening its laws. She is no longer of others in a spirit of understanding and accepted in respectable houses, and is generosity. obliged to travel abroad, kept by a In the light of what we know of the succession of wealthy lovers. Her heart has double life Wilde was leading at the time he hardened to the extent that she is prepared was writing Lady Windermere’s Fan, it is to blackmail Lord Windermere into paying easy to see why such sentiments lie at the her an allowance, and forcing him to play’s heart. But sadly, once Wilde’s secret become the means of her reinstatement in became public knowledge, it became clear fashionable society. that his message had fallen on deaf ears. Lady Windermere is a ‘good’ woman, in The cruel impulses of human nature, those the sense of being a faithful wife, a loving which envy beauty and talent and hate the mother, and a respectable member of outsider, the same that had motivated the society, but as the result of her youth, her behaviour of his Oxford contemporaries in rigid upbringing and her limited experience the past, now caused a self-righteous of life, she lacks the true qualities of establishment to heap on him a public 6 degradation greater than any which Mrs passionate nature and may well be the Erlynne or her kind might have suffered. author’s self-portrait; the redoubtable Overnight Wilde, the epitome of elegant Duchess of Berwick, a rewarding figure in living, artistic sensitivity and witty her own right, despite being due to insouciance, the darling of theatrical reappear in the future as the even more audiences and fashionable drawing rooms, formidable Lady Bracknell; and Mrs Erlynne, became an outcast, a criminal whose who brings a deeper resonance to what appearance on a Clapham Junction station might otherwise have been a superficially platform in prison clothes elicited jeers and entertaining piece, and gives the play catcalls from a contemptuous crowd. Wilde another, more serious dimension. had climbed high, and he had a long way to In this Naxos AudioBook version we are fall. There is in his fate a sense of the hubris fortunate to have been able to assemble a of Greek tragedy; as if the seeds of his cast worthy of Wilde’s creative genius. I undoing were there from the beginning, hope the listener will forgive my pre- and his downfall was the result of his empting his appreciative response if I quote ambition and pride. the author’s speech to the audience on the However, when on the 20 February 1892 first night of the play, ‘I think that you have Lady Windermere’s Fan opened at the enjoyed the performance as much as I have, St James’s Theatre to rapturous applause, and I am pleased to believe that you like the these tragic events were still in the future.