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Review by Paul Nelson |
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THE revival of Oscar Wilde's play Lady Windermere's Fan at the Haymarket
is a curiosity in that it is probably the first time the play has been
produced with a total lack of style from its two leading ladies. Presumably,
the idea of casting a real life mother and daughter to play Wilde's fictional
mother and daughter was that the play might gain something. It doesn't.
Designed by John Gunter, the play opens behind an elaborate and huge fan which
is used instead of the theatre's main house curtain. When this flies out the
set is revealed to be a series of embroidered gauze-like drapes suggesting
goings on behind net curtains, a rather bourgeois British institution, or
that the whole is a symbolic four poster bed also designed to hide nocturnal
activities.
In this extraordinary setting the story of the good woman who is faithful
to her husband, suspecting him of philandering, unfolds. It's a rather dated
idea these days but as with the net curtains, it would be nice and respectable
if fidelity were all the rage.
Very briefly, Lady Windermere's birthday ball is gatecrashed by the notorious
Mrs Erlynne at the invitation of Lord Windermere who knows she is his wife's
mother, thought to be long dead. Lady Windermere, having heeded gossip and
suspecting the worst, decides to leave her husband and run away with the handsome
Lord Darlington who has declared his love for her.
Mrs Erlynne, seeing history about to repeat itself, intervenes and all ends
happily, Lady Windermere sadder and wiser, still not knowing Mrs Erlynne is
her