Wilde and the Theatre

BOOK REVIEWS Wilde and the Theatre Kerry Powell. Oscar Wilde and the Theatre of the 1890s. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. ix + 204 pp. $39.95 A DRAMATIST'S output is best measured in the theatrical context of his period if all its aspects are to be assessed fully. Unlike other genres, drama is circumscribed by numerous forces extraneous to the written word and is realized completely only in performance. Kerry Powell's book on Wilde is, therefore, to be welcomed because it does place Wilde's plays firmly in the theatre of the 1890s and demonstrates clearly and convincingly how extensively Wilde was influenced both by prevailing conditions or trends and by specific English and European plays. The result is a more comprehensive understanding of Wilde's work and an interesting introduction to some aspects of the London theatre at the end of the nineteenth century. Powell's first chapter provides a brief but detailed overview of the London theatre in the 1890s. He correctly stresses its commercial nature and how 1890s audiences perceived the drama of their period far differently than do latter-day critics (especially literary) whose sense of canon formation is influenced by other concerns. Wilde himself suffered anxiety over the influence other plays exerted on his work, and yet, paradoxically, the more influenced by other plays Wilde was the more successful his plays were. He was always writing against the grain of other works. Lady Windermere's Fan is an interesting mongrel offspring of many plays and "ironically reflects ... the old-fashioned domestic comedies in which a dandy or poet of Tioneyed words' and 'showy graces' nearly seduces the heroine from the strong, silent husband whom she must learn again to appreciate and love." Powell establishes similarities between Fan and Tom Taylor's plays as well as Shaw's Candida. Other influences are traced to C. Haddon Chambers's The Idler, Sydney Grundy's The Glass of Fashion, and Pierre Leclerq's Illusion. Powell sees, too, correspondences between Fan and Edgar Saltus's novel, Eden, but the latter "is comfortably at home in a pious genre that Wilde takes up with a mocking smile" (Wilde's usual strategy). It is clear from his analysis here and throughout the book that Powell has read widely and has made excellent scholarly use of contemporary sources (such as the theatrical newspaper the Era as well as manuscripts). Powell's analysis of Salomé demonstrates how numerous factors 87 ELT: VOLUME35:1 1992 operated on Wilde and many other contemporary dramatists. Salomé was written in French, rather than English, so that Sarah Bernhardt could perform it (she spoke no English) and also so that normally offensive subject matter would escape censorship (French plays were frequently licensed by the censor because the foreign language rendered otherwise offensive material decently obscure). Powell also reveals Wilde's debt to Maeterlinck and shows how alike Salomé is to the heroines on which Bernhardt had molded her career (Fédora, Thédora, Tosca and Cleopatra). A Woman of No Importance reworks some of the ideas of Fan and also owes an "extravagant debt" to other dramas. Unfortunately, Powell contends, the play fails to find its own voice and does not "harmonize the babble of its many influences." Among those influences are Dumas's Le Fils naturel, Albert Delpit's Le Fils de Coralie, Edouard Plouvier's Madame Aubert, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and H. A. Jones's The Dancing Girl. The latter play is interesting because it was, like Woman, performed by Tree's company at the Haymarket Theatre and similar roles in both plays were performed by the same actors and actresses. In chapter five Powell first discusses Wilde as the "English Sardou" before turning to compare him with Ibsen, the dramatist on whose plane Wilde aspired to be. Here, again, Powell examines evidence thoroughly when he writes on Ibsen's influence in England and indicates resemblances between the two men's plays. Particular attention is devoted to An Ideal Husband and The PUL·™ of Society. Powell contends Wilde's play is ultimately the better and is certainly the more modern because it still threatens prevailing values about the ideal public servant...