Lady Windermere's Fan Research Articles

The Present State of Influence of Western Theatre on Spoken Drama Production in the People's Republic of China

A frenzy of theater activity has taken place in China since the downfall of the Gang of F'our in 1976. Companies that had been disbanded in '66, members dispersed, sometimes to distant parts of the country, performers who had not performed and,. in the case of opera singers, who had not even been permitted to practice for ten years~struggled not simply to return to where th~y and. their art had been ten years before, but to leap these lost years and re-enter the mainstream of world theater. Alongside the tradi tional and regional operas, there was a rebirth in spoken drama (hua 34· t1fi}), most especially in the large cosmopolitan cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Xi An where it had long ago established a solid position. This was assisted by the almost immediate reopening of the two drama collep,'es:the Central Drama College in the North (Beijing) and the Shanghai Drama College in the.South. As it had done before, Chinese drama again looked both inward and outward ·for its inspiI:'ation. Aspiring young playwrights studied the technique of The Cherry Orchard alongside that of the traditional classic MuDan Tin&: ':\Lfl-it and the modem classic Sunrise. Would-be actors were instructed in Stanislavky's method of re-creating a character1 , as well as in the stage movements of traditional opera, now adapted for use in.historical drama. And, in imitation of Western practice, new departments of Directing were planned in the drama colleges. Hua jU seemed to have returned to its own Golden Age as company after ~ riL company performed such classics as Cao YU 's \~)I'V') Thunderstorm and Sunrise: Shao Nai Nai de Shan-zi. y{1> f:.} ~);1'1;j--, Hong Shen' s ~~ L~!fadapta ti on of Os~ar wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan; and even the play that started it all so long ago in Japan, Cha Hua Nil :r14--k~/(Lady of the Camellias) all, in varying degrees, evidencing once again the great influence the lest has had on the development of spoken drama in China. It was not long before full-scale productions of Western plays were once again being seen on the Chinese stage,

Lady Windermere's Fan. By Oscar Wilde. Edited by Ian Small. London: Ernest Benn; New York: W. W. Norton, 1980. Pp. 102. £2.95.

Lady Windermere's Fan. By Oscar Wilde. Edited by Ian Small. London: Ernest Benn; New York: W. W. Norton, 1980. Pp. 102. £2.95.

Self-Revelation In An Ideal Husband

DESPITE ITS APPARENT OBJECTIVITY, An Ideal Husband is self-revelatory. In a letter to his friend Reginald Turner, written in 1899, Wilde said: I read a great deal, and correct the proofs of An Ideal Husband, shortly to appear. It reads rather well, and some of its passages seem prophetic of tragedy to come. A sense of damnation, a foreboding of tragic failure, is to be found in the writings of Oscar Wilde long before it is sounded in An Ideal Husband. It is the theme of the sonnet Helas! as it is of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The motive of the outcast is conspicuous in Wilde's two previous comedies, Lady Windermere's Fan and A Woman of No Importance, where both Mrs. Erlynne and Mrs. Arbuthnot describe in moving words the lot of an outcast; but it reaches an ominous significance in An Ideal Husband, written shortly before Wilde's own fall. One cannot avoid the impression that An Ideal Husband is an oblique expression of Wilde's inner torment, using Sir Robert Chiltern as a mask. Wilde has described in Chiltern's person his own fear of an imminent scandal. Charles Ricketts remembers Wilde saying of the play when he insisted on Ricketts being present at the first night: "It was written for ridiculous puppets to play, and the critics will say, 'Ah, here is Oscar unlike himself!,—though in reality I became engrossed in writing it, and it contains a great deal of the real Oscar." Mrs. Cheveley, while threatening Sir Robert, actually presages with amazing accuracy one prominent feature of Wilde's downfall, when she says

Oscar Wilde And His First Comedy

IT IS NOT EASY, IT SEEMS, to find out how Oscar Wilde was launched on his brief career as a comic playwright. Wilde himself said that he wrote plays "to please myself." William Rothenstein supports this view by saying that in writing plays Wilde was "making legitimate use of the artifice which was, in fact, natural to him." P. P. Howe also finds that "it is easy to see that a writer ... the best of whose work had always the quality of good conversation, would turn to the theater to hear, as it were, his own voice." G. ]. Renier asserts that Lady Windermere's Fan was brought forth by Wilde "out of the abundance of his fancy and his verbal facility." George Rowell holds that "Wilde wanted a medium for his epigrams, and lazily chose the model most readily to hand [the problem play]." Lynton Hudson, on the other hand, maintains that Wilde "turned to the theatre because he needed money.” Archibald Henderson also agrees with Hudson and adds that it dawned upon Wilde that Tom Robertson, H. G. Byron, Sheridan and W. S. Gilbert were living factors in the English drama. "While little scope was allowed the creator of the higher forms of dramatic art," he says, "in the field of burlesque and farcical comedy the artist was allowed very great freedom in England. It was under the pressure of such convictions that Wilde sought a hazard of new fortunes." Arthur Ransome, however, thinks that "the spectacular effects of the theatre ... drew Wilde to the writing of plays." Boris Brasol believes that "the fiasco of his dramaturgic experiments" prompted Wilde to write his social comedies.9 According to Arthur Symons, "About the year 1891 the idea came to him that the abounding wit, which he had kept till then chiefly for the entertainment of his friends, would be turned quite naturally into a new kind of play."

Theatre Alumni Association Recordings, Lady Windermere's Fan. Shakespeare's Macbeth; Marlowe's Faustus. Forms of Poetry. Poetry from Shakespeare to Ogden Nash

Theatre Alumni Association Recordings, Lady Windermere's Fan. Shakespeare's Macbeth; Marlowe's Faustus. Forms of Poetry. Poetry from Shakespeare to Ogden Nash

The Divided Self In The Society Comedies Of Oscar Wilde

IT IS USUALLY SAID that Oscar Wilde's society comedies have foolish plots and brilliant dialogue, and as. far as it goes this critical commonplace is true. Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband do in fact have foolish plots and brilliant dialogue. But the foolishness of these plots does not prevent them from expressing Wilde's personal and artistic positions, while the brilliance of this dialogue has often obscured both its value and its meaning. These are the things that I wish to demonstrate here.

The Divided Self in the Society Comedies of Oscar Wilde

IT IS USUALLY SAID that Oscar Wilde's society comedies have foolish plots and brilliant dialogue, and as. far as it goes this critical commonplace is true. Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and An Ideal Husband do in fact have foolish plots and brilliant dialogue. But the foolishness of these plots does not prevent them from expressing Wilde's personal and artistic positions, while the brilliance of this dialogue has often obscured both its value and its meaning. These are the things that I wish to demonstrate here.