Word: liammoir
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Dates: during 1961-1961
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...Importance of Being Oscar is a one-man evening - Actor-Playwright Micheal Mac Liammoir's account of the rise and fall, the life and letters, of Oscar Wilde. In the first half, Mac Liammoir offers a world all bons mots and boutonnieres, of the spotlighted esthete, of the lush poetry and the languid pose, of feats of personality and triumphs of playwriting. In the second half, which begins with Wilde's imprisonment, Mac Liammoir portrays the reviled man, the repentant sinner, the reproaches in De Profundis to his fellow sinner Lord Alfred Douglas, and the last salvation-seeking...
...Liammoir's real versatility and virtuosity there can be no question. Of his devoted saturation in his subject there can be no question either. Yet the evening's total effect is somewhat mixed. The very length that makes such performing remarkable makes it also redundant. And doubtless a theatrical presentation of a very theatrical personality will have a slightly over-theatrical effect. But Mac Liammoir has helped this on by his choice of material and his own frequent way of acting...
Only less remarkable than how brilliantly Wilde could write is how badly, and at times Mac Liammoir seems to use the bad less for thinking it expressive of Wilde than for thinking it good. There is small effort to recall the most dazzling talker of modern times, and far too much to stress Wilde's scarred and suffering side-in whom the play-actor yet persisted...
...humor as when, standing handcuffed in the pouring rain, he murmured: "If this is how Her Majesty treats her prisoners, she doesn't deserve to have any." By omitting such touches and emphasizing Wilde's plangent side, and by himself-if often eloquent-being often florid, Mac Liammoir piles Pelion upon Oscar, and turns what he dubs a baroque and rococo story into a rather mawkish and Victorian one. In both men notable showmanship can become mere staginess...