Season 45 Play 2 – Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde
Directed by
Cast
Mrs. Erlynne – Wendy Coombs
Duchess of Berwick – Sandra Williams
Lady Agatha Carlisle – Helen Reavill
Lady Plymdale – Mary Pagnamenta
Lady Jedburgh – Cindy Haigh
Lady Stutfield – Elaine Hunt
Lady Paisley – Vicky Vigrass
Miss Graham – Maggz Bennett
Mrs. Arthur Bowden – Krystyna Edmondson
Rosalie – Maggz Bennett
Mrs. Cowper-Cowper – Janet Jamieson
Mrs. Cecily Browne – Johanna Morrissey
Lord Windermere – Laurie Toczek
Lord Darlington – Stephen Brown
Lord Augustus Lorton – Edward Cowen
Mr. Charles Dumby – Quentin Deakin
Mr. Cecil Graham – Gordon Steff
Mr. James Hopper – Chris D’arcy
Sir James Royston – John Jamieson
Lord Paisley – Jesse Scarfe
Mr. Guy Berkley – Darren Crompton
Mr. Arthur Bowden – lan Robinson
Parker – Philip Holbrough
Footman – Scott Thrustans
Synopsis
Living in an age of elegance and leisure Oscar Wilde’s characters struggle to find personal happiness in a society ruled by manners and double standards.
Directors Notes
What an opportunity to celebrate the 100 year, anniversary of one of the greatest writers in the language. In February 1892, “Lady Windermere’s Fan* reached the stage and founded the reputation of Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde as one of the great comedy writers of all time. In four years his reputation as a playwright and wit was to blossom, his fortune to be made and spent – and his position as one of the lions of society was to be established and wrecked.
This is not one of his wittiest plays – most of the Wildean epigrams are reserved for the minor characters. The central themes are of love and disloyalty, of social conventions and unorthodoxy, of trust and betrayal – and of the prospects of living with the shame of a vanished reputation. It is hardly a coincidence that these are the very themes Wilde struggled with: they anticipate his predicament. These themes are still alive and relevant today.
In this production I have tried to emphasise the dramatic qualities of the play and to place it firmly in 1892 as a celebration of one hundred years of brilliant theatrical joy. Wilde’s genius is alive and permanently fixed in the theatrical firmament. When BLT asked me to direct ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan* I was sorely tempted. As Lord Darlington says in Act I: “I can resist everything except temptation.” What a privilege! I hope we have all done it justice.
