1895
Oscar Wilde
An Ideal Husband
B
This is the play where Wilde got the most playful with the stage directions, as in the early description, "Watteau would have loved to paint them." My favorite of the witty lines this time is "Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are." Along with the plot, which has a scandal that's not sex-related for once, these make for my second favorite of Wilde's works. (I've read but don't own Dorian Gray and some of his other fiction.) The characters are more complex than in the three earlier plays, and I thought Caversham was great as the snarky father of snarky Goring. Also, Mabel Chiltern is charming. The title character and his wife seem like the usual stodgy Puritans, but at least they're allowed to react in rational ways for once.
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