Tonight I watched Oscar Wilde fall from the high life of fame, fortune, and egotism to the depths of shame, hardship, and humility--from noteworthiness to notoriety.  The acting in Moises Kaufman’s Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde was excellent, and I enjoyed the intensity and fast pace of the trials.  At first, being unfamiliar with Wilde’s personal life and the nature of the production, I was confused by what was going on.  Then the realization hit me: Oscar Wilde, a homosexual, was involved with a man half his age, Lord Alfred Douglas.  Wilde prosecuted Douglas’s father, Queensbury, for accusing him of “posing” as a sodomite.  He then realized he could not win the case because too much evidence was against him and because Queensbury was only a poor father trying to protect his son from a wicked reputation.  As he could not prove that he had not posed as charged, Wilde dropped the case.  But, having sought the spotlight, the tables turned on him and he was himself charged with indecent acts with young boys.  A brilliant and eloquent speaker, Wilde slid around the cross-examinations by emphasizing that art is neither moral or immoral.  However, after the four boys testified against him, he found himself in trouble.  After three trials, Oscar Wilde was found guilty for his acts of sodomy and was sentenced to two years of hard labor.  Broken and ill, Wilde died on November 30, 1900.
         A brilliant author, poet, and playwright of his time, Wilde was also a homosexual.  Though he was tried, found guilty, and punished for his crime of sodomy, he was, though not on the surface, actually on trial for breaching class distinctions.  England of the 19th century was very class-oriented, and the aristocrats were never seen with the destitute, much less with destitute male prostitutes.  It upset me that Parliament targeted Wilde primarily because he was so popular.  Society turned him into a monster, just as it does to anyone who is different.  I  also hated how the “boys” played innocent as if Wilde had corrupted them when in reality, they were selling themselves on the street long before he even met them.
         All in all, I found Oscar Wilde to be an intriguing character.  He was brilliant, pompous, and eccentric, but his pride over his reputation proved to be his tragic flaw.  If he had not pursued the case with Queensbury, which he did mostly to prove his devotion to Douglas, he would not have been arrested for gross indecency.  Though I do not support Wilde’s lifestyle, I feel his punishment was tougher than his crime.  To me, it is sad that Oscar Wilde’s scandalous actions have overshadowed and detracted from the pure genius of his work.