THE TERRIBLE LAUGHTER OF THE WORLD: So I Netflix’d a BBC series of productions of various Oscar Wilde whatnot–three plays, plus an adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, plus a (shudder) biopic which I eschewed. Here are some quick reactions, starting with the play I liked least and finishing with the best one:

“Lady Windermere’s Fan”: It’s so weird to watch a lot of Wilde all at once and realize that you’re seeing very different genres of play written all in the same style. It’s kind of fascinating, actually: the coruscating surface of such different underlying forms.

That said, I hated this. I’m not sure if it was the play or the performance–girls, girls! you’re both ugly–but it was melodramatic and forgettable.

So forgettable that I now realize I don’t have anything else to say about it. Sorry! Moving on.

(Oh–remembered that there are a few good moments, as in the first half of the overlong speech from which I took the title of this post.)

“The Picture of Dorian Gray”: I admit I was skeptical from the start. It’s such a lush, novelish novel that I had no idea how it could be transferred to the screen.

Clumsily, is the answer. This has John Gielgud in it, and Jeremy Brett, and the guy who plays Dorian is unexpectedly excellent; and yet this was just a mistake, I think. It’s too stagy (the stabbing scene is more painful for the audience than it could possibly have been for the character) and just… all mustaches and declaiming and unfortunate. Sibyl is saccharine. (She probably is in the novel, too, but I don’t remember because we don’t have to see or hear an actual actress!) Without the length and artificiality of the novel, the moral tale played more like melodrama than like fairy tale or horror. This was so unlike my mental Dorian Gray that I can at least say it didn’t retroactively ruin the book for me. Oh well.

“An Ideal Husband”: This is where it gets good. The moral-taleyness of it all was still slightly overwhelming–Wilde can be kind of relentless when he wants you to get the point!–but the famous brilliant lines could stand up against the very tight structure of the characters’ dilemma. This is still basically a cautionary tale, but it’s a good one; my sympathy was engaged and so I felt suspense even though I knew how it would come out in the end. Still, I did feel like you could come to the bottom of this play on one or two viewings–which I definitely didn’t feel about…

“The Importance of Being Earnest”: OK, this was fantastic. I have nothing bad to say about this. It’s a very weird play–felt like it had three layers: the brilliant dialogue; the farcical storyline; and the underlying real-world dilemmas and decisions for which the farce was a metaphor or a sort of slant-rhyme. And all three layers really work: the dialogue for intellectual stimulation, the farce for laughter, and the underlying, barely-grasped everyday equivalences for emotional engagement.

The BBC production is great, too. Rupert Frazer, Amanda Redman, and Joan Plowright are especially terrific as Archy, a cartoony and witchy Gwendolyn, and Lady Bracknell. Natalie Ogle is very fun as Cecily–although the combination of her looks and her role made me keep wishing they’d gotten Julie Sawalha instead.

Anyway, I’m very glad I saw these, but can only recommend the last two.