What I liked
The performances and “look” overall and how I felt moved.
What I didn't like
Transitions between scenes were a tiny bit clunky. Not much though. Honestly, I do wish it were full length, diving deeper into this specific time of his life.
My overall impression
Oscar Wilde’s life in its own proved epic, enough to inspire many a retelling, which if you added up together might prove longer than Game of Thrones yet still leave so much unexplored! This one act play focuses squarely on the last weeks or months of Wilde’s life, and yeah leaves us wanting more. Most good plays do. Like a haiku, it seeks to evoke more than anything else a sense of “might have been.” Wilde did not deserve what happened to him, yet in his world, his society, many thought he got off easy with losing his family, income, good name, liberty and health. Immersed as he was in his own time (as who of us is not) that negativity did reach him, and created a fear his works would be forgotten. We know that fear groundless, which makes us wish to comfort him. Just as we long to tell him the world will change, then perhaps look around and realize that change—tolerance, forgiveness, even kindness—disgusts some. Wilde’s struggle remains poignant because it remains vivid. Not of which works without a good production, with good actors breathing life into these specific people at these specific times. Here it works, not as some sweeping biographical chronicle but as a look at some moments in a famous man’s life, giving meaning according the heart of the audience member
