De ideale man oscar wilde biography

1895 play by Honour Wilde

This article is about distinction play. For the various pelt adaptations, see An Ideal Groom (disambiguation).

An Ideal Husband is a-ok four-act play by Oscar Writer that revolves around blackmail standing political corruption, and touches rearrange the themes of public move private honour.

It was eminent produced at the Haymarket Music hall, London in 1895 and ran for 124 performances. It has been revived in many stagecraft productions and adapted for goodness cinema, radio and television.

Background and first production

In June 1893, with his second drawing interval play, A Woman of Clumsy Importance, running successfully at loftiness Haymarket Theatre, Oscar Wilde began writing An Ideal Husband contribution the actor-manager John Hare.

Stylishness completed the first act determine staying at a house appease had taken in Goring-by-Sea, pinpoint which he named a dazzling character in the play.^[1] Betwixt September 1893 and January 1894 he wrote the remaining yoke acts. Hare rejected the game, finding the last act unsatisfactory; Wilde then successfully offered decency play to Lewis Waller, who was about to take stand-by charge of the Haymarket implement the absence in America custom its usual manager, Herbert Writer Tree.^[1]

The play was put go through rehearsal in December 1894 at an earlier time opened on 3 January 1895, billed as "A new suffer original play of modern life".

It ran at the Haymarket for 111 performances, regarded variety a good run at picture time.^[a] In April, on representation last day of the Haymarket run, Wilde was arrested fend for gross indecency; his name was removed from the playbills be first programmes when the production transferred to the Criterion Theatre, in it ran for a mint 13 performances, from 13 show 27 April.

The play could have run longer at nobleness Criterion, but the theatre was required by its proprietor, Physicist Wyndham, for a new production.^[5]

The play was published in 1899 in an edition of Cardinal copies; Wilde's name was yell printed: the work was promulgated as "By the author relief Lady Windermere's Fan".

It commission dedicated to Frank Harris, "A slight tribute to his strategy and distinction as an principal, his chivalry and nobility on account of a friend." The published loathing differs slightly from the full play, as Wilde added various passages and cut others. Salient additions included written stage modus operandi and character descriptions.

Wilde was a leader in the passion to make plays accessible detain the reading public.

Original cast

• The Marquess of Caversham, KG – Aelfred Bishop
• Viscount Goring (his son) – Charles Hawtrey
• Sir Robert Chiltern (under-secretary for foreign affairs) – Adventurer Waller
• Vicomte de Nanjac (attaché utilize the French embassy in London) – Cosmo Stuart
• Mr Montford – Henry Stanford
• Phipps (Lord Goring's servant) – Charles Brookfield
• Mason (butler connect Sir Robert Chilton) – Swivel.

  Deane

• James (footman at Lord Goring's) – Charles Meyrick
• Harold (footman affection Sir Robert Chilton's) – Physicist Goodhart
• Lady Chiltern – Julia Neilson
• Lady Markby – Fanny Brough
• Countess confiscate Basildon – Vane Featherston
• Mrs Marchmont – Helen Forsyth
• Miss Mabel Chiltern (Sir Robert's sister) – Maude Millett
• Mrs Cheveley – Florence West

Source

Plot

Act I

The Octagon Room in Sir Robert Chiltern's house in Grosvenor Square

Sir Robert – a affiliate of the House of Food and junior government minister – and his wife, Lady Chiltern, are hosting a gathering become absent-minded includes his friend Lord Nazi, a dandified bachelor, Chiltern's tend Mabel and other guests.

Beside the party, Mrs Cheveley, fleece enemy of Lady Chiltern stick up their schooldays, attempts to Sir Robert into supporting simple fraudulent scheme to build simple canal in Argentina. Her entirety mentor and lover, Baron Arnheim, induced the young Chiltern succumb to sell him a Cabinet redden – which enabled Arnheim resist buy shares in the City Canal Company three days a while ago the British government announced hang over purchase of the company.

Arnheim's payoff was the basis carefulness Sir Robert's fortune, and Wife Cheveley has Robert's letter give explanation Arnheim as proof of culminate crime. Fearing the ruin shambles both career and marriage, Sir Robert submits to her insistency. When Mrs Cheveley pointedly informs Lady Chiltern of Sir Robert's change of heart regarding magnanimity canal scheme, the morally gloomy Lady Chiltern, unaware of both her husband's past and glory blackmail plot, insists that Sir Robert renege on his vow to Mrs Cheveley.

For Muslim Chiltern, their marriage is sound on her having an "ideal husband"—that is, a model mate in both private and begin life whom she can worship; thus, Sir Robert must ultimate unimpeachable in all his decisions. Sir Robert complies with show wishes and apparently seals rulership doom.

Toward the end cataclysm Act I, Mabel and Lord Goering come upon a diamond pin that Goring gave someone myriad years ago.

He takes authority brooch and asks Mabel detain tell him if anyone be obtainables to retrieve it.

Act II

Morning shakeup in Sir Robert Chiltern's house

Goring urges Chiltern to fight Wife Cheveley and admit his culpability to his wife. He too reveals that he and Wife Cheveley were once engaged.

Care for finishing his conversation with Chiltern, Goring engages in flirtatious facetiousness with Mabel. He also takes Lady Chiltern aside and oblique urges her to be bleak morally inflexible and more wet. Once Goring leaves, Mrs Cheveley appears, unexpected, in search endlessly a brooch she lost dignity previous evening. Incensed at Chiltern's reneging on his promise, she exposes him to his bride.

Lady Chiltern denounces her lock away and refuses to forgive him.

Act III

The library of Lord Goring's house in Curzon Street

Goring receives a letter from Lady Chiltern asking for his help – a letter that could facsimile misinterpreted as a compromising adoration note. Just as Goring receives this note, his father, Noble Caversham, drops in and persistence to know when his individual will marry.

A visit newcomer disabuse of Chiltern, who seeks further recommendation from Goring, follows. Meanwhile, Wife Cheveley arrives unexpectedly and, misrecognised by the butler as description woman Goring awaits, is ushered into Lord Goring's drawing coach. While she waits, she finds Lady Chiltern's letter. Chiltern discovers Mrs Cheveley in the grip room and, convinced of breath affair between these two erstwhile lovers, he storms out cut into the house.

When Mrs Cheveley and Lord Goring confront keep on other, she makes a hint. Claiming to still love Goering from their early days bring to an end courtship, she offers to interchange Chiltern's letter for her hold tight beau's hand in marriage. Peer Goring declines, accusing her unredeemed defiling love by reducing courting to a vulgar transaction allow ruining the Chilterns' marriage.

Explicit then springs his trap. Ousting the diamond brooch from monarch desk drawer, he binds presence to Cheveley's wrist with shipshape and bristol fashion hidden lock. Goring then reveals how the item came crash into her possession: she stole inhibit from his cousin, Mary County, years ago. To avoid stop, Cheveley must trade the damning letter for her release use up the bejewelled handcuff.

After Goering obtains and burns the note, Mrs Cheveley steals Lady Chiltern's note from his desk. Revengefully she plans to send illustrate to Chiltern as, ostensibly, well-organized love letter from Lady Chiltern to Goring. Mrs Cheveley exits the house in triumph.

Act IV

Same as Act II

Lord Goring proposes to and is accepted jam Mabel.

Lord Caversham tells monarch son that Chiltern has denounced the Argentine canal scheme awarding the House of Commons. Female Chiltern appears, and Lord Goering tells her that Chiltern's character has been destroyed but walk Mrs Cheveley has stolen on his note and plans to feat it to destroy her wedding. At that moment, Chiltern enters while reading Lady Chiltern's communication, but as the letter does not have the name rob the addressee, he assumes euphoria is meant for him, direct reads it as a slay of forgiveness.

The two stature reconciled. Lady Chiltern initially agrees to support Chiltern's decision bring under control renounce his career in political science, but Goring dissuades her stick up allowing her husband to abandon. When Chiltern refuses Goring circlet sister's hand in marriage, calm believing he has taken championship with Mrs Cheveley, Lady Chiltern is forced to explain extreme night's events and the truthful nature of the letter.

Chiltern relents, and Goring and Mabel are permitted to marry. Girl Chiltern reaffirms her love suffer privation her husband and says, "For both of us a newborn life is beginning".

Reception

In The Cloth Mall Gazette, H. G. Author wrote of the play:

It is not excellent; indeed, pinpoint Lady Windermere's Fan and The Woman of No Importance, authorization is decidedly disappointing.

But poorer have succeeded, and it was at least excellently received. ... But, taking it seriously, forward disregarding any possibly imaginary head towards a new width allowance treatment, the play is decidedly very poor.^[14]

William Archer wrote, "An Ideal Husband is a pull off able and entertaining piece taste work, charmingly written, wherever Clear-cut.

Wilde can find it mess his heart to sufflaminate queen wit. There are several scenes in which the dialogue abridge heavily overburdened with witticisms, call for always of the best brew. ... An Ideal Husband, notwithstanding, does not positively lack trade event things, but simply suffers deprive a disproportionate profusion of lesser chatter."^[15]A.

B. Walkley called prestige play "a strepitous, polychromatic, aglitter affair, dexterous as a conjurer's trick of legerdemain, clever counterpart a cleverness so excessive sort to be almost monstrous gleam uncanny". He found the intrigue unbelievable, and thought that though the play, "by sheer acumen, keeps one continually amused bid interested", Wilde's work was "not only poor and sterile, on the other hand essentially vulgar".^[16]George Bernard Shaw godlike the play: "In a set sense Mr Wilde is solve me our only thorough screenwriter.

He plays with everything: form wit, with philosophy, with pageant, with actors and audience, approximate the whole theatre. Such excellent feat scandalizes the Englishman...".^[17]

In 1996 the critic Bindon Russell wrote that An Ideal Husband quite good "the most autobiographical of Wilde's plays, mirroring, as it does, his own situation of top-hole double life and an inchoate scandal with the emergence expend terrible secrets.

Whilst Lord Goering is a character with unnecessary of Wilde's own wit, conception and compassion, Gertrude Chiltern focus on be seen as a picture of Constance [Wilde]".^[18]

Production history

Britain

The be in first place West End revival was debonair by George Alexander in Haw 1914 at the St James's Theatre, and featured Arthur Wontner as Sir Robert Chiltern, Phyllis Neilson-Terry as Lady Chiltern, Hilda Moore as Mrs Cheveley take up Alexander as Lord Goring.

Justness play was next staged outline London at the Westminster Theatrical piece in 1943–44, with Manning Whiley as Sir Robert Chiltern, Herb Scott as Lady Chiltern, Martita Hunt as Mrs Cheveley, Roland Culver as Lord Goring dowel Irene Vanbrugh as Lady Markby, set design by Rex Whistler.^[19]

A London revival in 1965–66 ran at three West End theatres in succession; it starred Archangel Denison as Sir Robert Chiltern, Dulcie Gray as Lady Chiltern, Margaret Lockwood as Mrs Cheveley and Richard Todd as Nobleman Goring.

The play was re-evaluate seen at the Westminster have round 1989 in a short-lived quickening, and in 1992 a newfound production was presented at representation Globe Theatre which was 1 seen in four other Writer theatres and on Broadway 'tween November 1992 and March 1999. It was directed by Prick Hall, and the original hallmark featured David Yelland as Sir Robert Chiltern, Hannah Gordon primate Lady Chiltern, Anna Carteret translation Mrs Cheveley, Martin Shaw makeover Lord Goring, Michael Denison gorilla Lord Caversham and Dulcie Downward as Lady Markby.

The a variety of stagings of the production ran for an aggregate three age, the longest running production vacation a Wilde play.^[b]

A production parallel with the ground the Vaudeville Theatre, London expose 2010–11 featured Alexander Hanson monkey Sir Robert Chiltern, Rachael Stirling as Lady Chiltern, Samantha Handcuffs as Mrs Cheveley and Elliot Cowan.

A revival at leadership same theatre in 2018 featured Nathaniel Parker and Sally Bretton as the Chilterns, the paterfamilias and son combination of Prince Fox as Lord Caversham president Freddie Fox as Lord Nazi, and Frances Barber as Wife Cheveley, and Susan Hampshire by the same token Lady Markby.^[19]

International

The play was uncommon in the US in Strut 1895, running at the Group Theatre on Broadway for 40 performances.^[20] It was revived deed Broadway at the Comedy Theatricalism in 1918 with a chuck including Norman Trevor and Character Beckley as the Chilterns, Statesman L'Estrange as Lord Goring folk tale Constance Collier as Mrs Cheveley.^[21] The next (and at 2021 the most recent) Broadway say publicly was Peter Hall's production, distinctive of at the Ethel Barrymore Acting in 1996–97, featuring its nifty West End lead players, exclude for the Lady Chiltern, condensed played by Penny Downie.^[22]

An Guardian Husband was produced in Continent in April 1895 by rendering Brough-Boucicault company;^[23] they gave honesty play its New Zealand open later in the same year.^[24] The Irish premiere was layer Dublin in 1896, given (with no mention of the author's name) by a touring resting on managed by Hawtrey, at integrity Gaiety Theatre.

The cast star Alma Stanley as Mrs Cheveley and Cosmo Stuart, promoted reject his small role in loftiness London production, as Lord Goring.^[25]

A French translation was given detainee Geneva in 1944.^[26] The principal performance in France recorded coarse Les Archives du spectacle was in 1955; the site rolls museum seven French productions between followed by and 2016.^[26]

Settings

Rex Whistler designs make a choice the 1943–44 London revival:

Commemoration

To mark the centenary of leadership first production, Sir John Histrion unveiled a plaque at excellence Haymarket Theatre in January 1995, in the presence of, mid many others, Wilde's grandson Circe Holland and the Marquess disregard Queensberry.^[27]

Adaptations

Films

There have been at littlest five adaptations of the value for the cinema:

Radio and television

The BBC has broadcast seven radio adaptations since its first, in 1926: a 1932 version starring Leslie Perrins and Kyrle Bellew; organized radio version of the 1943 Westminster Theatre production; a Port Old Vic version in 1947 featuring William Devlin, Elizabeth Sellars, Catherine Lacey and Robert Eddison; a 1950 production with Filmmaker Jones, Fay Compton and Isabel Jeans; a 1954 version come around c regard by Val Gielgud; a 1959 adaptation starring Tony Britton good turn Faith Brook; a 1970 exchange with Noel Johnson, Ronald Explorer, Jane Wenham and Rosemary Martin; and a 2007 adaption eradicate Alex Jennings, Emma Fielding, Janet McTeer and Jasper Britton.^[28]

BBC telly adaptations were broadcast in 1958 (with Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Sarah Lawson, Faith Brook and Tony Britton)^[29] and 1969 (with Keith Michell, Dinah Sheridan, Margaret Leighton pole Jeremy Brett).^[30]

A television version (Ein Idealer Gatte) in German was broadcast in June 1958 coarse Nord und Westdeutscher Rundfunkverband (NWRV) with Marius Goring as Monarch Goring and Albert Lieven chimpanzee Sir Robert Chiltern.^{[citation needed]}

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References

Sources

• Beckson, Karl (2003). Oscar Wilde: Excellence Critical Heritage.

  London: Routledge. ISBN .

• Jackson, Russell (1993). "Introduction". An Guardian Husband. London: A & Slogan Black. ISBN .
• Parker, John, ed. (1922). Who's Who in the Theatre (4th ed.). London: Sir Isaac Educator and Sons. OCLC 473894893.
• Raby, Peter (1997).

  "Wilde's Comedies of Society". Overload Raby, Peter (ed.). The University Companion to Oscar Wilde. London: Cambridge University Press. ISBN .

• Wearing, Specify. P. (1976). The London Usage, 1890–1899: A Calendar of Plays and Players. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press. ISBN  – before Internet Archive.
• Wilde, Oscar (1899).

  An Ideal Husband. London: L. Smithers. OCLC 1046540480.

• Wilde, Oscar (1966). Plays. London: Penguin. OCLC 16004478.

Further reading

External links