The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-03-24
IAN IDEAL HUSBAND
FLASHES OF WIT FROM wILDE's
LATEST DRAMATIC SUCCESS.
u New York Critics Estimate of the
Character OF Oscar of
This Weeks Play Bills.

xorh PreSS, Is one or the many who 90
not take Oscar Wilde for what he pretends
to be and do not look upon all his para
doxes worked off in his popular plays as
gospel truth. Mr.. Bell finds in Wilde one
of the masculine wonders of the century,
as the following notice clearly shows:
Possibly 1t Is not too much to state that
Oscar Wilde tries to be the most appalling
person of modern times. ! sat beside him
one night in the Empire Music Hall. The
atmosphere that irradiated from his pro-
digious body was wicked. He appeared to
be surrounded by a halo of sulphurous
light. 1t may have been Imagination, but
the performance on the stage and the
ladies in the promenade seemed pastoral in
glance Oscar Wilde is innocent enough. He
has a big body, a heavy face, long hair,
long legs. a fat hand and q clumsy foot.
theater chair, it is the way he lears at life,
It is the way he drawls out poisonous
the aisle Mr.. Wilde called for absinthe.
while l abstraetedly ordered a bottle of
Platt's chlorides. Mr.. Wilde was in a pes
no art In America. an argument which, in
spite OF mis- later successes, he has steadily
ton of his Duchess of Padua.' That was
one of his early efforts. 1t was a tragedy,
and q very good tragedy, too, written in a
antithesis OF the young dramatist's present
method. The play was produced at the
Broadway by Lawrence Barrett, and Miss
Minna Gale made so great a success as the
heroine that she was unwisely tempted to
star in dt after Mr.. Barrett's death. That
venture cost her husband a good deal of
money and terminated ingloriously Mr..
Wilde's career as a tragic author:
bilious work that changed Oscar Wilde
into a cynic. A. great many Irishmen are
driIen to drink by misfortune, but disaster
rnade Oscar a wit. As the public would not
weep over his woes, he resolved to make
it laugh over his humor. This purpose has
not been successfully carried out. Oscar
wilde is not a humorist. There is a sting
in his satire and his epigrams are sharply
pointed; His wit has the caustic quality of
Steele and Addison. Yet it Ms quick and
flashing wit: Many of his critics declare
Rochefoucald could write a Wide piay.
That sounds wise, but in reality it is fool
ish. Let these ,sapient censors try the trick.
Oscar Wilde draws large royalties. Three
Of his comedies are at present running in
London, one of them is crowding our Ly-
ceum. and Rose Coghlan is now warding off
disaster by economic expenditure of the
money she made out of "A Woman of No
Importance, II any author can attain such
results by studying De La RochefoucaId let
him buy an entire edition of the wise dukes
maxims and give us another Ideal Hus-
band
IF a person who believes that this young
Irishman has a natural talent wholly apart
from his borrowings from the French, has
any right to express an opinion on the mat
ter, the present writer would like to say
that he thinks there is more in Oscar Wilde
than has yet been put on the stage. There
is fine stuff in the author of The Duchess
of Padua.' The present series of flippant
cynicisms which Wilde is giving us merely
proves his versatility and fills his pockets.
His most recent effort is a farce comedy,
The Importance of Being Earnest which
has achieved great success in London and
will shortly be presented in this city by
Charles Frohman. Oscar Wilde has written
tragedy, high comedy. and farce, and has
declared excellent ability in each of his
works. He is still in his ~youth-only forty
or thereabouts. His reputation is worse
than his character. He is like the villain
In the play who prosperS by seeming to be
a bad man, but who in private life is really
a very decent fellow. Oscar Wilde wants
although scarcely enviable, advertisement.
He is a great genius in advertising, and
f Mogld not rather 1anasl ha oy bl people pt 81 spea AS III da9 of hin
notice by inventing the aesthetics of Lon
don, and was for a long time their apostle.
women fiocked in his train until Punch took
the matter UP and made Wilde famous.
That was all he wanted. He was the orig
S. Gilbert numerically satirized him. But
Oscar had finer wit than the men who made
butt for their shafts he presently became
one of the most noted persons ii; London.
ton. he began to write plays, and, as a
name is everything in the theatrical world,
he easily secured extraordinary royalties.
oscar Wilde has the distinction of being
the only dramatist of the English-Speaking
races who goes into what is known as good
society. Pinero, Jones, Grundy, Chambers,
belong to the bohemian crowd in London,
and are never invited within the aristocratic
precincts of Belgravia. But Oscar Wilde
hobnobs with royalty and the peerage, and
is a prominent figure at all the fashionable
By his family rather than his merits. His
father, Sir William Wilde, was the prin-
cipal physician in Dublin, and his mother.
Lady Wilde, known in the literary world as
.SperanZa.' was a leader in the Castle set.
1t was at their house. in Merton square,
that Oscar met all the aristocratic attaches
of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Sir VIII
liam was a famous doctor, whose fees and
patients were alike high. Oscar, gained his
his talent was inherited from his mother.
His brother did not profit by these advan-
democratic. He came to this country, spent
most of his earnings in Roster & Balls
cork room; AND ultimately married Mrs,
and forced an entrance into the MARI
borough House set, where he now occupies
in some sense the place once held by Beau
Brummel.
" have no desire to influence the YER
dict in the present case Of Queensberry
the English jury will not accept Oscar
Wilde's evidence against himself in the mat
en- Marquises of the Queensberry type. An
adverse decision in the libel suit would ruin
Wilde, Tor the charge on WHICH II is based
is of such a character that il Oscar loses
his suit nobody can afford TO be seen speak
ing to him. The young author is, however,
by no means so bad as he paints himself.
In private life he is a devoted husband and
the proud father of two handsome boys,
and O. man with these good traits cannot he
so wicked as he would wish the world to
consider him. If we eXamine carefully into
Oscar Wilde's extraordinary case it may
easily be observed that, like the fat boy in
.Pickwick,' he is continually declaring, Il
wants 70 make your flesh creep
WILDES IAN IDEAL HUSBAND"
The latest play by Oscar Wilde. An
Ideal Husband has q great deal more ac-
tion and dramatic interest in it than his
last play seen here, "A Woman of No I'm
portance,' but it is hardly less punctuated
with epigrams and fippancies. There is a
clever, talky man and a clever, talky wom-
an in this play, just as there were in his
former ones, and to these he allots a good
portion of the dialogue. Here are some of
the brighter hits from the book of the play:
Truth is a very complex thing.
Il can't stand geniuses; geniuses talk so
much.
What this century worships is wealth;
the god of this century is wealth. to succeed