Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde
By Moises Kaufman
Directed by Mickey Handwerger
With Bryan Barrett, Jim Gallagher, Jamie Hanna, Dan Kavanaugh, Eric Lund, Frank B. Moorman, Scott Nichols, Joshua Riffle, Kieran Shea
October 5-14, 2007

Gross Indecency uses trial transcripts, personal correspondence, interviews and other source material to tell the story of the downfall of the great man of letters whose artistic genius has long been overshadowed by the scandal surrounding his imprisonment.

Director's Notes

In a day and age when governments around the world seek to squash personal freedom and judge us by our words, works and looks rather than our actions and deeds there is no more fitting play to conclude our 2007 season than with Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. Within this searing court-room drama is a beautiful and tragic love story between two men who sought nothing more than to share in each other's company, revel in the great artistic and literary works of the day, and break the stronghold of puritancal thought and morality on their very existence.

Oscar Wilde writes in his play An Ideal Husband, "To stake all one's life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, there is no weakness in that. There is a horrible, terrible courage." Oscar Wilde has that courage and for it, he served two years penal servitude and contracted an infenction that would ultimately be the cause of his death. If only there were more Oscar Wilde's today...perhaps governments would be less inclined to regulate our private lives, less willing to dictate who we should or should not allow ourselves to love, less able to homogenize us into the people and societies they want us to be.

As the monks in Myanmar flood the streets in peaceful protest of authoritarian rule, the time has come for each of us to take our stand, to have the courage to stake our lives on that which we believe to be right and just and true, just as Oscar Wilde did in a time when protest of any form was met with the full weight of the law, a law created and manipulated to prevent anyone from creating a life and living it to it's fullest.

REVIEWS

The Verdict Is In - Don't Miss Dignity Players' Gross Indecency
By Jane Elkin/Bay Times Weekly

Celebrities sometimes shape society, yet when they stray too far from society's moral compass, there is no refuge from the microscope of public scandal. Just as Brittany Spears, O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson - or Oscar Wilde.

Playing through this weekend at Dignity Players of Annapolis, Moises Kaufman's court room drama Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde chronicles Wilde's seven-week decline from toast of London to social pariah. The real-life tragedy continues to provoke interest around the world. Kaufman's reconstruction, which debute off-Broadway to critical acclaim in 1997, is footnoted, with extensive academic research written into the script. Yet the drama doesn't suffer: the play will wake you up and shake you up no matter how weary or dreary your week has been. With a stellar cast and careful attention to detail, director Mickey Handwerger has crafted a must-see production.

Irish playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde (Jim Gallagher) gained fame for his play, The Importance of Being Ernest, and his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde was at the height of his success in the spring of 1895 when the Marquess of Queensbury (Byran Barrett) publicly accused him of sodomy with his son, Lord Alfred Douglas (Jamie Hanna). Wilde sued for libel, even though the allegation was true, but the accuser became the accused as his art was put on trail as proff of his corrupting influence. Wilde was found guilty after a parade of young male paramours testified against him. He then served two years of hard labor, lost his family, his health and his wealth, and died a few years later, a lonely broken man.

This play is also about the judicial process and Victorian society, but its eminently quotable protagonist invites the spotlight. The man who glibly admitted "I can resist anything but temptation" here goads with court's scrutiny, saying "To judge...the immorality of an artist is to ask the court to do what is is wholly unfit to do." Gallagher is infused with Wilde's spirit, by turns irresistible for witty repartee, childish in his refusal to play by the rules and pitiable for his naivety as he shifts from conceit to defeat.

To imply that this is a one-man show, however, would be unfair to the remaining eight actors, who multi-task to play 20 roles with scarecely a hitch. Barrett is perfect as the indignant and disgusted father to Hanna's flamboyantly defiant son that he may be forgiven a few stumbles in some of his other lines. Similarly, Hanna's hysterics occassionally get the better of his voice, raising the pitch and slurring his pronunciation; yet on the whole he is well cast. Frank B. Moorman as the prosecutor, Edward Carson, is so convincing when he pantomimes behind other dialogue he commands attention. Dan Kavanaugh as his legal opponent, Sir Edward Clark, is just as strong in conveying his frustration with this losing battle.

Eric Lund, Scot Nichols, Josh Riffle, and Kieran Shea have perhaps teh hardest jobs, reporting the fast-paced commentaries that move the story forward and seque in and out of small character roles as witnesses and commentators. Most memorable are Lund as Queen Victoria and a modern literary critic, and Nichols as the other great with of the Victorian stage, George Bernard Shaw.

Staging and costumes are minimal, in typical Dignity Players fashion, with just enough powdered wigs and furnishings to suggest a cour and press rooms. Lighting was the only casualty of opening night, when two fuses blew at the most inconvenient of times. Otherwise, economy of space, time and movement characterize this production.

Gross Indecency offers that rarest of commodities: intelligent humor in a serious cause. Consider this nugget of wisdom: "Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others." Then decide for yourself where the truth lies.