Los Angeles Herald - Sunday, April 21, 1895

ACTORS ON THE
MIMIC STAGE

Stephen Fiske, the dramtic[sic] critic of the New York Spirit, has some words of wisdom in the last issue of his paper anent[sic] Oscar Wilde. Mr. Fisher has the joint faculty of saying things worth hearing in a particularly bright, impressive way. From time immemorial, the dramatic profession has been prolific of scandals; but never before has it been associated with such a terrible disgrace as that of Oscar Wilde, a new recruit or rather an insolent invader of the stage, who had forced it to accept his plays while he openly affected to despise both actors and audiences. A week ago, Wilde had plays running at two London theatres; two touring at the British provinces; one at our Lyceum, and another in rehearsal at the Empire . When his ignominy was suddenly revealed, there was a cynical moment of indecision as to whether his criminal notoriety would attract or repel the public, but his offence was too gross for discussion; both the London and New York managers tore his odious name from their bills and by next week his place will be removed from the theatres.

It is an open discussion whether a man's good work is to be condemned because his character is bad. If we decide for the affirmative, how many writers, theatrical and otherwise, would escape a whipping? We know at least half a dozen persons connected with the profession who, in our opinion, ought to be sent to state prison, and yet we go and see their plays or their acting and praise or blame without considering what they are outside of the theatre. However, Wilde’s crime is so exceptional as to make a law for itself, and the action of the managers will be generally endorsed.

Fallen as he now is, we must not forget that the world owes a great deal of good to Oscar Wilde. He preached beauty, although he practices vileness. When he publicly paraded his eccentricities as the self-ordained apostle of the new cult of estheticism, and
Walked down the strand
With a flower in his hand,
he was ridiculed, caricatured in Punch and Patience and condemned as a cross between an idiot and an adventurer. But all this laughter and abuse served only to advertise him. The entire change in the style of our houses and stores and their adornments, during the past fifteen years, comes mainly from his initiative. His wildly poetical worship of a lily, a peacock feather or a bit of old China has had very practical and beneficial results. Bestial as he is, the great cities of the world are more beautiful for Wilde having lived in it.

He might, also, had he been decent, have done much for the stage. His two plays seen here, Lady Windermere's Fan and The Ideal Husband, were clever, but left a bad taste in the mind. There was something unsavory, uncanny, unnatural about their tinsel epigrams, inverted proverbs and sneers at conventionality. We thought them false in art; now we know that it was the viciousness in the author's mind that smirched them. But a man who could write such plays could write better. Wildd's remark: "There is no doubt about the success of my play; the question is, whether the audience will succeed in understanding it?" contained a lesson which audiences in this country - and especially in London - ought to be taught. As a rule, there are not in a theatre, on a first night, twenty persons as intelligent, educated and capable of judgment as the dramatist whose play is presented for their verdict. These twenty may be fair arbiters. The others know nothing except that the piece does or does not happen too pletase[sic] them.

During Wilde's visit to this country, we sat next to him at a club breakfast, and the first question he asked was:

"Are you at all interested in the esthetic movement?" "Not in the least."

"Then" said he, brightly, "let us talk of something else. This is a very cosy club; but my ideal of a club is that the members should, upon entering, exchange their outer garments for rich raiment of velvets and satins. There should be a table d’hote with the finest viands and rarest wine, and at the head of it should sit a monk, coweled and corded, with a crust of dry bread and a glass of water before him, and he should read aloud, at intervals, from an ancient treatise upon the virtues of fasting and prayer. The contrast would give a unique flavor to every morsel!"

Thus he rattled on - a big, jolly, reckless, rollicking Irishman, venting wild theories in a sophomorical style and saying the most absurd things seriously for the amusement of shocking his hearers. But there seemed no harm in him. Who could suspect him of harm as he laughed heartily and delighted while trying to argue with Steele Mackaye, who was then the American apostle of esthetics, but of a very different caliber? Outside of Victor Hugo's novel the man who laughs is seldom a monster.

If Wilde were to be tried in this country, the defence which American lawyers would set up is - temporary insanity. This plea has not been accepted in England; but here is[sic] has saved many murderers from the gallows and restored them to us, after a few months or years, as honored officials and popular political leaders. It is a perfectly legal plea and fits the facts, otherwise irreconcilable, of Wilde's position and his crime.

An American lawyer would allow the public prosecutor to pile Ossa upon Pelion of proofs of Wilde’s infamy - the higher and blacker the better for his purpose - and then he would contrast with them the beautiful home in Tite street: the lovely young wife; the two handsome and promising children; the Society of artists and literary people; the worldwide notoriety that could so easily be turned into fame; the ample income from royalties on plays; the assured present and smiling future, and would ask what, except insanity, could induce such a man to sacrifice such possessions and surroundings to degrade himself by so infamous a vice.

This is the only plea that can now avail Oscar Wilde. For the sake of humanity, of art, of literature and of the stage - all of which have been defiled - let us hope that it is a true plea: that the most miserable of men is really mad, irresponsible for what he's done, incapable of appreciating its enormity and that the just sentence of the judge who presides at the Old Bailey may be imprisonment in an insane asylum during her majesty's pleasure instead of that penal servitude which will mean for Oscar Wilde the blotting out of life.

Let us also hope that the immediate effect of this revolting exposure, which has shaken the profession in two countries like an earthquake, may be the sweeping from the stage of all the disgusting immoralities, litrary[sic] and pictorial, that now befoul, and the restoration of a sound, healthy, wholesome taste for amusements that amuse without either discussing or suggesting sexualities and sensualities.