Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

In the spring of 1895, Oscar Wilde was the most celebrated playwright in London — An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest were both playing in the West End. By the end of May he was in prison, sentenced to two years' hard labor for "gross indecency". Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde tells the story of that crushing downfall: the libel suit Wilde brought against the Marquess of Queensberry — the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas — and the two criminal trials that followed when the suit collapsed. He died in destitution three years later. Moisés Kaufman's play, first staged Off-Broadway in 1997, is created from the historical record: trial transcripts, letters, newspaper accounts, memoirs, and Wilde's own writings. The result is part courtroom drama, part Greek tragedy — a company of actors taking on dozens of roles to examine not just what happened to Wilde, but what his trials reveal about art, morality, celebrity, and the law. The questions the play raises were recognized and debated in 1895, were highly relevant in 1997 when the play was first produced, and resonate just as strongly today when questions of identity and gender are still contentious to the point of violence. Kaufman however goes beyond a simple moralistic story (as evidenced by the quote above, which he uses to frame his play). Wilde is extraordinary not only in his intellect and wit but also in his arrogance and disregard for so many people he uses in his pursuit of pleasure. Human nature in all its complexity is on full display here. Kaufman went on to write and direct The Laramie Project, one of the most performed plays in the American repertoire, exploring some of the same issues in a more contemporary context. Gross Indecency was his breakthrough though — named one of the year's best plays by Time, the New York Times, and many others. It remains his most theatrically daring work, confronting the relationship between societal norms and individual freedom, draw

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