Word: wildean
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...around Tzara and Carr, who are forced to fake their names and hide their real artistic and political views in order to win the respective loves of the Joyce-admiring Cecily and the Leninist librarian Gwendolen. The themes are the role of art and politics: should one accept a Wildean view of art for art’s sake, a Socialist one of art as political tool, or a Dadaist conception of art as needing to destroy itself? Is war a matter of defending the innocent or of seizing oil wells...
...bevy of uneven and indistinguishable English accents that so frequently plague American productions of British plays. The characters’ repartee sparkled—even thrived—despite its down-to-earth delivery; the cast made Stoppard’s dialogue seem natural instead of stilted and Wildean. The set speeches were a bit uneven: the more comic ones proceeded well, but some of Stoppard’s lengthy monologues on the nature of love began to feel a bit preachy halfway through...
Taking the form of traditional comic operetta, Patience parodies the Wildean Aestheticism rampant in late 19th century England. As the production notes indicate, there is an emphasis on “fads, fashion and faux-intellectualism...
...heart of the play is the sparring between Wilde (Michael Emerson) and his courtroom antagonists. The flip, willfully perverse Wildean wit suffered the rude shock of having to defend itself under pitiless legal questioning. Asked if something he has written is true, Wilde replies, "I rarely think anything I write is true." He was a victim, of course, of Victorian prudery but also of the perennial clash between the aesthetic and the moral, the realm of art and the realm of life. Wilde realizes too late that it's an unfair fight. "One says things flippantly," he apologizes wanly...
...guys win; where the Catholic Church, the police and even God can be had for a price; and where the only true crime is to have trust in the just nature of society. Orton makes all of this very funny with dialogue loaded with sexual innuendo and Wildean one-liners...