Evoking the spirit of "Oscar"

DURING the Dublin Theatre Festival of 1960 Seamus Kelly, then the chief drama critic of this newspaper, made a rare error of judgment. He decided one night in September that he would do his national duty and review a new play that was being staged by the National Theatre Society, and that the simultaneous opening of a show in the Gaiety should be reviewed by one of his fledgling assistants. Nobody now remembers what the play at the Abbey was. The show at the Gaiety was called The Importance of Being Oscar, Micheal MacLiammoir's one man work about the life and art of Oscar Wilde, which still remains a vivid theatrical memory for all who saw it, including this then fledgling critic.

Now, almost 37 years later, there is a new version of the work, set to open in the Savoy Theatre in London's West End tonight, and the performer this time is Simon Callow, who generously came to Dublin on March 5th to offer a platform performance (without benefit of stage lights or settings) of the pre West End production, proceeds in aid of Trinity College's Samuel Beckett Centre. On the evidence of that platform performance, Mr Callow seems set to give a whole new life to Dr MacLiammoir's lambent text.

There is a nice appropriateness in this. Simon Callow's respect and admiration for Micheal MacLiammoir has been known for years. I recall some time in the early 1980s when he and Ned Chaillet (then a writer on theatre for The Times of London) arrived in the offices of The Irish Times seeking material for a radio documentary which Mr Callow was preparing on Dr MacLiammoir. I spent the best part of half an hour Sitting with Simon on the floor behind a desk in what was then the Editor's office. It was the only place in the building where noise levels were sufficiently low to record a broadcastable interview. The Callow regard for MacLiammoir was evident in every question asked, every opinion uttered.

As he made clear in a gracious curtain speech responding to a standing ovation after his platform performance in Trinity's Edmund Burke theatre, Simon Callow never became friendly with Micheal MacLiammoir. But that lack of contact was never an obstacle to one committed and creative actor's admiration of another's work. And now Callow, in his performance, has effectively paid further tribute to MacLiammoir's work by taking his text of Oscar, absorbing it into his own persona and transforming its cadences from soft Irish to sharp English intonations. It should have more direct appeal to an English audience than even the much admired original had.

The original text comes winging clearly and faithfully from Simon Callow's performance and one is reminded of the impression given in the original production all those years ago of how happily and handsomely MacLiammoir's own words - sit alongside the excerpts from Wilde's works which they so elegantly link. One is reminded also of how apt are the pieces of Wilde that were selected to illuminate the life and demonstrate the art of the creator of the style of the green carnation. And one is surprised (because it had not seemed so noticeable 37 years ago) how meagre are the references to Oscar's wife Constance and their children. But the worth and the warmth of MacLiammoir's construction are as evident now as they were on that opening night in the Gaiety.

It remains to be seen whether, fully set and lit in the plush surround of London's Savoy, the same glow settles on Callow as settled on MacLiammoir. That night in September 1960, it seemed as if Hilton Edwards's brilliant array of spotlights were emanating from the actor rather than being directed at him. Nick Richings's lighting and Christopher Woods's setting in the Savoy may well produce a different visual ambience for the piece. But Simon Callow's warm regard for MacLiammoir echoes Micheal's warm regard for Oscar. It seems highly probable that the Callow interpretation of the text will produce every bit as great a success as attended the first production all those years ago.