Review: OSCAR WILDE: FROM THE DEPTHS
By Toby Zinman
For the Inquirer
Oscar Wilde: From the Depths, is a bio-drama about the author of some of the most delightfully witty social comedies ever written. Lantern Theater Company is presenting the world premiere of Charles McMahon's play where delight, wit, social comedy and general theatrical joy are in very short supply. This is Wilde in earnest mode, sloshing around in self-pity and sentimentality, reciting long passages from Wilde's books as though they were conversation. The play's subtitle is the English version of De Profundis, Wilde's long letter to his lover, Bosie, which he wrote while in prison for "gross indecency."
The three outstanding actors give this show life. Marc Levasseur, who comes to the Lantern with impressive Off-Broadway classical credits, looks quite like Wilde; he has the right elegant male beauty, the height, the graceful hands.
David Bardeen and Jered McLenigan, both very accomplished actors, play a variety of roles, shifting from character to character, from accent to accent in a dazzling display of virtuosity. The script requires that they play even more roles in voice-overs, which often has a silly kind of Wizard of Oz effect.
Oscar Wilde: From the Depths takes up the sad, puzzling story of how a man who was the toast of London, who could see through and mock every hypocrisy, refused to escape the legal disaster that ended his life. The story has inspired endless speculation—biographical, scholarly, and dramatic—each author trying to understand how and why Wilde threw away his freedom: was he a fool for love? Hubristically sure he would win in the courts? Courageously defying an unjust homophobic law? Or what?
When, near the end of this overlong play, Wilde's friend Frank Harris, his literary editor, says, "You are a mystery to me, Oscar," he seems to be speaking for the playwright. And I couldn't tell what McMahon wrote and what he was quoting from Wilde, but I found, to my horror, that I was agreeing with the wretched little creep, Bosie: "I am tired of this endless, canting drivel. I don't want dreary, I want fun." Who would have thought it? Oscar Wilde has become a bore.
The set, designed by Lance Kniskern, is a grim prison, but the lighting (Shon Causer) seems random rather than evocative. M. Craig Getting directs.
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Lantern Theater Company, 10th & Ludlow Sts. Through Feb.14. Tickets $24-39. Information: 215-829-0395 or lanterntheater.org