Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

by Moises Kaufman, Tony Kushner (Introduction), LuAnn Walther (Editor)

Overview

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award

In this stunning work of theater, Moises Kaufman turns the trials of Oscar Wilde into a riveting human and intellectual drama. 

In April 1895 Oscar Wilde brought a libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his youthful lover, who had publicly maligned him as a sodomite. In doing so, England's reigning man of letters set in motion a series of events that would culminate in his ruin and imprisonment. For within a year the bewildered Wilde himself was on trial for acts of "gross indecency" and, implicitly—for a vision of art that outraged Victorian propriety. Expertly interweaving courtroom testimony with excerpts from Wilde's writings and the words of his contemporaries, Gross Indecency unveils its subject in all his genius and human frailty, his age in all its complacency and repression. The result is a play that will be read and studied for decades to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780375702327
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/28/1998
Pages:	143
Sales rank:	427,147
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.03(h) x 0.36(d)

About the Author

Moisés Kaufman is a Tony and Emmy-nominated director and playwright. He is the co-founder and artistic director of Tectonic Theater Project. Kaufman’s plays Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, and The Laramie Project (which he co-wrote with the members of Tectonic Theater) have been among the most performed plays in America over the last decade. He is also the author of the Tony Nominated play 33 Variations; One Arm (his adaptation of the Tennessee Williams screenplay of the same name); and the short play London Mosquitoes. He has directed numerous plays on Broadway including the Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright which earned Mr. Kaufman an Obie Award for direction as well as Tony, Outer Critics, Lucille Lortell, Drama Desk Awards nominations. Kaufman directed the film adaptation of The Laramie Project, which aired on HBO and was the opening night selection at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Kaufman is a Guggenheim Fellow.

Editorial Reviews

"Absolutely gripping . . . scintillating . . . sharply intelligent, dramatically fresh . . . a Wildean triumph." —The New York Times

"Thrilling . . . unforgettable, maybe even life-changing. . . . [It has] the inevitability and much of the monumentality of a Greek tragedy." —USA Today

"A dazzling coup de theatre, at once compelling history and chilling human drama." —Time

"Stunning . . . taut, shattering, yet delightfully exuberant . . . altogether fascinating." —Newsday

From the Publisher

His style was his umbrella, his armor, his all-purpose defense system, and for many years it seemed to shelter Oscar Wilde most effectively. There came a moment, however, in 1895 when the playwright was betrayed by his own wit, after which he would never again be able to gain control of his life. In the absolutely gripping GROSS INDECENCY: THE THREE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE, written and directed with a scintillating style of its own by Moisés Kaufman, that moment is identified with such startling precision and clarity that it feels like the inexorable moment of reversal in a classic tragedy.

NY Times

A triumph...truth, purity, and simplicity suffuse [this] thoroughly engrossing new play...sweeps away cobwebs and distortions, allowing complex, credible human beings to emerge from history.

Washington Post

A dazzling coup de theatre, at once compelling history and chilling human drama.

Time

Stunning...taut, shattering, yet delightfully exuberant...altogether fascinating.

NY Newsday

Two-time Tony Award winner Kaufman's 1998 play about the Oscar Wilde trials is reinvigorated through this present-day live recording of the production starring Simon Templeman, Julian Sands, Peter Paige, J.B. Blanc, Dakin Matthews, Ian Ogilvy, John Vickery, Douglas Weston, and Matthew Wolf. Kaufman craftily incorporates court transcripts, newspaper accounts, and other historical documents to convey the complexity of emotion and enmity surrounding Wilde's trials and the threat his sexuality held for Victorian England. The narrative is greatly enhanced by the cast's strong performances; Templeman in particular manages, as Wilde, to oscillate deftly between the play's alternating serious emotional moments and its comedic ones. A superb bonus interview with Kaufman helps to clarify some of his creative decisions and the goals of the performance. For fans of comedies, courtroom dramas, and Wilde as well as for those wishing to understand better the view of sex and censorship in Victorian England.—Lance Eaton, Peabody, MA

Library Journal