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THE EARLY FEMINIST MOVEMENTSEEMED TO BE CALLING FOR THEMEN TO BE AS REPRESSED AS THEWOMEN. WHETHER IT WAS CONSCIOUSOR NOT, IT WAS A HEAVY DOSE OFREVERSE PSYCHOLOGY AT WORK.It is a clever and rather scandalous playon words to have Darlington and theDuchess refer to husbands as “tricks”—slang for a prostitute’s client. Theirexchange highlights the hypocrisy of bothcharacters on the subject of purity. Theycarry out this discussion in front of awoman, Lady Windermere, who is so verypure that she may not even know whata “trick” is. Indeed, in our production,the casting of a man in the role of theDuchess of Berwick adds an extra layer ofgender intrigue: It may further indicate the“trickiness” of husbands is a conversationheld solely between men, relegating LadyWindermere even further outside the powerstructure of Victorian aristocracy.Lady Windermere plays her role of Puritana little too well in that she expects anequal amount of piety from her husband.She was a symbol and a satire of all OscarWilde hated about the burgeoning feministmovement in England, which he feltplaced too much emphasis on “purity,”and the insistence that if wives were goingto be expected to be the snowy-white “Angelsof the House,” their husbands shouldbe required to display an equal portion ofabstentious moral fortitude. Wilde himselfwas ambivalent and contradictory in hisbehavior and attitudes towards sexuality.He allegedly based the character of Mrs.Erlynne on his former lover, the actress LillieLangtry, who dumped Wilde to pursuean affair with the Prince of Wales. Muchlike Mrs. Erlynne, Langtry was “tradingup” the social ladder in the only way trulyopen to women at the time: through hersexual desirability to aristocratic men.Further agitating Wilde, Langtry herselfrefused to play Mrs. Erlynne in the worldpremiere of Lady Winderemere’s Fanbecause she felt it would damage herreputation, and because she argued thatshe could not play the mother of a girl ofMrs. Windermere’s age when she herselfstill played ingénue roles. Wilde was angrywith Langtry for not behaving as he wouldhave her behave; Wilde, however, neverbehaved a day in his life.Despite his own inability to practicemonogamy, and his affairs with both menand women, he wrote to Langtry in 1883that, “I am going to be married to a beautifulgirl called Constance Lloyd, a grave,slight, violet-eyed little Artemis.” In thismissive to the lover who jilted him, Wildefocuses exclusively on Constance’s looksand an idealized image of her, convenientlyleaving out Constance’s abilities as awriter and social critic who gave publiclectures while wearing, as Philippa Kellyphrases it, “baggy pants and sensiblewools.” How could one expect maritalbliss between Lloyd, in her sensible attire,and Wilde, who performed a lecture tourof the United States in velvet pants whilecarrying a lily, and liked to dress up andhave his photo taken as the scantily-cladtitle character of his play, Salomé? Yetmarry her he did, subsequently enactingthe very double-standards regarding menand marriage that he satirized in his plays.There’s ambivalence on a topic, and thenthere’s Oscar Wilde.Early on, Wilde embraced the philosophyof “purity” feminism, but he changed hismind and the tone of his writing on thesubject, when the emphasis on puritybecame a personal problem for him. AsWilde biographer Kerry Powell notes,“…his plays of the 1890s were built onreversals and modifications of this feministpolitics of purity.” Preaching purity has away of coming back to haunt the preacher,and Victorian men, Wilde included, soonfound this out the hard way. The period’scodes of conduct would not allow forwomen to express sexual desire or qualmsabout monogamy, much less act on thoseimpulses. In the absence of that, the earlyfeminist movement seemed to be callingfor the men to be as repressed as thewomen. Whether it was conscious or not,it was a heavy dose of reverse psychologyat work.Early “purity” feminists pushed to dismantlethe Contagious Diseases Acts, whichallowed police to imprison suspectedprostitutes in locked hospitals and forcetreatment upon them in order to controlthe spread of sexually transmitted diseases,such as syphilis. The ContagiousDiseases Acts targeted only women, thusleaving out, as the Ladies’ National Associationmanifesto phrased it, “the sex whoare the main cause, both of the vice andits dreaded consequences.” These samefeminists also pushed for the Criminal LawAmendment Bill, which further sought toexpress compassion for the “fallen women”of prostitution by legally pursuing themen who comprised their clientele. Untilthis point in time, prostitutes bore the solelegal consequences for the profession. Victorianfeminist Ellice Hopkins blamed theproblem on “a fearfully debased manhoodthat is in our midst that respects nothing.”Oscar Wilde became decidedly un-amusedby these feminist tactics, and renouncedhis support for the “purity” feminists. In
a sad irony, the very reforms early feministscalled for in the legal system, initially supportedby Wilde, were the same laws that led tohis conviction on charges of gross indecency,relegating Wilde to hard labor in prison, andhis wife and children to a miserably lonely lifeof penury and exile in France. Although he satirizedand critiqued the hypocrisies of Victorianmorality, he could not escape them. As KerryPowell concludes, “Wilde consciously soughtto enact an alternative masculinity that wouldupset the foundations of Victorian social life—yet he was never able to work out, either forhimself or others, precisely what would constitutethis new kind of man. In both his life anddrama Wilde’s efforts to articulate a new visionof manhood stopped short of their destination:For the more he talked and wrote, the morehe became enmeshed in the web of customand power that he wanted most to break freeof.” This is certainly true of the men in LadyWindermere. The scene in the private men’sclub—wherein Mrs. Erlynne transgressivelyfaces a wolf pack of men in an attempt to saveher daughter from the gendered dards of Victorian morality—has its laughs, butdouble-stanisalso painful. Even in his make-believe worldof the stage, Wilde could not seem to imaginea viable, workable alternative to compulsoryheterosexuality, traditional marriage, and patriarchalgender inequity.Time and perspective, however, gives us a newway to look at the play, and to produce it. AsLady Berwick, Danny Scheie dictates what theproper behavior for a woman should be in Victoriansociety, and seems to relish the inconsistencies.It is fitting for a 21st-century audiencethat a man in a dress be the mouthpiece forthe ambivalence, hypocrisy, and hysteria ofVictorian patriarchal values regarding husbands,wives and, marriage—a little postmodern,deconstructive touch for us to consider ina society that is still waging a battle to establishequal treatment for everyone, whether thatequal treatment be the right to marry who youlove, or the right to sovereignty over your ownbody. Somewhere in the heavens, Wilde, in fulldrag as Salomé, is either laughing or crying inrecognition.Pictured: John William Godward’sThe Mirror, one of the paintingshanging in Lord Darlington’sapartment during this production.THERE’S AMBIVALENCE ON A TOPIC,AND THEN THERE’S OSCAR WILDE.NOTESON CAMPContinued from page 7.My third class of the day was movementwith Rachel Fettner, one of our newer conservatorydirectors and teachers, but onewho started out leading her own groupas an intern three summers ago. This dayshe was working with the youngest group,the Merry Kinsmen (age 8–12)—alsodoing Romeo & Juliet—on their Capuletparty dances, set to a mix of modern pop.I’ve got to hand it to Rachel and groupleader Megan Wicks—keeping the littlesgrounded ain’t easy, especially when askingthem to not dance while the teachersfocus on one or two steps or dancers ata time. But these women were locked inon their small targets; through breathingand stretching and infinite patience, thedances got better and better as the classwent on.After lunch, the camp broke up into afternoonrehearsals. Board member and staffphotographer Jay Yamada and I madethe rounds of the various practice spaces,from Catherine’s frenetically paced Romeo& Juliet dance scenes with the oldestgroup; to Rachel’s Noble Knaves (age12–13) doing a full run-through of TheTwo Gentlemen of Verona in the SPAC; toa more intimate rehearsal with O’Donnell’sRiotous Knights, standing in a circle, rapt,as a boy practiced his ukulele number;and finally, to marvel again at the maturityand focus of the Merry Kinsmen, workingwith director Abbott.Eventually, I had to get on the bus and gohome. OK, so I actually had to get in mycar and head to the Cal Shakes offices fora 3:30 meeting. But just like those halcyondays of my own childhood—whereinI traveled to an alternate reality eachsummer, to experience days of fun andfriendship—leaving Summer ShakespeareConservatory was hard. I’m just glad toknow that I, and these lucky Cal Shakescampers, will always be camp people.*OK, I already knew this, having had the pleasure of meeting manyCal Shakes teaching artists over the years, and seeing them performon stages around the Bay Area.**At Camp Lakota, a little girl once protested that she couldn’t goin the lake because “my mommy said I just had my hair done.” TheBritish waterfront counselor’s response was to throw her in, cackling“I’m your mommy now!”encoreartsprograms.com 15
Page 1: I CAN RESISTEVERYTHINGBUT TEMPTATIO
Page 4: The arts come aliveat College PrepT
Page 8: “ First Republic shares our passi
Page 11 and 12: way, as did all “proper” upper-
Page 13: W I L D EM E NBY CONTRIBUTING DRAMA
Page 17 and 18: PATRICIA MCGREGORA SHAKESPEARE’SW
Page 19 and 20: WHO’S WHOALDO BILLINGSLEA*(Lord W
Page 21 and 22: WHO’S WHOSummer, Taking Over (als
Page 23 and 24: WHO’S WHOShakes, where she is one
Page 25 and 26: “What is aCYNIC? ...A MAN WHO KNO
Page 27 and 28: Susan & Don Couch* • Jane & Thoma
Page 29 and 30: 2013 COMPANYJonathan Moscone ARTIST
Page 31 and 32: WitticismsGONE WILDE}Iam so clever

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