Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

By Moisés Kaufman

Book Overview

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award

In this stunning work of theater, Moises Kaufman turns the trials of Oscar Wilde into a riveting human and intellectual drama.

In April 1895 Oscar Wilde brought a libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his youthful lover, who had publicly maligned him as a sodomite. In doing so, England's reigning man of letters set in motion a series of events that would culminate in his ruin and imprisonment. For within a year the bewildered Wilde himself was on trial for acts of "gross indecency" and, implicitly--for a vision of art that outraged Victorian propriety. Expertly interweaving courtroom testimony with excerpts from Wilde's writings and the words of his contemporaries, Gross Indecency unveils its subject in all his genius and human frailty, his age in all its complacency and repression. The result is a play that will be read and studied for decades to come.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375702326
• ISBN13: 9780375702327
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Moises Kaufman will be a great name in theater history

I have been lucky enough to share the initiation of Mr. Kaufman career in theater in Venezuela, have seen Gross Indecency both in New York and London several times, and have read the play, which is masterfully built. This is a unique experience, both read and seen, and believe me, Mr. Kaufman will be remembered in the future as one of the great names of theater of our time. This may sound as an exaggeration, but if you are someone who is looking for trends in theater, great acting, the influence of Brecht in new generations, never forget this author and director.

This play completely opened my eyes....

i decided to read gross indecency after seeing something about it on tv. being a big fan of oscar wilde's work, i thought that it would be informative. but it went so far beyond that... the play is a little hard to get into at first, and if you're not a fan of oscar wilde, i really wouldn't recommend reading it. you can really see the oscar's transformation during the course of the three trials, from an independent artist with his own views on morality who refuses to be ashamed about his sexuality, to someone who has seen the people he was friends with testify against him over and over....i don't know how anyone could survive in such a situation..... anyway, this play gave me a whole new knowledge of the life of oscar wilde and a new respect for him, the choices that he made, and the courage that he had. if you are really interested in the life of oscar wilde, read this.

A breathtaking play that changed my life for the better.

Never before have I ever had the chance to read and witness such a spectacular play as this one. It not only opened my eyes to the harsh realities that a homosexual man may face, but it also allowed me to appreciate and respect their lives and struggles in a predominantly heterosexual society. This play not only captured the essence of Oscar Wilde but also can claim a spot amongst the greatest and most moving plays of all time.

Strong characters shake the dust off history.

Characters drive drama, they also breathe life into this oft-told tale of the suppression of the individual by a Victorian moral majority. Kaufman knows people thus his people live the events surrounding Wilde's trial. How righteous and how threatened they all were by the great aesthete! Yet, true to his characters, Kaufman gives each member of the audience several moments in which he or she must almost certainly say, "Yes, they were right to bring this arrogant man to the Reading treadmill." True to his protagonist, the playwrite then takes the very breath away that could utter such an arrogant conclusion. These are powerful, living words resolved to burst in the mind of an audience with disturbing, delighting mental reverberations. No reader will be unmoved.

Detailed and well thought out

After I saw this performance at the theater I had to get the book. It was written so well that not only does it cover the 3 trials of Wilde but it describes his whole lifestyle and way of thought. Even if you haven't seen the performance, this book is excellent and worth reading.