It's first production is A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, first performed in 1893. It's a play I have read but never seen so I jumped at the chance to see it in the very theatre where Wilde saw Ibsen's HEDDA GABLER in 1891. Indeed Wilde was very familiar with this stretch of the Strand as he had lived in a street opposite the Vaudeville when he first arrived in London in 1879.
After the success of his first major play LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN, the actor/manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree asked Wilde to write a play for his company and Wilde wrote A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE while on holiday in Norfolk with the dreaded Lord Alfred Douglas. It was an instant success even though Wilde disliked Beerbohm Tree's performance as the caddish Lord Illingworth. Of course in only two years time, Wilde's world came crashing down around him and you cannot help but look for clues and hidden messages within the plays.
Lady Jane is hosting a small party of guests including the imperious Lady Caroline and her long-suffering husband Sir John, the free-thinking Mrs Allonby, the witty and urbane politician Lord Illingworth, and an orphan American visitor Miss Worsley who is attracted to young Gerald Arbuthnot whose mother is a friend of Lady Jane. Illingworth offers Gerald a position as his secretary and Lady Jane invites his mother to join them; Mrs Arbuthnot replies that she will visit after visiting the poor of the parish, which sparks comment among the leisured-class guests. Illingworth sees the note while flirting with Mrs Allonby who notices his change in mood but Illingworth laughs it off saying she is a "woman of no importance".
Mrs Arbuthnot arrives as Miss Worsley is denouncing the English upper-classes and, when introduced to Lord Illingworth, tells Gerald she is against him working as his secretary. All is revealed when they are left alone - Mrs Arbuthnot and Lord Illingworth were once lovers and Gerald is their son, but she was left destitute when Illingworth refused to marry her. She begs him not to take her son away from her but Illingworth refuses saying Gerald must choose. Gerald later tells his mother he will leave her but is interrupted by Miss Worsley - who had previously shocked Mrs Arbuthnot with her puritanical views on unwed mothers - who is in tears because Illingworth has made a sexual advance. Gerald attempts to strike Illingworth but Mrs Arbuthnot stops him by finally telling him Illingworth is his father.
The next morning Gerald writes to Illingworth demanding he marry his mother but Mrs Arbuthnot is appalled when he tells her; she will not marry the man who has caused them such misery. When Miss Worsley overhears Mrs Arbuthnot saying that society's view of her as an unmarried mother means nothing as she has devoted her life to raising her son to be decent and honourable, the American begs for Mrs Arbuthnot's forgiveness and tells mother and son she wants them to return with her to America as her new family.
Illingworth arrives but Mrs Arbuthnot refuses his offer of money for Gerald: they do not need his tainted wealth. They argue when he sees Gerald's unfinished letter and she tells him her love for Gerald and hatred of Illingworth feed off each other. She strikes him with his gloves and he leaves chastened. Gerald and Miss Worsley discover her alone in tears and, when Miss Worsley again suggests they join her in her return home, they agree. Gerald sees the dropped gloves and asks who had visited but Mrs Arbuthnot says not to bother it was "a man of no importance".
Dromgoole's direction certainly holds true to Classic Spring's idea of presenting Wilde's play of being seen on the stage as it was intended when written, indeed he has truly taken us back in time by having Anne Reid's Lady Jane and her servants appear before the front curtain during scenery changes to sing Victorian songs - the sickly Victorian sentiment of "A Boy's Best Friend Is His Mother" and "Father's A Drunkard and Mother Is Dead" illustrates the double-standards Wilde was illustrating in his tale of Mrs Arbuthnot.
The production has had rather sniffy reviews but I found it a great opportunity to see Wilde's play without any added artifice and played as close to the spirit of the play as possible - each act leads up to a declamatory curtain line but the melodrama is played for truth, not moustache-twirling or tableaux staging. The play does occasionally flag but I think this is more to do with the many characters who all pop in and out in the scenes in Lady Jane's house; indeed as Mrs Arbuthnot does not appear until halfway through the second act, it is hard to know up until then where exactly the focus of the play is.
What is undeniable is the stinging quality of Wilde's aphorisms about men, women and society and with this cast they are placed nicely without any overly-obvious verbal signposting to say "the next thing I am about to say is REALLY famous". Indeed Dromgoole's production shows more opportunities for the women in the cast to shine, not too difficult with the casting of Eve Best, Anne Reid, Eleanor Bron and Emma Fielding.
Emma Fielding prowls and slinks around Lady Jane's house eyeing up Lord Illingworth - her equal in deceit - but Fielding's seductive maneater has less chance to shine when the main plot kicks in which is a pity. What I liked about Dromgoole's production is the characters intelligence is their main asset, and they are played with nuanced performances that never over-spill into caricature, in particular the obviously Wildean characters such as Lord Illingworth, Lady Caroline and Lady Jane are played by Dominic Rowan, Eleanor Bron and Anne Reid with a dry naturalness unlike the usual "raised-eyebrow, eye on the dress circle" approach to his witty upper-class characters.
Unsurprisingly there are problems with the younger members of the cast but I grew to like Harry Lister Smith as the heart-on-the-sleeve Gerald Arbuthnot - despite the Ed Sheeran hair - but Crystal Clarke as the visiting Miss Worsley was the production's one disappointment; her clanging one-note sounded through her entire performance especially the long second act speech she has denouncing the English upper-class; you can hear the Irishman's provocation in Wilde's words but Clarke's stilted delivery is shown up against the silky, assured playing of her co-stars.
There are notable supporting performances however from Dromgoole's Globe performers Sam Cox as the under-the-thumb Sir John, William Gaunt as the visiting Reverend who booms out his wife's many illnesses with relish, and Paul Rider is a delightfully sleazy Kelvil, an MP who lectures on morality but who slithers over any woman within arm's reach; to see him drunkenly attempt to sit on the arm of Mrs Arbuthnot's chair was an added delight.
Eve Best has become one of our most heartfelt actresses - she has an inbuilt emotional quality which makes her character's pain plumb real depths - and that is in abundance here. Her suffering is shot through with a wisdom that avoids any cloying sentimentality that might trip up other performers and she delivers a character that you believe every word has sprung direct from her own thoughts. I had to hoot though as I had said earlier that I had seen her play one-too-many sad daughters who seemed to find a moment to wipe her eyes or nose with a hanky which was then thrust up her the sleeve of her dress - she only went and did it again here! I was left to muse that maybe this emotional truthfulness might have hampered her being able to climb to the elemental greatness of the last scene in ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
As I said, I admired Dominic Dromgoole's direction and in particular, the way he allows the audience to draw out the ever-topical themes of women's abuse by more powerful men, political and moral hypocrisy and in particular for me, the way that the play's title was effortlessly put into context: Lord Illingworth's dismissal of Mrs Arbuthnot as "a woman of no importance" carries within it the patriarchal disdain of a woman who is an unwanted trifle while Mrs Arbuthnot's calling him "a man of no importance" at the end comes from her humanity, making him meaningless despite all his wealth and influence.
I am now looking forward to my next visit to the season, Simon Callow's reading of DE PROFUNDIS, the lengthy letter written in Reading Prison to Lord Alfred Douglas, looking back on the events that led to him to that desolate cell.
