Sir, - Mr Rose's letter in your columns, on the differences between your critic's reviews of the two recent productions, is no doubt interesting to the initiated, but would you permit me, a mere fellow in the audience, to put in my two cents worth and ask a few questions about the Abbey's to me gloomy and ponderous production?
An enormous archway, possibly a left over from MacBeth, brooded over the stage, dominated the production and dwarfed the players. On one side, its cornice had an obvious and ominously large crack. Had this crack any deep, esoteric significance, which evaded me and my companions, or had somebody merely dropped it?
Was there some particular reason why most of the stage was kept in un- Wildean semi darkness, why players commenced their speeches before moving into such light as there was, and why, when they did so, the light on their faces appeared to be mottled? Bearing in mind the dictum that, whether we realise it or not much stage listening is subliminally lip reading, this gloom did not help audibly. The programme credits mention a Voice Coach. She was needed!
Lord Illingworth's incessant wrapping of his arms around Gerald Arbuthnot indicated a homosexual interest looked to a subtle change in his attitude when he discovered that the young man was his son. If it was there, it was so subtle that I completely missed it.
I had, staying with me, a theatrically minded New Yorker, accustomed to the delights of Broadway, so I brought him with me, to sample our National Theatre. Wilde's epigrams should surely dance lightly along at a cracking pace, but the funereal rate at which the first half was taken put him unashamedly asleep. I know he is wondering how the Abbey gained its international reputation over the past 70 years.
Our major puzzlement arose in the final minutes. Gerald Arbuthnot went for a walk in the garden with Hester Worsley, wearing most of his evening clothes, minus the jacket. When they returned, he was wearing a complete and neatly pressed brown suit. (So much for the Edwardian stricture that "A gentleman never wears brown"). What were they up to in the garden which caused him to change? Where was the suit stashed? A greenhouse, a toolshed or a gazebo? Yours, etc., Cherryfield Close, Hartstown, Clonsilla, Dublin 15.{EDITION}CITY EDITIONin last Friday's editions, the word "audibly" should have read "audibility" in .... . this gloom did not help audibility".