Des Plaines actor to reveal depths of famed writer Oscar Wilde
Irish born writer Oscar Wilde may be known for such works as "The Picture of Dorian Gray," and "The Importance of Being Earnest," but a local actor and director believe Wilde's legacy lies in works created during his lowest years.
Glen Allen Pruett of Des Plaines stars in a one-man show examining Wilde's attempts to pull himself up from the depths after being imprisoned for two years in London and sentenced to hard labor on grounds of "gross indecency."
Working with Director Patricia Ansuini of Evanston, a former theater teacher at Wayne State University in Detroit and most recently of the University of California at Riverside, the pair created, "The Madness of Oscar Wilde by Sebastian Melmoth."
The free show will be staged at 5 p.m. Sunday, March 28, at First Congregational Church of Des Plaines, 766 Graceland Ave.
Their original script opens when Wilde has just been released from his incarceration, and Pruett recites from his poem, the "Ballad of Reading Gaol" (pronounced jail).
It was Wilde's last published work, written after he had exiled himself to France and lived under the assumed name Sebastian Melmoth.
"He must have been disheveled and totally distraught, and on his way down to some sort of breakdown," Pruett says, "when he found that through the medium of poetry, he somehow found his sanity and peace within himself."
When Wilde does speak in the play, the script draws from letters written while he was in prison and published in the work, "De Profundis."
Both Pruett and Ansuini insist the show is not a recitation of his works or a history lesson about how he came to write them in the traditional sense of a one-man show. Rather, they say it examines Wilde through his works.
"We explore this through a new genre in theater we're calling 'lived through poetry,'" Ansuini says. "We see it as a new window to look into the agony of Oscar Wilde and his attempt to restore and heal himself and go forward."
For Pruett, the show is the culmination of more than 30 years as an Equity actor, back to the 1980s, when he starred as Algernon Moncrieff in a production of the "Importance of Being Earnest" in Ft. Worth, Texas.
"A reviewer then commented how much I looked like Oscar Wilde," Pruett recalls.
He later had the principal role in a play called "The Picture of Oscar Wilde" before performing in "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde" at the Boarshead Theater in Lansing, Mich.
"During the day, I kept myself focused on Oscar by reading 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol,' " Pruett says.
After collaborating with Ansuini to create the original script, Pruett performed it to sold-out audiences last summer in Detroit. Ansuini and Pruett will bring it to the Windsor International Fringe Festival in Ontario this July.
The pair concedes that a church sanctuary is an unlikely setting for the play, but they opted to mount the production there to thank church members for their free rehearsal space.
First Congregational Church members offer it as the closing piece to their Lenten series.
"For me, it is so deep and meaningful on so many levels," Pruett says. "It's sheer joy to be able to keep performing it and continue to explore this artist."
Ansuini agrees, adding audience members will find its message applies to anyone facing adversity.
"The sheer power of the work is mesmerizing," Ansuini says. "It's not something people expect when they hear the name Oscar Wilde."