De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail speaks the name of love

15 Feb 2024 - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Oscar Wilde's fame and fortune was built on, and maintained over a century by, his facility with words. Not just his plays, novels and writings, but his quick way with a quip, an epigram. There is a very amusing moment in De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail, when Wilde, randomly pulling fortune cookie style slips of paper from a jar, reads one of his notorious quotes. He has already read several, each one followed by an amplifying, negating or just amusing commentary quip, but this one is different. He stares into the audience and confesses that this epigram, and it is a hilarious and insightful one, should actually be attributed to Dorothy Parker. "But," he arches one eyebrow until it abuts the ceiling, "I could have written it."

De Profundis is an essay, a poem, and a manifesto but most of all a letter to Bosie, the beautiful boy that Wilde loved, lost and was ruined by. Or, as he ruminates, that he allowed himself to be ruined by. De Profundis was written a page a day, Wilde was only allowed one sheet of paper per diem, while he was imprisoned for the crime of gross indecency. It seems shocking, in our plush theatre bubble surrounded by gay men and other patrons of a theatrical bent, that homosexuality could, even in 1892, earn a sentence of two years in Reading Gaol. De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail is here to remind us that it did, it has, and that it could again. 

We begin with Robbie (Jonathan Corkal-Astorga) standing stage right to a sumptuous black velvet painting of peonies in a gold gilded frame that cloaks the stage. He begins to give us what he calls "context" but the phrase "We were illegal then" repeats. Damien Atkins (Here Lies Henry, Queen Goneril, King Lear, Caroline, or Change, We Are Not Alone, The Gay Heritage Project, London Road, Sextet, Mr Burns) as Oscar Wilde preparing to go on, critiques from behind the curtain until, unable to contain himself, he pokes his head and demands that Robbie get on with it. If the audience needs context then "I want a different audience. One that's read a book." He scoffs in disbelief that he might be unfamiliar to members of the audience, "What are they? Camels? They know who I am." And, as he will a few more times before the evening has ended, he reminds us that "I awoke the imagination of my century." As Wilde and De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail are about to do for this night in 2024.

The curtain rises to reveal a grey claustrophobic prison cell in which Wilde/Atkins, in a fetching leaf-emblazoned jumpsuit, is trapped. Wilde tells a fable of the lion and the lord. It is a straightforward tale that also references Lady Windermere's Fan, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, the famous quote falsely attributed to Wilde comparing himself on trial to "a lion in a den of Daniels," and, of course, his and Bosie's relationship. Simplicity containing multitudes of layers. Very Wildean. He picks up his rationed single piece of paper and begins with "Dear Bosie." From there Wilde launches into selections from De Profundis. It is a love letter full of invective. Atkins is astonishing as he paces, riding the rhythms and raging emotions, punctuating with quips and moments of self-reflective doubt. Even as the words accelerate in number and speed, the ideas are framed carefully and delivered with dark humour, gay speak, and philosophical clarity. And when words fail, Atkins breaks into song.

The songs by composer Mike Ross and lyricist Sarah Wilson (Rose) cover much the same ground as the monologues, but in a more modern idiom. The music is a combination of piano (ably supplied by Corkal-Astorga) and electronics, the lyrics are pointed and metaphorically blunt. The melodies are slight but catchy, what is important is the words, and Atkins is virtuosic in turning them into show tunes or haunting ruminations. At the mid-point Wilde draws us into his imagination for a scantily-clad dance number with Bosie (a very limber and sexy Colton Curtis), and the final song transforms into an 11 o'clock number to rival Mama Rose. But I am off track. De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail is not a musical. It might not even be a play. While it evokes and riffs on De Profundis, adaptor/director Gregory Prest (Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, A Streetcar Named Desire, Little Menace, Rose, Bed and Breakfast, La Bete) is diving deep into Wilde's history, queer history and a lurid lexicology, trying to get to the heart of love in the context of what we now know as gay.

Wilde, a master crafter of words, sings to Bosie that "I have no words for how I love you." He talks of love and forgiveness being more important that hate, but it is abstract. He uses a gorgeous metaphor of eating only fruit from the trees on the sunny side of the orchard, that dining on sorrow, despair and regret were not on the planned menu but are necessary. Must be embraced. And then the key, he refers to the "love that dare not speak its name." A quote that could have been penned or uttered by Wilde but was actually the last line of a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas. Aka Bosie. During flashbacks to the trial, the judge tries to get Wilde to admit that he "adored" Bosie. Wilde allows himself no more than to admit to a "friendship." During his transfer to prison, the handcuffed Wilde is verbally abused by a crowd hurling every vile epithet that existed to vilify gay. Those were the only words Wilde had, that the world had, to describe his love. Through the use of movement and dance, courtesy of Indrit Kasapi (Toka, Box 4901, Lilies, Hello Again, House Guests), we have seen just how physical Wilde and Bosie's relationship was.

Wilde may have been consumed by lust—a scene where he struggles to sing while Curtis sensually removes his shoes and socks, exposing only his feet and calves but raising the temperature in the theatre by several Cole Porterian degrees, sears—but he needed to define it as love. Or intellectual attraction. Or art. There was no context, no words, to express, to justify, that indescribable angelic ecstasy that is the result of sexual attraction and connection between two men. Wilde knows it but he dare not speak its name. No-one would dare to put words in Wilde's mouth, misattributing is dangerous enough, but Lorenzo Savoini's extraordinary, near-monolithic set design, flirting with overkill as Wilde did with words, has one more surprise, and De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail gives us a final visual flourish of a happy ending. "We were illegal then" but the incandescent Wilde, incarnated by an incandescent Atkins, are not. De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail comes full circle and where the words cannot be found, cannot be dared, the emotions slice deep into the heart. And breaks it wide open.