by AMY BARRATT

It’s a storyline reminiscent of the great tragedies: A hero at the height of his success sets in motion the wheels of his own doom. But Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, opening Aug. 22 at the MainLine Theatre, is not literature but documentary. Moises Kaufman’s play, presented here as part of the New Classical Theatre Festival, is entirely constructed from court transcripts, newspaper articles, letters and other documents dating from the 1890s.

“When you hear that it all essentially takes place in a courtroom you could imagine it being very dry,” admits director Zach Fraser, a recent transplant from Halifax, “but it was a huge sensation at the time. The press called it the ‘Story of the Century.’ It’s about a great writer who was at his peak when it all started to unravel… And about how society was willing to let that happen.”

It’s quite commonly known that Irish-born Oscar Wilde, then as now one of the most celebrated writers in the English language, was convicted of sodomy and sent to Reading Gaol in 1895. What’s perhaps less known is that the first time he found himself in court he was not defendant but plaintiff, the charge not sodomy but defamation of character. The Marquis of Queensbury, the father of Wilde’s significantly younger lover, had publicly accused Wilde of being a “sodomite.” This, Wilde thought, was frightfully bad form, so he took the Marquis to court.

“Wilde knew that ‘sodomy’ was illegal,” explains Fraser, “but the law had been turning a blind eye. At that time, the word ‘homosexual’ did not exist. Wilde justified [his relationships with young men] in terms of the ancient Greeks. For him homosexuality was not a cause he was fighting for. It was just something that was the way it was—part of nature.”

Things didn’t go exactly as Wilde expected with the first trial. Queensbury brought in several young men willing to admit having carnal knowledge of the famous writer. The case against Queensbury was promptly thrown out, and the Crown found itself with evidence before it forcing sodomy charges to be laid against Wilde.

“There were members of Parliament who were well known to be gay themselves,” says Fraser. “This was a lose-lose situation for the Crown, but they saw no alternative to a crackdown. The night Wilde was arrested, there was a mass exodus of London men to France. So that tells you: this man is not a freak... With the OutGames and the human rights conference, there has been so much in the press lately about the topic at hand. It makes you realize just how current the subject matter is.”

Fraser and his wife recently bought a house in the Gay Village, and he says the neighbourhood was the perfect place to be while rehearsing this play. “Right now in the Village it feels like the world’s the way it’s supposed to be,” he says. “You see so many gay couples so joyously walking down the street.”

What does he think Oscar Wilde would make of the OutGames? “He’d love it. He’d be in the bleachers cheering along… I don’t think he’d be racing, but he’d definitely be cheering it on.”

Gross Indecency, Aug. 22–Sept. 2 at Mainline Theatre (3997 St-Laurent), $18–$21, 540-0774.

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