Brian Lucas makes no attempt to impersonate Oscar Wilde in his new solo performance at the Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse. Instead, he provides a personal, literally naked evocation of Wilde’s painful journey from vanity to humility.
Irish playwright, novelist and poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was celebrated throughout the English speaking world in his day for his incisive wit and dandified apparel. So it is entirely appropriate that Lucas should strip down to his skin in order to reveal Wilde’s dark and highly personal philosophical musings. In 1895 Wilde was condemned to two years hard labour in prison for ‘gross indecency’ (a euphemism for committing homosexual acts) and deprived for many months of all cultural accoutrements, degraded and humiliated. At the time of his conviction, Wilde considered himself to be the victim of a gross injustice, and his 50,000 word letter to his ex-lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, written just months before his release, articulates his emotional and psychological journey from victimhood to a more enlightened state of self-realisation, ‘free from all resentment’.
Lucas and director/designer David Fenton have adapted, edited and shaped this dense text into a clear and direct monologue, inviting the audience to engage with the philosophical, religious and cultural concepts that Wilde tackles in his efforts to ‘become a deeper man’. He dives directly into the depths of despair, confronting his own complicity in his downfall, in order to be able to return out of the depths to artistic life.
Wilde determines to appreciate, among other things, the humanity within his fellow prisoners and the wonder of sorrow, and to cast aside the arrogance and pride of his former life. Having lost everything he ever valued, fame, fortune, career, public admiration and his family, he strives to understand the nature of suffering and his own creative impulse. The tragic irony is that the work of art he aspires to create before he dies will be, arguably, the very words he writes/speaks at this moment.
Lucas embodies with simplicity and integrity the complexity and the intellectual rigour of the author of works as diverse as The Importance of Being Ernest and The Picture of Dorian Grey. He maintains a heightened vocal attitude throughout which serves the language well, keeping it open and accessible at all times.
Within the broad arena that is the Visy Theatre, the design team has established the claustrophobia of a prison cell. Clever use of Ray Pittman’s multiple projections within the set and Jason Glenwright’s subtle lighting design provide visual enhancement to the environment, while the score by David Megarrity is a refined, understated ambient scaffolding. Delicate cursive lettering and flourishing flowers contrast with the disgusting conditions of imprisonment, only occasionally distracting as the mind drifts away from the text in an attempt to decipher the image. Similarly, there are instances of business, interventions that seem imposed upon the action rather than integrated within it. Nevertheless, this is a bold and beautiful theatrical venture, introducing a little known, barely recognisable side of Oscar Wilde to the wider public, in all his brilliant fallibility.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis
Producer / Metro Arts by Katrina Torenbeek and Jo Thomas
Creator/Adaptor/Director/Designer: David Fenton
Creator/Performer: Brian Lucas
Virtual Performer: Brandon Dowery
Vision Designer: Ray Pittman
Composer: David Megarrity
Producer: Katrina Torenbeek
Assistant Producer: Patrick Hayes
Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse
brisbanepowerhouse.org
22 April – 2 May
