THEATRE REVIEW

JUNE 2025 | Volume 252

 

This is one wacky play – and one very stylish production. Acomedy disguised as a classic late-19th century melodrama, An Ideal Husband is shot through with Oscar Wildean wit, ridicule, cynicism, paradox and self-mockery. Director Moya O’Connell, with Amber Lewis, has laid on an additional layer or two of style as per Wilde himself, who wrote, “In all unimportant mattersstyle, not sincerity, is the essential. In all important mattersstyle, not sincerity, is the essential.”

Sincerity is the style of only two of the thirteen characters in United Players’ ambitious season-ender: Lord Robert Chiltern (Chris Cope), a wealthymember of the British Parliament, and his earnest wife, Lady Gertrude (Emma Newton). Lord Robert’s privileged life is rocked when the femme fatale—sleazy, sexy, cynical Mrs. Cheveley (Cat Smith)—shows up to blackmail him. All three actors are very good, though the Chilterns have the least fun of anyone in the show. Mrs. Cheveley has discovered the crime Robert committed that kickstarted his rise to fortune. She threatens to reveal the truth and publicly ruin him unless he makes a speech in parliament defending a scam in which she has invested.

Much angst-ing ensues. Robert doesn’t want to lose his power and position or his wife, who idealizes him to the max and might leave him if she knew the truth. Eventually, Robert unburdens himself to his witty, Wildean friend, Lord Goring (Hayley Sullivan), whowill untangle the melodramatic knot and ensure that all will end well.

Thematically, Wilde explores and appears sincerely to critique a couple of serious issues: the poisonous chalice that is wealth and what people will do to attain it, as well as the destructive force of idealism that keeps one from the compromises required by the real world. But we know what Wilde thought of sincerity. And of seriousness he wrote, “Life is too important to be taken seriously.” So let’s move on to the Wildean cruxes: silliness and style.

The style of the show is evident in Omanie Elias’ handsome set with its chessboard floor and movable cabinets; in Madeleine Polak’s playful costumes, which are sometimes beautiful period pieces, especially the women’s dresses, and sometimes anachronistic dandyish outfits, especially Lord Goring’s. It’s evident in Thule van den Dam’s musical compositions to which, at the opening and throughout the scene changes, the cast danceto Jerry Burchill’s eclectic choreography. And it’s evident in the directors’ gender-ambiguous casting: Burchill as Duchess Priscilla;superb, energetic, unpredictably boyish Hayley Sullivan as Lord Goring.

Other notable performances include Kyla Ward as delightful, spacey Mabel; Gordon Law as Lord Goring’s pompous, affectionately scolding father; and Nancy Henderson as Lady Markby, who natters on blithely while bringing the serpent Mrs. Cheveley into the Chilterns’ garden.

The silliness is evident throughout Wilde’s dialogue (e.g., Lord Goring: “I love talking about nothing. It’s the only thing I know anything about”). Though it lacks the sublime absurdity of Wilde’s Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband is bizarre theatrical fun, an ideal antidote to the serious and sincere.

 

 

 

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