In Extremis. Neil Neil Bartlett
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humiliation. We’ve put up a statue, given him a plaque in Westminster Abbey, adopted him as an icon, claimed him as a pioneer, studied him to death, republished him endlessly and made him one the very few above-the-title box office guarantee names of our entertainment industry. But I do not think we have understood him yet, or what was done to him. I don’t think we realise how much he is with us, rather than behind us.
Of all the details of this story, one image has stuck in my mind; Wilde and Mrs Robinson sitting alone in her room, silent, unobserved in the middle of a London night noisy with speculation, rumour and libel, the smug applause of theatres, the vicious gossip of hotel dining rooms. What I wanted to do was the impossible thing that only theatre can do; to put us in that room.
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With regards to staging; I am writing this introduction before the opening night of the first production, so I’ve no idea what the piece will finally look like. As I indicate in the script, my intention was that it be put on stage without any token “period” clutter, and most especially without any realistic depiction of Mrs. Robinson’s room. I had in mind a rather sombre, beautiful space, with the audience close around it, with just two mahogany chairs; a space where the actors would feel free to talk directly to the audience and also to move whenever and however they needed to. I would emphasise beautiful, despite the suggestion of a resonant emptiness; this is Oscar Wilde, after all.
This piece is respectfully dedicated to the two great actors for whom I had the privilege of writing it, Sheila Hancock and Corin Redgrave.
Neil Bartlett
September 2000
Characters
Oscar Wilde
Mrs Robinson, a palm-reader
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