Plays & Scripts

Text in this style indicates stage directions to be read aloud. 

Text in this style is not to be read. 

Text in this style indicates performers' lines. 

The scene: A TV studio preparing to record. In the control room sits the director. The studio set is a study. 

Mark Prior enters. A woman, the Researcher, scurries up to him, hands him a clipboard and runs away. He barely glances at her. He takes off the hat places it on a small table then sits, looking over what he has been handed. 

Prior: Hallo studio? 

The director answers. 

Director: Hallo Mark. 

Prior: Hi Tim. I'm going to read this intro if you want to get a level. 

Director: The techs say 'yes.. 

Prior reads from the clipboard. 

Prior: The marvels of Science have given us many things. Soaring rockets have riven the sky, Computer-enhanced microscopes that open up to us the wonder of the world of wiggling things tinier than a pin's point. 

He pauses and looks impassively at the clipboard for a moment, then continues. 

Prior: Tonight is the first time that Science has given us the opportunity to meet the past. Oscar Wilde is our subject, our guest. 
Genetic retro engineering married to computer-hologramics coupled with software algorithms of infinitesimal- 

He stops, exasperated. 

Prior: Dear God who wrote this? 

The Director is sitting next to the researcher. The Director speaks... 

Director: Tell him who wrote it. 

The researcher is painfully shy and nervous. 

Researcher: Umm...I did. 

Director: Turn the talkback mike on. 

Researcher: Sorry. 

(She flips a switch) 

Researcher: Um... it was me. I researched- 

Prior: Well... I'm sorry, but 'the wonder of the world of wiggling things tinier than a pin's point'? I can't say this. 

Researcher: I'm not really a technical ... I did ancient languages ... Latin, Greek ... and umm Literature... we met umm ... and you said... 

Prior: Oh. Yes. I remember you now. Sorry. 

Researcher: Well ... I gave you the Oscar Wilde ... um ... stuff I'd .. you know ... researched. Briefing, I mean. And you said I could have a stab at writing the intro ... thing. 

Prior: OK. Look, I'm sorry. It's just... We'll have to rewrite this wiggly coupling algorithm stuff. We'll record and cut it in later. OK? 

Director: Sure, sure. 

Prior: Can somebody tell me how this raising the dead stuff works? 

Researcher: Well- 

Prior: No. Please. Not you. You've ... got enough on your plate. Someone else ...? 

Director: (flipping his mike on with a world-weary air) They take his remains, they read the DNA, RNA, CNN, some acronym anyway - in which, they tell me, there is a record of everything that happened to him while he was alive. And then, God knows how, they program a computer to produce a hologram that reacts like Oscar Wilde. Or whoever. But he, it, whatever, has only got as much time as we can afford to pay for on the super-computers that can handle this sort of crap. 

Prior: You're a cynical son of a bitch but succinct. 

Director: Whaddya expect. I was in advertising for years. And, Mark? 

Prior: Yeah? 

Director: If we don't get a good program out of this we're out millions. This was your idea. He'd better be worth it. 

Prior: I hear you. 

Director: They're just updating his hologram with his situation. Which, I take it, means they're telling him how he got here and what we're doing. 

Researcher: Oh wow. Oscar Wilde. Alive again. 

Director: Jeez. Amateurs. 

Prior: Tim? 

Director: Yeah? 

Prior: Willing suspension of disbelief. Remember? 

Director: Barely. 

Prior: Well try. You used to believe in good drama. 

Director: I used to believe the stork brought babies. Then I found out it had more to do with pork. Let's just do the job and make some money. A tinny, techy voice in my ear says he's ready. 

Researcher: How can pork bring babies? 

Director: I'll show you later shall I? 

Researcher: Thank you ... I 

Prior: Leave her alone Tim. 

Prior sits in his chair facing the identical empty chair opposite him. The Director calls for everyone to stand by and counts down from 10 seconds. 

Director: Ok everyone. In 10, 9, 8 7, 6 

He mouths the last 5 counts and uses his fingers. Everybody looks at the doorway. On zero, the director points at the doorway. Then Oscar speaks from an entirely different place. 

Oscar: Gracious me! Bosie, my earnest boy. 

Oscar is not where he was supposed to be. He saunters towards Prior. 

Director: He was supposed to appear over there. What the f- 

Prior: Jeez. Tim. Amateur. Switch to talkback Tim. We can hear every dumb thing you're saying. 

Oscar: I'm so sorry. I was always known for unpredictability, though of course, once one is known for unpredictability others expect it, which defeats the purpose. Hello. 

Prior: Mr. Wilde, I wonder- 

Oscar: Please, call me Oscar. There should be no formalities twixt the quick and the dead. 

Prior: Right. Oscar. And welcome. We weren't quite ready and- 

Oscar: Not ready? You've to have had over a hundred years since I ... was last here. Surely you knew I was coming? 

He walks to the wingback and sits in it, smiling. He is enormously pleased with the effect he has had. 

Director: Mark? 

Prior holds his finger to his earpiece, indicating that he is listening to Tim on his earpiece. Oscar cannot hear Tim. 

Director: This computer's eating up money. Tell the bastard to hurry. 

Prior: Mr. W- Oscar, we started off rather badly- 

Oscar: Yes. The crude gentleman you stopped from swearing seemed most upset. 

Prior: He was. Oscar, could you please repeat what you did just now when you ... came in? 

Oscar: I called you Bosie. 

Prior: Bosie. Alfred Lord Douglas. The young man you had an affair with. 

Oscar: Are we still criminals? 

Prior: No Oscar. 

Oscar: Thank God. My Bosie, my earnest boy. I thought you him. But you are older and have a more somber face. At any rate you cultivate an earnest expression when you address me. 

Director: (to Prior) Get him to cut the cackle and re-do from the top, The meter's running for Chrissake. 

Prior: Mr. Wilde- 

Oscar: Yes, Earnest? I shall call you Earnest. And occasionally, just to confuse you, I shall call you Bosie. Of course, I shall probably confuse myself too, but a little confusion can be so charming. 

Prior: Fine. Would you mind if we started again? 

Oscar: Not at all. 

He strolls to the door. 

Prior: What will you say to open with? 

Oscar: Something predictable. 

Prior: Oh. OK. 

Oscar exits 

Director: Jesus, who does he think he is? 

Researcher: He's Oscar Wilde. 

Director: Thank you. Ready everybody? 

A chorus of assent from the studio. Brief pause. Then Oscar re-enters, and looks around as if the room were fresh to him. He takes a deep breath, lets out a satisfied 'Ah!' and then... 

Oscar: What a delightful room. I cannot thank you enough for inviting me to your little century. I once toured America I didn't realise that I was so popular that you would bring me back from the dead. 

Prior: You're very welcome Oscar. 

Oscar: Thank you, Earnest. 

Prior: I knew your many plays, and other writings, well but not the details of your life. And then I read of the ... journey of your life. It was a shock to discover so much sadness. 

Oscar: It was something of a surprise to me. 

Prior: You once said 'I am the only person I should like to know thoroughly but I don't see any chance of it just at present'. Do you know yourself now? 

Oscar: I know what I was. I know what I thought I was. I know that I became a ghost who haunted himself. I could list my failings and a very long, Rabelasian list they would be. But in brief, I was a sad, sorry, failure. I am not indulging now, Earnest, in self-pity, that filthy wallow. Nor do I desire the pity of others. I neither deserve it nor have I earned it. I merely say what I know to be true. Knowing this, I feel I comprehend Christ's cry upon the cross 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabach thani'. Father, my Father, why hast thou forsaken me. Though, of course, God never deserts one. One deserts Him. Yet His love awaits us still. One hopes. 

Prior: He still loves you Oscar. 

Oscar: Thank you Earnest. 

Prior: Why do you call me Earnest? 

Oscar: You seem so. 

Prior: Earnest? Thank you. 

Oscar: It's not necessarily a compliment. Interviewers, journalists, are often deceivers who contrive to appear earnest and honest and yet they lie like common whores on the street proclaiming their lack of disease. I accept that a writer would be biased in telling a story. It is expected of us. But journalists purport to tell the truth in a factual way which leads an ignorant reader to accept what they say as if it were the Gospel. Often I have written or read more 'truth' in a story or novel or play than has appeared in a whole pile of newspapers. Is it still so today? 

Prior: Yes. Except that today journalists have more outlets. 

Oscar: So journalists play their own version of the truth game still? 

Prior: Yes... but perhaps because we have so much space to fill up we feel we have to stretch the truth to fit. The world is awash with information now, but good writing is still as rare as ever. 

Oscar: You are a journalist then? 

Prior: I was an actor. 

Oscar: Splendid! 

Prior: But now, yes, I suppose I am a sort of journalist. I played Earnest in your play 'The Importance of Being Earnest' once. 

Oscar: Just once? It cannot have been a very successful production. 

Prior: Well, it ran for several weeks- 

Oscar: I was teasing Earnest. I am ecstatic that my work is still playing. Who got the money? 

Prior: I...well there was a producer... 

Oscar: There is no shame having a healthy appreciation of the worth, in cash money, of one's work. I was cavalier with money before I married. But after I became a father I set to with a will. Money became a necessity. I had to provide for all my pretty chickens and their dam. 

Prior: That's from Macbeth. 

Oscar: Well done Earnest. Macduff speaks it when told of the murder of his family 'What? All my pretty chickens... and their dam?' Macduff felt a terrible guilt having left his wife and children to their fate. I empathized with Macduff. But to be aware of tragedy is easy. To be a tragedy is harder, though it took me little effort to achieve. But I dwell on my past, and the past is what a man should not have been. The present is what a man ought not to be. The future is what artists should create. 

Prior: You were a great artist- 

Oscar: I thought so... 

Prior: ...arrogant... 

Oscar: I thought so... 

Prior: ...and a marvelous wit, and yet- 

Oscar: I was a marvelous fool. I marvel at my foolishness, as did many others. 

Prior: You were imprisoned in Reading gaol. 

Oscar: I had hoped that we might discuss my life and avoid the unpleasant subject of my death. 

Prior: But you didn't die in prison. 

Oscar: Every day I died, Earnest. 

Prior: I'm sorry. 

Oscar: No. It is for me to be sorry. 

Prior: Do you remember much of that time. 

Oscar pauses 

Prior: Is it hard to- 

Oscar: It was hard labour Earnest. It was hard hearts and hard stone and hard bread and the hard ground broken to bury those hardened by rigor mortis. 

Prior: You wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, in prison. 

Oscar: Yes. 
Prior: May I read a verse of it' 

Oscar: May I? 

Prior: Yes. Please do. 

Oscar: In Reading gaol by Reading town 
There is a pit of shame 
And in it lies a wretched man 
Eaten by teeth of flame, 
In a burning winding-sheet he lies, 
And his grave has got no name. 

And there, till Christ call forth the dead, 
In silence let him lie: 
No need to waste the foolish tear, 
Or heave the windy sigh: 
The man had killed the thing he loved, 
And so he had to die. 

Yet each...no 
And all men kill the thing they love, 
By all let this be heard, 
Some do it with a bitter look, 
some with a flattering word, 
The coward does it with a kiss... 

(he pauses, clearly distressed.) 

Prior: The brave man with a sword. 

Oscar: Thank you. I was remembering something else... 
Though that last line is not as good as the penultimate. I phrase well and always say what I believe, whether it is unpalatable or not. But it is my genius, I think, to finish a phrase roundly. It is also my failing. 

Prior: Were you always a talker, writer, an artist? 

Oscar: I was always a teller of tales. 

Prior: And were you often in trouble? 

Oscar: Not for telling tales, at least not in the sense of telling lies. My trouble was that I told the truth - or rather I spoke my mind. I would always speak the thought as it occurred to me and had a facility, I have it still, for dressing the thought in the right apparel. 

Prior: Always? 

Oscar: As near as I can recall. 

Prior: Were you a child prodigy? 

Oscar: I don't think so now. I thought so then. I was witty so as to fill in the tedious gaps one experiennces in so many conversations. Nature, and I, abhor a vacumn, though society so often delights in the vacuous. I do not. I was never vacuous, yet at first I delighted society. But what I said and wrote was often full of truth, or at the very least, acute observation. No society likes being observed, and commented upon, so minutely. 

Prior: And that was your downfall? 

Oscar: It gave society fuel for it's later hatred. But I felt it more important to be honest than palatable. Though art and honesty are often strange bedfellows. I am Irish. The English, it seems, need others to make their language work it's magic - and so we oblige. Often to their discomfort. 

Prior: They sentenced you to hard labour, treated you like a common criminal. How did you manage, after the glitter and fame you had in London, and America? 

Oscar: At first I determined to be proud and disdainful. But soon I embraced Humility. Or She embraced me. Christ taught me the way to humility. Humility in her simple grandeur allows of no Ego, or rather she will smile at one's attempt at hiding one's soul in tattered threads of bluster. And then She will use little lessons to teach how to come to Her. Have you ever eaten prison bread? 

Prior: No. 

Oscar hunches forward his eyes lidded as he speaks of this. His speech becomes more monotonic, less flowery. 

Oscar: Coarse bread. Stone in it. Like a rasp in my throat. And the air stinking. Feotid. But we breathed the air and ate the bread. All of it. Jesus help me. I remember someone - the Chaplain, the Doctor.. - getting me white bread. I ate that. licked it up. I licked my fingers and scrabbled for the crumbs. 

There is a long pause. 

Prior: And..? 

Oscar: (Draws a deep breath and pulls himself upright) What would you have me couple to that Bosie- 

Prior: Earnest. 

Oscar: You are so like my Bosie. You pry almost insolently, yet so earnestly, too. How old are you? 

Prior: Forty three. 

Oscar: Old enough to be a father. Do you have children? 

Prior: I.. I'm divorced. I have ... daughters. Two daughters. You had two boys... 

Oscar: I ... no, Constance, poor Connie, and I had two beautiful boys. They were great gifts. Vyvyan was so earnest. Cyril was so Cyril. Cyril taught me that nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance. I so loved them both. 

Prior: You told bedtime stories to them which you later published? 

Oscar: Oh yes. They were the only audience I truly knew and loved. Bedtime was our time. I would extemporise, and poured forth stories for them. They would fall asleep. Had any other audience treated me in such a cavalier way I would have consigned them to hell. But when my boys fell asleep to my words I sat and watched them and loved them. Then I would kiss them but sometimes I could not leave. I would have work's whining voice calling me but I couldn't leave them. 

Prior: But you left them, and your wife, finally. 

Oscar: (pause) Yes. 

Prior: For Bosie. 

Oscar: I- 

Prior: Homosexuality was considered a heinous sin, a crime, in England then. 

Oscar: Yes. Love was a crime then. 

Prior: And so, prison and you had to leave Bosie too. 

Oscar: Yes ... I ... loved him. 

Prior: And your family,,? 

Oscar takes a deep breath and speaks... 

Oscar: Yet each man kills the thing he loves 
By each let this be heard 
Some do it with a bitter look 
Some with a flattering word 
The coward does it with a kiss... 
I kissed them. I kissed them. And they said 'Goodbye Papa'... 

He cries. The camera holds his image as he trembles but struggles to hold onto his composure. Then his image freezes. The mouth moves strangely and Oscar says 

Oscar: Tetelestai. 

There is a pause, while every one focuses on the frozen figure of Oscar, face screwed up in pain. 

Director: I don't believe it. The bloody super-computer crashed. What'd he say? 

Researcher: Umm... 

Director: What was that last thing he said? I- 

Researcher: It's ancient Greek. It means 'It is completed'. It's finished.