ABSTRACT
The similarity between Mr. Oscar Wilde’s Ideal Husband and Sardou’s Dora is too marked not to be noticed. The hero, instead of being accused of stealing an important dispatch, is charged with selling a State secret. A new Zicka is introduced who blackmails the hero, instigated by another Baron Stein, who is an Austrian speculator; and instead of detection by a peculiar secret, we have a wonderful diamond bracelet, which has been stolen by the adventuress, who does not know it is a patent bracelet that cannot be unlocked except by some mysterious formula known only to one individual. But after all, these things, as I have often pointed out, concern experts far more than the general public. A play is never less interesting to the ordinary playgoer because something in it has been done before. The late Henry Pettitt, for instance, knew the whole formula of melodrama, and every effective method of treating it. In fact, he used the same incidents and series of incidents again and again with success. The critics pointed it out, but the general public were unconcerned. It is to me quite clear that the mere fact that Mr. Oscar Wilde’s play suggests something else does not in the least interfere with its success-a success that is naturally increased by the author’s method and trick of talk. In fact, Oscar Wilde is the fashion. His catch and whimsicality of dialogue tickle the public. Just now the whole of society is engaged in inventing Oscar Wildeisms, just as a few months ago they were employed in discovering the missingword in competitions. It is the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is to form an obvious untruth into a false epigram. Cleverness nowadays is nothing but elaborate contradiction, and the man or woman who can say that black is white or white is black in a fanciful fashion is considered a genius. There is scarcely one Oscar Wildeism uttered in the new Haymarket play that will bear one minute’s analysis, but for all that they tickle the ears of the groundlings, and are accepted as stage cleverness.
