Lady Windermere's Fan, By Oscar Wilde

SUMMARY

ACT I

It’s Margaret Windermere’s birthday, and she’s having a party tonight. Her husband has given a fan as a birthday present. Lord Darlington, a friend of the couple, is visiting lady Windermere and is paying her a lot of compliments. He is infatuated with her, but we don’t know if he’s really in love, or he’s only a rake. Lord Darlington knows lord Windermere has a singular relation with a woman called Mrs Erlynne, who is new in the city, and wants to take advantage of this in order to seduce lady Windermere.

Lady Windermere is going to find out about her husband supposed affair through the Duchess of Berwick, who tells her about the frequent visits her husband pays to Mrs Erlynne, hinting he has a love affair with her.

Lady Windermere doesn’t believe the story, but she has some doubts. In the end, she checks her husband bank books and discovers he has repeatedly given big sums of money to Mrs Erlynne.

She asks her husband why he has given her so much money, but he didn’t explain why; he only asks her to trust him and also to invite Mrs Erlynne to her birthday party. As she doesn’t want to do it, Lord Windermere writes himself the invitation card.

ACT 2

In the second act, we are at Lady Windermere birthday party. There are a lot of people, including Lord Windermere’s funny friends, Lord Darlington, the Duchess of Berwick and Mrs Erlynne. In the beginning, all the people want to avoid Mrs Erlynne, but, as the party goes on, everybody is seduced by her wits. Even one of Lord Windermere’s friends, Lord Augustus, aka Tuppy, a very simple man, falls in love with her.

Lady Windermere is so angry and disappointed with her husband, that she decides to accept Lord Darlington’s love and his proposition to elope with her. When the party is over, she leaves a letter for her husband telling him she is leaving him and goes away to Lord Darlington’s house. But Mrs Erlynne sees the letter, takes it before Lord Windermere knows anything about its content, and decides to save her and her marriage.

ACT 3

Lady Windermere is at Lord Darlington’s house waiting for him to run away together. But she has some doubts about her decision. After a while, in comes Mrs Erlynne. She tells her she wants to save her and her family, and lastly, she persuades her to go back to her husband. But, when they are going to go out, Lord Darlington and his friends, including Lord Windermere, are entering the house. Mrs Erlynne and Lady Windermere have to hide quickly.

But somebody finds Lady Windermere’s fan on a chair, and, when Lord Windermere is on the point of starting searching for his wife thinking she has something to do with Lord Darlington, Mrs Erlynne reveals herself. Everybody is astounded, Lady Windermere can make her escape, and Lord Augustus is quite disappointed.

ACT 4

Lady Windermere is at home thinking about the way to thank Mrs Erlynne, now she knows she isn’t a bad woman because she helped her to go back to her husband. But now her husband tells her she’s a contemptible woman.

At that moment, Mrs Erlynne comes to Lord Windermere’s to give back Lady Windermere’s fan and to ask for a photo of hers. While she is looking for it, and Lord Windermere and Mrs Erlynne are alone together, we find out that Mrs Erlynne is Lady Windermere’s mother, and that she abandoned her daughter twenty years ago to elope with her lover, who died some years after and left her alone in the world and rejected by every society. But neither he nor she tells anything of this secret to Lady Windermere.

In the end, Mrs Erlynne goes away, but not without finding a creditable explanation for her appearance at Lord Darlington’s, and this way she gets back Tuppy, and they leave for the continent together.

AUDIOBOOK

A Good Woman FILM

Lady Windermere's Fan FILM

Another Lady Windermere's Fan FILM

Third Act. The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde

SUMMARY

John and Algernon are worried because their name isn’t Ernest, and Cecily and Gwendolen feel deceived and disappointed for the same. The boys’ only solution is getting re-baptized. While they are thinking about that, Lady Bracknell arrives in search of her run-away daughter. She forbids her to be engaged to John. Then Algernon informs her aunt that he’s engaged to Cecily, and in the end aunt Augusta gives her approbation; but, unfortunately, they can't get married until John, Cecily’s guardian, gives his consent, and that will be when Lady Bracknell gives hers to him. While they are debating this, Miss Prism appears; Lady Bracknell recognizes her, and, thanks to this meeting, John discovers who really is and what his real name is.
At the end there are some marriages and lots of happiness.

Oscar Wilde Documentary (video)

Great Lives: Oscar Wilde. BBC radio

ACTORS AND ACTRESSES on the radio play:

Terence Alexander
as Merryman

Samantha Bond
as Gwendolen

Miriam Margolyes
as Miss Prism

Michael Hordern
as Lane

Michael Sheen
as John Worthing

Martin Clunes
as Algernon Moncrieff

Judy Dench
as Lady Bracknell

John Moffat
as Cannon Chasuble

Amanda Root
as Cecily

Second Act: The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde

The place where the second act is situated is in the Manor House, in the country.
As we already know, Algernon Moncrieff has surreptitiously got Cecily’s address and is determined to visit her, as he has fallen in love with her… without even having ever met her.

The first scene is in the garden. Cecily is studying with Miss Prism, but she doesn’t like the subjects her governess proposes her.

Unexpectedly for them, Algernon arrives under the name of Ernest Worthing, the wicked brother invented by Jack Worthing. Cecily is so happy to meet him, that she immediately falls in love with him.

They both go in the house and, while they are inside, Jack arrives and communicates the sad news of his brother death to Miss Prism and Dr Chasuble, the parson, without knowing that Algernon/Ernest is there. A moment later, Algernon/Ernest and Cecily come out to the garden and meet them. Jack has a big surprise and has to pretend that Ernest death has been a misunderstanding or a bad joke.

In the second scene, Gwendolen arrives to visit Jack/Ernest, and she meets Cecily. Then they are enormously puzzled because they both say they are engaged to Ernest. Fortunately for them, they discover that they’re two different young men, and that none of them (unfortunately for the boys) is called Ernest. Cecily and Gwendolen are very disappointed, but they end forgiving their lovers.

The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde

Some films: 

The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)

Frame of The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)

The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)

Wilde (1997)

The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960)

Happy Prince, "La importancia de llamarse Oscar Wilde",  (2018)

The importance... a radio play: BBC audio

The Importance of Being Earnest was a very successful play in London at the end of the 19th century, but its performances stopped when Oscar Wilde became convicted for “gross indecency” and sent to prison.

There are some versions of the same play. Ours has three acts.

In the first act, Algernon Moncrieff gets some visitors at home. The first visitor is his friend Ernest Worthing; in his visit, we discover that his real name isn’t Ernest, but Jack (a form of John). Algernon also finds that Ernest is the tutor of a very beautiful young ward called Cecily Cardew, and immediately he falls in love with her.

Next visitors are his aunt Augusta (Lady Bracknell) and her daughter Gwendolen. While Aunt Augusta, with the help of Algernon, is selecting some music for a party she’s going to have that evening, Ernest/Jack proposes to Gwendolen, and she says yes. Aunt Augusta comes back suddenly, reproaches the couple’s behaviour and attitude and, obviously, cancels the engagement. However, she asks some questions to Ernest/Jack in order to discover if he is an eligible man for her daughter; when she knows that he has no parents and has been adopted, she discards him absolutely and forbids him to approach Gwendolen.

By chance (and listening attentively) Algernon gets to know Cecily’s address in the country, and decides to visit her.

 

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 and died in Paris at the age of 46.

He was the son of an important poetess of the Irish Literary Renaissance.

He went to Trinity College in Dublin and then to Oxford. After that, he settled in London, where he got the reputation of a clever wit for his writings and lectures. His epigrams and paradoxes are famous. He also went to the USA to deliver lectures.

But he got his literary position thanks to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and to his play The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He also wrote some short stories, e.g. The Happy Prince, and some poems, e.g. The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

At the age of 30, he got married and had two children.

Wilde prosecuted the Marquess of Queensberry (Lord Alfred Douglas’s father, his lover) for criminal libel and lost the trial. As a consequence of the information appeared in the trial relative to his sexual behaviour (“the love that dare not speak its name”), he was arrested and sentenced to two years of hard labour. Once he got out of prison, he went to Paris, where he spent his three last years of life, impoverished and abandoned from everybody.

His tomb is in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.