It would seem that in some mysterious way, all things pointed to
success for Wilde as a playwright. His love for gorgeous scenes, for
spectacular effects, for swift surprises, for witty dialogue, for
neat, staccato sentences, for the brilliant social life, for silver
laughter--all these were ingredients for success on the boards. More,
in his essays, we find the result of his study of the theater, a study
concerning itself sagely with stage, with scenery, with effects, with
management. As spectator and as critic, he accumulated a vast store of
knowledge and we find him, in _Lady Windermere’s Fan_, experimenting
with that knowledge. As Shaw pointed out, Wilde played with everything;
with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with
the whole theater.
Wilde’s appearance on the English stage was as a bright star in a dark
sky. His advent caused a flutter like the advent of Sheridan. It was
a time when the theater had sunk, when stage craft had slipped into
the slough of spectacularity. People flocked, here to see the dresses
that Mrs. Patrick Campbell wore, there to see Wilson Barrett in the
lime light with his subordinates duly subordinate, to another place
to gaze at the spectacles provided by Augustus Harris, to the music
halls for an exhibition of strong animal spirits and physical agility,
to the Lyceum to bathe in the heroics of Henry Irving, to melodramas,
to pantomimes, to acting versions of old plays that were little more
than falsifications. “Nobody goes to the theater,” wrote Shaw in 1896,
“except the people who also go to Madame Tussaud’s. Nobody writes for
it, unless he is hopelessly stage struck and cannot help himself. It
has no share of the leadership of thought; it does not even reflect
the current. It does not create beauty; it apes fashion. It does not
produce personal skill; our actors and actresses, with the exceptions
of a few persons of natural gifts and graces, mostly miscultivated
or half cultivated, are simply the middle class section of the
residuum. The curt insult with which Matthew Arnold dismissed it from
consideration found it and left it utterly defenseless.” And it was
into a theater world thus described, that Oscar Wilde stepped with his
skill and cultivated taste.
The situation was much as it is today in the world of moving picture
production, a situation extremely demoralizing to true art in which, by
what we may call the star system, a few short sighted managers strive
to obtain vast wealth. I say demoralizing to art, because in time the
public wearies of its stars, and, having been educated to no standard,
deserts the field. I point to the moving picture world as analogy,
because in spite of all the advertisements of the correspondence
schools featuring scenario work as the way to fame, it is pretty well
admitted that today plays are written for actors, for stars, and actors
do not exist to act. Therefore we have, perforce, so much that is
sensational, childish or merely vulgar; so little on the screen that is
artistic.
But Wilde with his wit, his gentle mirth, and, above all, his pose as
egotist, took London by storm. It was a real triumph of ability over
ineptitude. There was a delightful page written by A. B. Walkeley
in the _Speaker_ at the time _Lady Windermere’s Fan_ was produced,
a passage that gives an admirable picture of not only the play,
but the author, and it is easy to imagine the astonishment of the
fashionable audience at the St. James’s Theater. “The man or woman who
does not chuckle with delight at the good things which abound in _Lady
Windermere’s Fan_ should consult a physician at once; delay would be
dangerous. Of Mr. Oscar Wilde’s coming forward at the end, cigarette
in hand, to praise his players, like a preface of Victor Hugo, and to
commend his own play, ‘of which I am sure, ladies and gentlemen, you
estimate the merits almost as highly as I do myself,’ you will already
have read. I am still chortling ... at its exquisite impertinence.”
There was something new indeed for London: piquancy, pungency,
wit, ingenious situations--to cap all, a throwing overboard of the
conventional self-depreciation and a public self glorification. Wilde,
clever, lucky, amiable, was a Beaumarchais redivivus. He walked into
his place like a monarch: considered his new position to be his
birthright. Life became to him as a holiday. I think that my friend
Haldeman-Julius hit the mark when he said to me, one day, that Wilde
would live for posterity as Sheridan has lived. There is a singular
resemblance between the two men indeed. Lord Byron, the friend of
Sheridan, has left on record his opinion that he had never heard nor
conceived of a more extraordinary conversationalist: has told us how
men spent nights listening to him: has told us that no one equaled him
at a supper: has told us how he retained his wit even when drunk. It
is Wilde to a hair. There was, in Wilde, the sparkling individuality
of the author of _The School for Scandal_, the sustained brilliancy,
the infinite variety, the inexhaustible vigor. Both men had the art of
repartee, of heaping witticism on witticism and happy phrase on phrase
in a fine crescendo. Both had the gift of satire--not the satire of
Swift to biting and stinging, but the satire of La Bruyère, a satire
that hides behind a gracious smile. One is inclined to think that the
plays are too good for acting, so swiftly comes arrow after arrow of
wit.
_Vicomte de Nanjac (approaching)._ Ah, the English young lady is
the dragon of good taste, is she not? Quite the dragon of good
taste.
_Lord Goring._ So the newspapers are always telling us.
_Vicomte de Nanjac._ I read all your English newspapers. I find
them so amusing.
_Lord Goring._ Then, my dear Nanjac, you must certainly read
between the lines.
_Vicomte de Nanjac._ I should like to, but my professor objects.
(_To_ MABEL CHILTERN.) May I have the pleasure of escorting you to
the music-room, Mademoiselle?
_Mabel Chiltern (looking very disappointed)._ Delighted, Vicomte,
quite delighted! (_Turning to_ LORD GORING.) Aren’t you coming to
the music-room?
_Lord Goring._ Not if there is any music going on, Miss Mabel.
_Mabel Chiltern (severely)._ The music is in German. You would
not understand it. (_Goes out with the_ VICOMTE DE NANJAC. LORD
CAVERSHAM _comes up to his son_.)
_Lord Caversham._ Well, sir! what are you doing here? Wasting your
life as usual. You should be in bed, sir. You keep too late hours!
I heard of you the other night at Lady Rufford’s dancing till four
o’clock in the morning!
_Lord Goring._ Only a quarter to four, father.
_Lord Caversham._ Can’t make out how you stand London society. The
thing has gone to the dogs, a lot of damned nobodies talking about
nothing.
_Lord Goring._ I love talking about nothing, father. It is the only
thing I know anything about.
_Lord Caversham._ You seem to me to be living entirely for pleasure.
_Lord Goring._ What else is there to live for, father? Nothing ages
like happiness.
--_An Ideal Husband (Act I.)_
I choose, deliberately, the less talked of portions of the plays I
quote. Here again:
_Lady Hunstanton._ We who are wives don’t belong to any one.
_Lady Stutfield._ Oh, I am so very, very glad to hear you say so.
_Lady Hunstanton._ But do you really think, dear Caroline, that
legislation would improve matters in any way? I am told that,
nowadays, all the married men live like bachelors, and all the
bachelors like married men.
_Mrs. Allonby._ I certainly never know one from the other.
_Lady Stutfield._ Oh, I think one can always know at once whether
a man has home claims upon his life or not. I have noticed a very,
very sad expression in the eyes of so many married men.
_Mrs. Allonby._ Ah, all that I have noticed is that they are
horribly tedious when they are good husbands, and abominably
conceited when they are not.
_Lady Hunstanton._ Well, I suppose the type of husband has
completely changed since my young days, but I’m bound to state that
poor dear Hunstanton was the most delightful of creatures, and as
good as gold.
_Mrs. Allonby._ Ah, my husband is a sort of promissory note; I am
tired of meeting him.
_Lady Caroline._ But you renew him from time to time, don’t you?
_Mrs. Allonby._ Oh no, Lady Caroline. I have only had one husband
as yet. I suppose you look upon me as quite an amateur.
_Lady Caroline._ With your views on life I wonder you married at
all.
_Mrs. Allonby._ So do I.
--_A Woman of No Importance (Act II.)_
Compare such a discharge of wit with the current popular “Revue” with
its slap stick farce, its reference to booze, to negroes, to sporting
drummers and the absurd bids for applause by a little thrown in about
the flag--and let us hope that we may produce a Wilde.
But for sheer color and gorgeous vision, Wilde achieved nothing better
than his unpublished Burmese Masque, _For Love of the King_. As in a
lightning flash the eye takes in a scene of wondrous richness. King
Beng on his ruby sewn cushion; the blinding blue of an eastern sky; the
hundred waiting elephants; the peacocks; the silken banners “propelled
with measured rhythm”; the tables and chairs piled high with fruits
on golden dishes; the flower crowned courtiers and dancing girls,
some half nude, others splendidly robed. But everywhere that intense
brightness of a sunlit scene. There is little in the Masque that
would make it attractive to a stage manager, much that should attract
a scenario man. Indeed, it reads as though Wilde had visualized the
possibilities of the screen world. I copy from Act II, Scene I:
“The jungle once more. Time; noonday. In place of the hut is a
building, half Burmese, half Italian villa, of white, thick wood,
with curled roofs rising on roofs gilded and adorned with spiral
carvings and a myriad golden and jewel-incrusted bells. On the
broad verandahs are thrown Eastern carpets, rugs, embroideries.
“The world is sun soaked. The surrounding trees stand sentinel like
in the burning light. Burmese servants squat motionless, smoking on
the broad white steps that lead from the house to the garden. The
crows croak drowsily at intervals. Parrots scream intermittently.
The sound of a guitar playing a Venetian love song can be heard
coming from the interior. Otherwise life apparently sleeps.”
It is an arabesque: it is a something very like that novel Wilde wanted
to write, the novel that was to have been as splendid as a Persian rug;
it is a word weaving in silk and gold and splendid feathers taken from
quetzal, and peacock, and golden crested wren. It is, in a word, Oscar
Wilde in his glory; a free fantasia of description; a rhapsodie of
color.
As may well be imagined, Wilde was the target of the dramatic critics
of his day, especially of those of the malignant type. The type is not
unfamiliar and Coleridge has characterized it.
No private grudge they need, no personal spite;
The _viva sectio_ is its own delight!
All enmity, all envy, they disclaim,
Disinterested thieves of our good name;
Cool, sober murderers of their neighbor’s fame.
But Wilde was no Keats to be wounded by abuse. For instance, consider
his letter to _St. James’s Gazette_ from which I copy a paragraph as
follows:
“... When criticism becomes in England a real art, as it should
be, and when none but those of artistic instincts and artistic
cultivation is allowed to write about works of art, artists will,
no doubt, read criticisms with a certain amount of intellectual
interest. As things are at present, the criticisms of ordinary
newspapers are of no interest whatsoever, except in so far as they
display, in its crudest form, the Boetianism of a country that has
produced some Athenians, and in which some Athenians have come to
dwell.”
Much that passed as adverse criticism of Wilde’s dramatic work,
grew out of personal dislike--some out of scandal which had already
begun to raise a reptant head. There was one Charles Brookfield for
instance, who not only was active in adverse criticism, but also
produced a burlesque on _Lady Windemere’s Fan_ entitled _The Poet and
the Puppets_, the poet being Wilde. It was the same Charles Brookfield
who was largely responsible for collecting the evidence against Wilde,
which brought about his downfall very soon after. Indeed, Brookfield
and a few others entertained Queensberry at a banquet in celebration
of the conviction of Wilde. It was “criticism” of the kind impeached
by Coleridge in a never to be forgotten passage that should not be
lost to the world. “As soon as the critic betrays that he knows more
of his author than the author’s publications could have told him; as
soon as from this more intimate knowledge, elsewhere obtained, he
avails himself of the slightest trait against the author; his censure
immediately becomes personal injury, his sarcasms personal insults.
He ceases to be a critic and takes on him the most contemptible
character to which a rational creature can be degraded, that of a
gossip, backbiter, _pasquillant_; but with this heavy aggravation,
that he steals the unquiet, the deforming passions of the world into
the museum; into the very place which, next to the chapel and oratory,
should be our sanctuary and secure place of refuge; offers abominations
on the altar of the Muses, and makes its sacred paling the very circle
in which he conjures up the lying and profane spirit.” And it is
because of the existence in the Wilde case of so much of that which
Coleridge thundered against, that much of the so-called criticism of
Wilde’s dramatic work must be cast out. But the wonder of it all is
that knowing what was behind, for he must have been cognizant of it,
Wilde fought so well. If ever man died in the last ditch it was he.
Greatly he dared and we love him for his daring. We find him throwing
down the gage to the whole body of critics in a brilliant interview
published in _The Sketch_ of January 9th, 1895, three months before his
downfall, when he knew perfectly well that the dark clouds were rolling
up, and that poison tongues were fast wagging. He is talking to Gilbert
Burgess. Hear him:
“... For a man to be a dramatic critic is as foolish and inartistic
as it would be for a man to be a critic of epics or a pastoral critic
or a critic of lyrics. All modes of art are one, and the modes of art
that employ words as its medium are quite indivisible. The result of
the vulgar specialization of criticism is an elaborate scientific
knowledge of the stage--almost as elaborate as that of the stage
carpenter, and quite on a par with that of the call boy--combined
with an entire incapacity to realize that a play is a work of art or
to receive any artistic impression at all....
“... The aim of the true critic is to try to chronicle his moods,
not to try to correct the masterpieces of others.... Real critics?
Ah, how perfectly charming they would be! I am always waiting for
their arrival. An inaudible school would be nice.... There are just
two real critics in London ... I think I had better not mention
their names; it might make the others jealous ... I do not write to
please cliques. I write to please myself.... It is a burning shame
that there should be one law for men and another law for women. I
think there should be no law for anybody....”
The whole interview is too long to quote and I have taken some of the
salient passages. The complete thing may be read in the New York Daily
Tribune of January 27th, 1895, under the heading _A Highly Artistic
Interview_.