Director's comments on
An Ideal Husband

An Ideal Husband was first produced in 1895, the same year as The Importance of Being Earnest, and just a few months before Wilde was imprisoned for his homosexual tendencies. It has a distinctly more serious theme than Earnest which, perhaps, may be ascribed to Wilde's occasionally republican sympathies and his approach of attacking the soft underbelly of English Society while many of his literary compatriots were much less subtle in their attacks. Wilde clearly pokes fun at the foibles of this Society in many of his plays, but uses Sir Robert Chiltern in this play to more clearly point out the underlying hypocrisy and occasionally downright dishonesty he detected herein. We have, perhaps, become inured to the frequent scandals which appear to beset our present-day politicians, but the late Victorians were probably less accustomed to having the wrong-doings of their ministers and under-secretaries flaunted on stage. Wilde uses a mixture of his usual high comedy style together with out and out melodrama to make his point (and to keep us amused) as one of the bastions of goodness in London society finds that secrets can not be kept hidden forever.