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A Woman of No Importance-Oscar Wilde (BBC Radio Drama)
Published by: matrim (Karma: 59.27) on 11 July 2013 | Views: 9870
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A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play, published in 1893, and premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre, is a testimony of Wilde's wit and his brand of dark comedy. It looks in particular at English upper class society and has been reproduced on stages in Europe and North America since his death in 1900. The scene is set in an English country house — Hunstanton (Lady Hunstanton's property). The curtains open to the terrace where we are introduced to Lady Caroline who is engaging in conversation with Lady Huntstanton's American Puritan guest Hester Worsley. Other characters are introduced, including the flirtatious Mrs Allonby, the meek Lady Stutfield and Lady Caroline's submissive husband Sir John. They discuss frivolous matters and are later joined by the powerful, charming and charismatic gentleman, Lord Illingworth who has offered the post of secretary to the fortunate Gerald Arbuthnot. Gerald's mother is invited to join the party, and when she arrives she realises that Lord Illingworth is Gerald's father. She had an affair with him twenty years ago, became pregnant and he refused to marry her, making her a "fallen woman." She is reluctant to let Gerald become Illingworth's secretary, but doesn't tell Gerald her reasons behind her reluctance. Gerald finds out about his mother's past in a spectacularly Wildean moment of melodrama — after trying to kill Lord Illingworth for kissing Hester Worsley — a woman with whom he is very much in love. The play concludes with Gerald, Hester and Mrs. Arbuthnot leaving England for America to live in a society where she will not be judged so harshly by others.
