OSCAR

DANCE

17 Sept

Recently landed: Running Wilde

Gracia’s written response to Christopher Wheeldon’s Oscar©, especially for Fjord Review.

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On opening night of the world premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s Oscar©, at The Australian Ballet’s new home for the next three years, The Regent Theatre (as the State Theatre undergoes renovations and a name change), I am catapulted from the 13th of September, 2024 to the 26th of April, 1885, and the commencement of the trial of Oscar Wilde. “Now as the jury files back into court,” narrates Seán O’Shea, “Oscar leaned over the dock, eagerly scanning the faces of the twelve good men and true, seemingly trying to read in their physiognomies his fate; no-one spoke, no-one hardly dared to breathe.” In the thick of it, we begin, and the effect is a kaleidoscopic tornedo. In the moment before the rise becomes the fall, Oscar© teeters, and the effect is hypnotic, from start to finish.

On the 25th of May, Wilde was imprisoned and sentenced[i] to two years hard labour, the maximum sentence allowed, for crimes of “gross indecency” following his relationship with Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas. But this new work, commissioned by The Australian Ballet, and introduced by Artistic Director David Hallberg as “a story not typically seen in classical ballet”[ii], is no bio-ballet. This is no linear tale of Wilde, but rather one that rumbles and sparkles at a pace befitting Wilde’s wit and legacy, in a beautiful melding of both life and writing.

[i] It wasn’t until 2017 that Oscar Wilde, and an estimated 50,000 men, were pardoned by the British government for the “crime” of gross indecency. ‘UK issues posthumous pardons for thousands of gay men’, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/31/uk-issues-posthumous-pardons-thousands-gay-men-alan-turing-law, accessed 15th September, 2024

[ii] “As we present the world premiere of Oscar©, we are making history… Representation for all people is paramount to our vision of the future.” David Hallberg introduction, Oscar©, The Australian Ballet programme, Melbourne and Sydney, 2024, p. 11.