Garth Grimball
The brilliant, tragic life of Oscar Wilde has been adapted to short form narratives for decades. Interpretations of his literary ouevre extend back even further. What is left to explore of English language’s most quotable bon vivant? In Australian Ballet’s Oscar, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, Wilde’s life and art are shaped as a progression towards tragedy, as if he were doomed from the start. Every triumph, biographical or artistic, is framed by his imprisonment, social exile, and untimely death.
Like most biopics, Oscar starts at the end and flashes back to the life lived. A narrator (Sean O’Shea) speeds the audience through the necessary exposition that would be too cumbersome to translate into dance: Wilde is married with two children and on trial in an obscenity lawsuit against his male lover’s aristocratic father; he loses and is given the most severe punishment, two years of prison and hard labor. Callum Linnane danced the role of Oscar on the opening night at Zellerbach Hall, and the first scene found him lost in a machinating group of barristers before being manhandled into a cell, represented by a single bed with a door behind it.
Wheeldon has gone from being one of the most in demand ballet choreographers to one of the most in demand Broadway directors after the success of MJ the Michael Jackson musical. Oscar showcases the skill and confidence he’s developed as a director. The production is massive with overlapping scenes, over 50 roles, massive set pieces, more lighting cues than discernible, elaborate costumes, and a live orchestra playing Joby Talbot’s original score. Wheeldon succeeds in maintaining the tone throughout the swift and complex two-hour ballet. His choreography, especially the ensemble work, is rather bland. If you’ve seen his Cinderella or Alice in Wonderland, the group scenes will be familiar to you. Men partner women holding their wrists; croisé promenade feature heavily. Every choreographer has their own style, but the life and milieu of Oscar Wilde should read differently than fairy tales.
Oscar interpolates two of Wilde’s most famous stories into the telling of his life. In act one The Rose and the Nightingale weaves in and out of Wilde’s professional ascension, family bonds with his wife and two children, and early lover-turned-longtime-friend, Robbie. Grace Carroll’s nightingale was resplendent. Ballet repertory is avian forward: white swan/black swan, firebird, the dying swan, etc. But Carroll’s performance did not quote any of these famous birds. The role is a unique addition to the canon. The choreography relies less on arms as wings and more on epaulement, the nightingale frequently looks on from profile, over her shoulder, as if she had the panoramic vision of a bird. Carroll always seemed at a slight remove; she was not in the present tense of Wilde’s life, nor even a memory, but a creation out of the author’s mind.
The most inventive narrative choreography is in the first act. In one scene Wilde is at a party. All eyes are on him as he travels back and forth down stage. His arms frame his face as if opening a book. Whenever a peculiar gesture or pose pops, different partiers copy it. They aren’t dancing with him but taking on his ideas like a turn of phrase popular enough to become common parlance.
Joseph Caley as Robbie danced the most emotionally affecting solo. After Wilde seduced the party with his wit, Robbie beguiles him in a dance that pulls his attention from the social spotlight. Caley extends diagonally in arabesque and cambré. His dancing, and Caley’s attention to him, creates a believable flirtation, a desire for intimacy.
The legible nuance of the characters’ relationships is a testament to Wheeldon’s direction. Too often when ballet dancers are required to emote, every emotion rests on a furrowed brow and nothing else. In Oscar the embodied performance of emotions are wide ranging and inclusive of all body parts.
Act two pushes into narrative overdrive with the introduction of Bosey, Wilde’s lover who ultimately proved to be his downfall, and the narrative representation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Nightingale is a short story and Dorian Gray is a novel. Fitting the latter into the biographical storytelling was frantic. In the novel Dorian falls in love with the actress Sybil Vane, who is the toast of the town for her portrayal of Shakespeare’s Juliet. Sybil’s love for Dorian distracts her from performing at her celebrated best. Embarrassed of her, Dorian shuns her and she kills herself. All of that plot is choked into maybe 30 seconds in the ballet. I’m not convinced it was worth including at all. The scene’s significance would be totally lost on me if I hadn’t read the novel. While the connection between Dorian and Sybil can be assigned to Oscar and Bosey, there was enough of Oscar and Bosey’s actual story on the stage to not require every literary allusion available.
Oscar feverishly dances towards its conclusion. Scenes of Wilde’s tortured jail cell loneliness overlap with Dorian’s soul decay; family abandonment and martial jurisprudence collide; sexual libertinism meets English puritanism. Linnane dances ferociously, giving his all to every action. In his final moment a dramatic grace note is delivered by a true feat of dancer strength. The nightingale returns. After all the demanding choreography and acting, Linnane slowly press lifts Carroll above his head. It is beautiful and I truly empathized with Linnane’s endurance.
Wilde’s (likely apocryphal) last words were reported as, “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death, one or other of us has to go.” Wilde’s death was tragic. Oscar could use a bit more of his wit in the face of tragedy.
Garth Grimball is a writer and dancer based in Oakland, CA. He is a contributor to Fjord Review, SF Examiner and Dance Media. He is the editor of ODC Dance Stories.
In “Oscar” Art Doesn’t Imitate Life, Art Is Life was originally published in ODC.dance.stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.