WINCE
This man was a genius. This man was ahead of his time.
We can't perform this crowning achievement of Oscar Wilde's
with all this nincompoopery!
SLOUCH
We're trying to honor the man, but also honor ourselves.
Why can't we do both?
JAX
We've been doing both this whole time.
I thought to please all, I had to be all.
But we cannot be all. We must be only ourselves.
WINCE
But you cannot alter this work, this masterpiece.
The author would never approve.
SLOUCH
Well, why don't we ask them?
(OSCAR and WILDE step forward, with all the WILDES behind them.)
OSCAR
We're Oscar
FINGAL
Fingal
O'FLAHERTIE
O'Flaherty
WILLS
Wills
WILDE
Wilde — the author of this charming play.
WINCE
All of you?
WILDES
Yes
ALGY & WINCE
On a wide–
CECILE & GWYN
On a wide–
SLOUCH
On a wide–
OSCAR & FINGAL
On a wide–
O'FLAHERTIE & WILLS
On a wide–
WILDE & SPERANZA
On a wide–
ALL
–Er spectrum
JAX
Nothing's out of range.
SLOUCH
This is the complete works of Oscar Wilde. And so much more happens.
WINCE
Yes, to the author, but not in the play.
JAX
Truths can coexist.
SLOUCH
Fairytales can shift.
JAX & SLOUCH
We can play it by the book and make it strange.
WILDES
What if it opens like a rainbow?
WINCE
Surely we can separate one's life away from one's art.
JAX
That seems a little difficult, Wince,
when one's art is one's life at the present.
SLOUCH
My dear Wince, the great appeal of theatre is that it is a living, breathing thing.
WILDES
The play can open like a rainbow –
JAX
Oh the play can open like a rainbow –
(The music becomes drier, sparse.)
WINCE
But we are doing this specific play.
SLOUCH
Yes, but in our specific way. In our specific time.
Honoring both the play and the person who wrote it.
O'FLAHERTIE
He'd be so surprised to know we'd been doing the play at all.
SLOUCH
Just a few weeks after his play opened, Oscar Wilde was arrested.
WILDES
Shhh…
SLOUCH
For the great sin of being exactly who he was.
GWYN
And loving exactly who he loved.
WILDES
Shhh…
WINCE
Yes, and that is a tragedy. But this play is not a tragedy.
This play is…
WILDES
Shhh…
Mmm
SLOUCH
A masterwork, as you say, Wince.
One of the greatest plays the world has ever known.
And yet, poor dear Oscar never got to know any of that success.
ALGY
Oh my dear, why?
WILDES
Shhh…
SLOUCH
He was sentenced to two years hard labour.
FINGAL
Prisoner C-33.
WILDES
…Shame
OSCAR
"In Reading Jail, by Reading Town, there is a pit of…"
WILDES
Shhh…
OSCAR
Two years later, he was dead in a rented room in Paris.
WILDE
"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."
SLOUCH
Even to the end, his wit remained.
WINCE
But it's the wit these people have come to see. The wit you were meant to produce.
SLOUCH
Well, how lucky for them and for us that we can give them all this truth with it.
We're not destroying the world of Oscar Wilde —
we're opening him up to ours.
WILDES
So small and short
There's a wider spectrum
SLOUCH
Wince, we live in a world beyond Wilde's dreams.
WILDES
Wider than we knew.
WILDE
(To Wince.) You lose nothing in my being me,
but perhaps gain the freedom to know you can be you as well.
WINCE
Is that Wilde?
SLOUCH
No. But it sounds like them, doesn't it?
WILDES
Lies sometimes reveal
Something that's more real,
JAX
Something you don't dare admit
JAX & WILDES
Until it's true.
WILDE
To love one's self is to begin a lifelong romance.
WILDES
The play can open like a rainbow
WINCE
Yes. I see —
LADY BRACKNELL
What?? What does everyone see???