About the Show
One hundred and thirty years ago, after a sensational and ruinous public trial, Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in London for the crime of homosexuality. Soon after, he was transferred— jeered at and spat on by the crowds that gathered on the train platform to watch— to the notorious Reading Gaol, where he spent the rest of his two-year sentence known only as prisoner C.3.3. Meanwhile, his third play Salome began rehearsals in Paris. It had been barred from the London stage years ago for its depiction of biblical characters, but after his roaring successes with such plays as Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest, Salome was ready to make her debut. The play tells the story of the stepdaughter of Herod, king of Judea during the time of Jesus, and her all-consuming desire for the prophet John the Baptist, also known as Jokannan. But the holy man rejects her, so when her stepfather asks her to dance the famous Dance of the Seven Veils for his guests, Salome asks for only one thing in return: Jokannan’s head on a silver plate. In Salome, Wilde recognized a kindred spirit: a woman whose passion was equaled only by her pride, and whose love caused her to be universally condemned. In Jokannan, too, he found a mirror; a man who was broken because he refused to bend, destroyed by another’s jealousy and rage. Wilde never saw Salome on stage. He died soon after his release, impoverished and ill, profoundly changed by the experience. The Queen of Reading Gaol is a blend of fact and imagination, invention and direct quotation, meeting both Wilde and Salome in the pit of their fall from grace, just before their ascent into legend.