Di, 02.03.2010

Besuch im English-Theatre Frankfurt: „An Ideal Husband“

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

Once again our students had the opportunity to visit a production at the English Theatre in Frankfurt, which had already impressed us with numerous plays in the past. All the actors are native speakers, and thus we expected them to delight us with beautiful language and a solid performance like they usually succeed to do.This evening’s play, “An Ideal Husband” by Oscar Wilde, revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour. A rising politician, Sir Robert Chiltern has the ideal career, the ideal wife and the ideal social ranking. But all of his eminence is suddenly endangered when the scheming and mysterious Mrs. Cheveley threatens to blackmail him and expose a youthful act of corruption.According to Wilde himself we shall all have to pay for what we do. However, he adds that one should be entirely judged by their past. In the end, Sir Robert Chiltern can outplay the mischief planned by the dissolute Mrs. Cheveley, although he needs to realize, as well as his perfectly virtuous wife, that no man (or woman) is flawless after all.

The play remained classy and captured Victorian upper-class London to perfection. The setting has been kept simple yet effective since the costumes already were of great detail and added to the authenticity of the actors. The language was wonderful and certainly did Wilde’s original work justice as it only has been slightly altered in favour of the limited time given. Lines like „Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious“ or „Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear“ entertained the audience very much including our students and teachers, even those who are not Wilde-fans in particular.
To sum it up, it had been an utterly amusing evening for all of us and we can rest assured that there will be many more enjoyable trips alike to follow.

Jieer Xu, 12a