The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde
Oscar taught him everything he knows. He taught him to live when he was merely breathing. He taught him to love. Bosie is tired of being second best. Oscar only talks about Constance. He has to choose to either learn to listen or to walk away..
Technical Details
- Company:
- Abbey Theatre/Barbican, RSC
- Director:
- Patrick Mason
- Written by:
- Thomas Kilroy
- Main Cast:
Jane Brennan (Constance)
Robert O’Mahony (Oscar)
Andrew Scott (Lord Alfred Douglas aka 'Bosie')
The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde Review
Of course that I didn’t have the pleasure to see this in person, but I managed to get hold of a DVD from BBC Knowledge with this gem! If it wasn’t for that, no one would ever have the chance to see this.
The play would be really good if it wasn’t for Robert O’Mahony. He is atrociously bad and awful, he simply ruins the whole thing with his overacting, screaming, lack of depth and annoying intonation to sentences. He starts screaming something and ends up speaking softly. You can check a bit of his awfulness in the clip I’ve made of the play. On the other hand, Jane Brennan is so great, powerful, beautiful and captivating. Her voice and presence really fill up the stage. She speaks with true emotion and you can feel her pain and anguish. All her scenes with Andrew are great to watch. In fact, I could watch two hours of just the two of them talking. Each one of them embodies perfectly what each character represents. Andrew is absolutely fabulous. His prissy Bosie is so vicious and nasty when he opens his mouth and yet, he looks so innocent and adorable…. His voice and accent, everything is spot on. At the beginning of the play his character is more flamboyant and superficial, but as the play evolves you can see that he gets a bit more serious, darker and more cynical.
Bosie is the narrator to the play, he explains and introduces lots of scenes and key events of the story. There’s also some attendants that wear black and white masks that help with the transition of the scenes. Some characters, like the children, are puppets and the attendants, the puppeteers. The puppets resemble the attendants, so it all blends in very well.
The scene from the clip is one of those that I think suffered a lot from the affected and horrible acting from O’Mahony. I feel this scene is intimate and sensual and yet, for the lack of chemistry between the two, there was none of it. It was flat and he looked more like a dead fish with his mouth open rather than completely helpless and disarmed by Bosie’s charm. Andrew could have been more seductive as well, but with an acting partner as stiff as a piece of wood, I can’t blame him for being more restrained than going all the way. It is a shame, cause with the right actor as Oscar this scene could have been amazing!
But, it is a very good play thanks to Andrew and Jane.
Best Clip
