Theater Chronicle
THE UNIMPORTANCE OF BEING OSCAR
O
NE OF
OscAR WILDE's acquaintances wrote of him that he could
never be quite a gentleman because he dressed too well and his
manners were too polished. The same criticism can be made of his art.
There is something
outre
in all of Wilde's work that makes one sympa–
thize to a degree with the Marquess of Queensberry; this fellow is really
insufferable. Oscar's real sin (and the one for which society punished him,
homosexuality being merely the blotter-charge) was making himself too
much at home. This is as readily seen in his comedies as
in
his , epi–
grammatic indorsement of socialism or his call on a Colorado
coal
mine.
He was overly familiar with his subjects. Shaw said of him that he did
not know enough about art to justify his parade of aestheticism. Cer–
tainly, he was not intimate enough with poverty to style himself an
enemy of riches. In this light, the Marquess of Queensberry's libel, that
he went about "posing" as a sodomist, speaks, in the plain man's lan–
guage, the true word of damnation. In his comedies, it is his audience
whose acquaintance he presumes on. Where the usual work of art invites
the spectator into its world, already furnished and habitable, Wildes
plays do just the opposite : the author invites himself and his fast opin–
ions into the world of the spectator. He ensconces himself with intol–
erable freedom and always outstays his sufferance-the trouble with
Wilde's wit is that he does not recognize when the party is over. The
effect of this effrontery is provoking in both senses; the outrageous has
its own monotony, and insolence can only strike once.
In
The Importance of Being Earnest
(Royale Theater), the tedium
is concentrated in the second act, where two young ladies are rude to
each other over tea and cake, and two young gentlemen follow them
being selfish about the muffins. The joke of gluttony and the joke of
rudeness (which are really the same one, for heartlessness is the basic
pleasantry) have been exhausted in the first act: nothing can be said
by the muffin that has not already been said by the cucumber sandwich.
The thin little joke that remains, the importance of the name Ernest
for matrimony, is in its visible aspects insufficiently entertaining. That
the joke about the name Ernest is doubtless a private one makes it less
endurable to the audience, which is pointedly left out of the fun. To the
