There are some photos. For instance, he's part of the crowd of artists and
bohemians who showed up to support the aging Kiki de Montparnasse when she tried
to make a comeback as an exotic dancer at an outdoor fair. He's just there,
barely noticeable in the background. He who had always been stage center, lionized,
quoted, the scintillating and provocative herald of a new sensibility. Sic transit
gloria mundi.
His real name was Oscar Wilde. But that was too tinged by scandal. Or, to
use a word we no longer understand, by "infamy." This separates us from Wilde
himself, who -- courageously and heartrendingly -- faced some of the darker
truths about himself. A man of his times, he understood the word "infamy" and,
while he had no illusions about the close-minded, mean-spirited bigotry of his
tormentors or the hypocrisy of society, he also knew he was to blame for his
own undoing -- not only because of an arrogant disregard for danger, but also
because he let a callous selfishness slip into his attitude toward others. He
was, after all, brought down not by his love for Bosie, but by the male prostitutes
that were being served up to him by a professional pimp.
True, it can be answered that many of the people who persecuted him were also
seeing prostitutes -- his just happened to be boys. And, perhaps Wilde's later
remorsefulness was merely a caving in, a sort of moral exhaustion. But, the
true meaning of an act can only be known by the actor himself. Perhaps it really
was sleazy and distasteful when this rich celebrity bought the sexual services
of young valets and servants. When Wilde said, "It was not what I did that was
wrong, but what I became," perhaps he was speaking with his customary lucidity.
Well, I don't propose to come to a conclusion about the endlessly fascinating
Mr. Wilde. I am simply reveling in one of the pleasures of Moisés Kaufman's
Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, recently produced by
Dog and Pony at the Contemporary Arts Center -- revisiting the moral labyrinth
of Wilde's meteoric rise and terrifying fall.
The play is a kind of presentational docudrama. Director John Grimsley turned
the Bank One Theater into an arena, where the audience was put in the position
of a Roman mob in the coliseum at an intellectual gladiatorial contest. One
almost felt it was up to us to give thumbs up or thumbs down for the "posing
sodomite."
For it was with this ludicrous solecism, scrawled on a visiting card by the
Marquess of Queensbury and left at Wilde's club that the tragedy began. The
general outlines of the story are familiar. But one is always struck by new
facets; for instance, that the Marquess did not accuse Wilde of actually being
a sodomite, only of posing as one. It was Wilde, in a colossal act of hubris,
who sued the Marquess for libel (mostly to please his petulant lover, Bosie,
who was the Marquess' son). In defense, the Marquess and his lawyer produced
the "rent boys," who testified to Wilde's sexual tastes.
In a town like New Orleans, God knows, there must be many closet clones of
the great wit and aesthete; Karl Lengel is not one of them. He didn't even try
much to look like Wilde. But he has a commanding presence, a great voice and
sure instincts, and he used these gifts to create a marvelous hero who came
at the end -- after much virtuoso parrying -- to recognize his own tragic flaw.
The same might be said for Tristan Codrescu, who bears no resemblance to the
real Bosie, but who summoned up a spoiled, self-centered young aristocrat --
attractive enough to make us understand Wilde's infatuation, bumptious enough
to provoke the disaster.
George Patterson, C Patrick Gendusa, Tom Grantham and Gavin Mahlie ably supported
this star-crossed pair of lovers in a variety of roles. C. Caine Lee, Clarence
Wethern, Kevin Fricke and Adam Michael Dodds put in memorable cameos as the
hapless lower-class catamites.
The set (designed by Grimsley, built by Anthony Favre) was as effective as
it was simple: a hollow square of official-looking mahogany tables in the center
of which stood a mahogany docket for witnesses. Cecile Casey Covert provided
the apt costumes.
Queensbury vs. The High Priest of Decadence. One of the great
fights of all times. And this rematch lived up to its expectations.
