'Oscar Wilde: From the Depths' at the Lantern (second review)

In the Lantern Theater Company’s new play Oscar Wilde: From the Depths, the question is raised once again and still not answered. The production is based on De Profundis, a letter Wilde wrote from prison to his young lover (Lord Alfred Douglas, otherwise known as Bosie), but fails to delve profoundly into the issue.

The play, by Charles McMahon, artistic director and cofounder of the Lantern Theater Company, begins when Wilde (Marc LeVasseur) is brought into prison and quickly realizes the trials that await him. Stripped of his intellectual and social pursuits, he is left to toil at meaningless tasks. While doing so, he relives the circumstances that have brought him to this moment. David Bardeen and Jered McLenigan play the guards who torture him as well as standing in for characters in his imagination, switching rapidly from part to part as friends, lover, and judge.

Which Wilde?

One of the challenges of writing about Wilde is choosing which Wilde to portray. McMahon starts with an already despairing Wilde who has just been thrown into Reading Gaol. There are disadvantages to this choice. LeVasseur’s Wilde is more Byronesquely tragic than witty, making it hard to understand what made Wilde so popular. He is quickly stripped of his arrogance, so when the guard says he wants to beat it out of him, we’re not sure what he’s referring to. Even in flashbacks, Wilde is more downtrodden than triumphant.

The language of the play, some taken directly from De Profundis, often feels laden with meaning rather than sense, and the quick changes from character to character, while always clear, mean that it’s hard to get connected to anyone in particular. One of the most significant characters in the story should have been Bosie, for whom Wilde seems to have sacrificed all, but because McLenigan plays him amongst a host of other characters, it’s hard to see what about Bosie might have ensnared Wilde and led to his downfall. There is a poignant moment in the second act where Bosie confronts Wilde, saying he is bored with his problems, but just as Wilde is about to respond, McLenigan is back to being the guard, and the moment is over.

The acting is strong, and the character changes are handled brilliantly. The set (by Lance Kniskern) is a barren set of platforms with bars and a treadmill in the rear. It’s a depressing place, with patterns of light (by lighting designer Shon Causer) emphasizing the dreariness of a prison.

What’s new?

Last season, Mickle Street gave us Wilde as a charming youth flaunting his style and his wit, and Oscar depicted Wilde’s fall from grace and his time in prison in operatic form. Both were staged in the context of the year’s LGBT victories in the courts, and Wilde’s prosecution could be seen as illuminating the travesties of prejudice in a previous era. This new production doesn’t bring any new insight: The Wilde that emerges here is a sad man who became infatuated with a spoiled brat who used him and then deserted him, not a hero fighting for a cause.

Perhaps it’s time to go back to Wilde’s body of work to understand what made him popular in his time and to see if it still holds up today.

For Thom Nickels’s review, click here.