Beardsley

I spent five years researching and writing a play (and then a novel) about the short and dramatic life of the 19th-century artist Aubrey Beardsley and his love-hate relationship with Oscar Wilde. Beardsley had a meteoric career—he was famous at 21 for his book illustrations, and infamous at 22 when he illustrated the printed version of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome, which had been banned in England because it was considered obscene. When Oscar Wilde, the most flamboyant and famous playwright and personality of the 1890s, was arrested and sent to prison for committing homosexual acts, Beardsley was found guilty by association. Overnight, like Wilde, he became an unemployed and unemployable pariah. The only way he could make a living was by working for a sleazy pornographer and accepting the financial help of a converted Russian Jew intent on converting the dying Beardsley to Catholicism. The play is about Beardsley’s rise and fall, and the sexual and spiritual tug of war for his soul. Oscar Wilde is a major character in the play, and there is also a Pierrot character who serves as Beardsley’s muse and alter ego.

Beardsley has had three productions. The first was in Amsterdam in 1987, produced by the English-speaking American Repertory Theater at the Stadschouwburg, the city’s Civic Theater. The following year, American Repertory Theatre reprised the play, with a new set, costumes, and Aubrey Beardsley, at the Rotterdamse Schouwburg, Rotterdam’s new state-of-the-art theatre complex. After that, Circle-in-the-Square in New York picked Beardsley for their New Plays reading series. A stellar New York cast was lined up but, due to budget cuts, the series was cancelled (but the reading took place anyway, at Sardi’s). Life in the theater! In 1992, Beardsley was given its third production, this time in London, by Stage One. Set and costume designers had a field day with Beardsley and used his black-and-white drawings as their inspiration. I continued my own exploration of Beardsley’s life by writing the novel The Confessions of Aubrey Beardsley.

Amsterdam production, Stadschouwburg, 1987

Rotterdam production, Rotterdamse Schouwburg, 1988

London production, Stage One, 1992