READING Repertory Theatre is celebrating the life of Oscar Wilde with its new iteration of Micheál Mac Liammóir’s work, The Importance of Being Oscar.
Produced in collaboration with Original Theatre, The Importance of Being Oscar sees the return to Reading Rep of director Michael Fentiman in a one-man play.
Alastair Whatley narrates and portrays Wilde, exploring the life of the Irish poet and playwright and one-time Reading resident.
Whatley’s charm and energy are more than enough to carry the production, especially as he comes to embody characters outside of the play’s subject, such as the judges in Wilde’s trial.
While the opening scene of the show is a simple, explanatory monologue, Whatley’s delivery glides over the subject matter with wit and weight in equal measure, unpicking the occasionally convoluted prose to imbue it with life and levity.
He hops between external narration and character imitation with ease, embodying colourful characters both from Wilde’s work and from his life,
This includes a slightly underplayed Lady Bracknell by modern standards and the judge in Wilde’s trial, who is contrastingly portrayed with an impactful, overbearing disdain.
Whatley captures the effete, delicate nature associated with Wilde well, bringing a poetic tenderness laced through with acerbic asides and cheeky charm.
The first half sets out the circumstances of Wilde’s life and explores his first loves and early life, before the second descends into his eventual conviction for indecency as a result of his sexual relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas.
Among the highlights of his performance was his reading of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, during which Whatley looks physically trapped by the spotlight, communicating both the fear and the determination of the piece with arresting intensity.
This duality comes to define the play, especially its closing half, as the humour at the heart of the work is bound closer to not only Wilde’s suffering as a result of his homosexuality, but also to the gaol and Reading itself.
The production itself is sparse: only a single lamp adorns the stage, with a wide ring of light hovering above the circular stage.
Almost the entire production– sound, staging, and lighting– seems to pull away from the lead actor, giving the play’s focus space to breathe and allow Wilde’s words largely speak for themselves.
The only exception is the lavish costume work, with Whatley adorned in a burnt-orange three-piece suit which is perfectly becoming of the poet and complimented by a signature flower at the lapel.
Overall, the play puts Wilde’s most celebrated attributes– his talent for the written word and his admiration of the beauty of life– right at the forefront by weaving his works and his history together in a seamless, single-handed performance.
It is a testimony to both Whatley’s performance and the unadulterated source material of Wilde’s works that the show never flags for a moment, instead feeling like a fire-side anecdote from Oscar himself.
The Importance of Being Oscar is showing at Reading Repertory Theatre until June 8.
Full details and tickets are available via: readingrep.com/the-importance-of-being-oscar/
