Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Robins, and the Theatre of the Future

Abstract

The story of Oscar Wilde's friendship with the Ibsen actress and theatrical reformer Elizabeth Robins occupies a few paragraphs in many biographies - of Wilde, that is, for at this writing there have been no biographies of Robins, although at least two are in the works. Richard Ellmann's account of their relationship is typical, portraying Wilde as a wise mentor to the young actress newly arrived from Boston in 1888 with hopes of success on the London stage. "His practical advice," Ellmann writes, "was that she should give a matinee performance, and he promised to speak to Beerbohm Tree about her." Robins would always regard Wilde, he adds, "as her benevolent pilot through theatrical shoals.”