The Books: “An Ideal Husband” (Oscar Wilde)

Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:

Next on my script shelf:

More Oscar Wilde!

Next play on the shelf is An Ideal Husband (Dover Thrift Editions).

Has anyone seen the film version of this script? With Rupert Everett? (And a host of others) I thought it was a lot of fun. Rupert Everett is the perfect actor to play Wilde. That language sounds perfectly natural coming out of his mouth. Oh, and I experienced the first signs of Minnie Driver fatigue when I saw the film back in 1999. I found her sooooo tiresome, and sooooo pleased with herself in that movie that I thought: Okay. I need her to go away now. I liked her a lot in Circle of Friends and Good Will Hunting but … Ewan McGregor nailed it when he said about her (in his earlier days, when he was much more volatile with the press, showing up to junkets hungover and then saying anything he felt like to them!!) “Minnie Driver would go to the opening of an envelope.” I sensed that over-eagerness for success in her performance in Ideal Husband and it turned me off. Of course you have to be eager for success if you want to be an actor, but you can’t let that ambition get into your acting itself – it’s grotesque. Anyway, I have strayed far from the path.

In the play, Sir Robert Chiltern, a prestigious member of the House of Commons, and married to Mabel Chiltern, has all of this threatened when Mrs Cheveley arrives in London, and begins showing up here and there. It’s all very vicious – because Mrs. Cheveley was actually a schoolgirl enemy of Lady Chiltern – so there are layers upon layers of motive here. Mrs. Cheveley shows up at a party being held at the Chiltern home, and tries to blackmail Sir Robert into supporting a fraudulent scheme to build canals in Argentina. Why does Sir Robert Chiltern agree to her demand? Because she has evidence of not only a shady business deal in his past – but evidence that his entire fortune was made because of that shady business deal. Mrs. Cheveley, whose dead mentor was the other partner in this “business deal”, has the letter to prove the crime. Sir Robert is terrified of what the revelation of all of this will do not only to his career but to his marriage (that is the key to the play – the whole marriage part) – and so he submits to her demands. He is trapped. He agrees to support the Argentinian canal project, even though it’s widely known to be a scam.

Enter one of the most pivotal roles (played beautifully in the film by Cate Blanchett) – Sir Robert’s wife – Lady Childtern. They have the “ideal” marriage. Based on love, mutual respect, shared goals and ideals. (The marriage is wonderfully played in the film. Sir Robert is played by Jeremy Northam. You truly get the sense that there is a deep love between the two). However, there’s a deep dishonesty there: Lady Chiltern does not know about her husband’s shady past, and the marriage is a house of cards because not only does she need to love her husband, but her entire ideal of marriage is predicated on the fact that she must worship his character – in the private AND the public realm. This is her entire life goal. And she thought she had it. When she learns of the deal that Mrs. Cheverley has roped him into, a deal he had formerly rejected, she insists that he renege on his promise. She doesn’t know he is being blackmailed. She does not know the real truth. The vise begins to tighten for him … He caves to his wife’s demands, because, after all, he loves her, but he also loves her worship. He also needs a marriage that is based on seeming unimpeachable in all of his decisions. (Am I being clear here? I am making it sound more complex than it is. It all is vibrantly alive and simple when you see the film) Wilde is making a point here, obviously. When we fall in love with an ideal, when we expect mere human beings to live up to some spotless ideal, we are doomed to fail.

Meanwhile – there are other guests at this same house party and we get involved with them as well. Sir Robert’s good friend Lord Goring (played by Rupert Everett) – who is a dandy, a confirmed old bachelor, and a major troublemaker. Along the lines of Puck. A guy who likes to create intrigues, and then snicker in the corner as he watches the fallout. He’s got kind of a partner in crime in this, namely Mabel Chiltern (Robert’s sister) – played tiresomely by Minnie Driver. There’s a whole intrigue with a diamond brooch that they find at the party – a brooch that Lord Goring gave to someone many years ago. Hmmmm. Who left it? Goring gives the brooch to Mabel and asks her to inform him if anyone comes looking for it.

The play’s plot moves on inexorably. It’s kind of a light-hearted version of Doll’s House – with a shady secret business deal threatening not just a specific marriage – but the entire institution of marriage itself. Lord Goring, who knows all, goes to his friend, Sir Robert, and tries to convince him to just come clean to his wife. He also reveals that once upon a time he had been engaged to the now-threatening Mrs. Cheverley. (Typical Wilde. All the different threads of the plot woven, interwoven, tangled up, coincidences abound) In the same meeting at the Chiltern house, Lord Goring goes to Lady Chiltern and gives her some advice, (without giving her husband’s secret away). He suggests that she not be so morally inflexible, so unforgiving. Such rigidity is actually very fragile. After Lord Goring leaves, Mrs. Cheverley arrives at the door – saying that she had misplaced her brooch the night before at the party – had anyone found it? During this scene with Lady Chiltern, it is revealed that Lord Chiltern has gone back on his promise to Mrs. Cheverley, and will not support the fraudulent scheme. Mrs. Cheverley (played so sweetly sinister in the film by Julianne Moore) is so enraged by this news that she comes clean with Lady Chiltern, and reveals everything to her about her husband’s shady past. Lady Chiltern cannot, and will not, accept her husband as anything less than “ideal” – so she denounces him and refuses to forgive him.

Horrible. It’s awful in the movie – you really feel the pain of those two people (the Chilterns). They love each other, no doubt about it, but there’s a deep lie at the heart of their relationship – and finally when they both admit to it – their marriage crumbles.

Meanwhile – Lord Goring’s father is constantly showing up at Lord Goring’s residence demanding when his son will be married. You honestly can’t imagine Lord Goring ever being married. He’s too sly, too cunning, and way way too cynical to ever fall in love. He’s got the flirty thing going with the tiresome Mabel – who is kind of his female equivalent – a troublemaker, kind of above the muck and mire of actual human relationships, too busy snickering about everyone else’s problems to actually have problems of her own.

So the plot rolls on. Goring receives a letter at his home from Lady Chiltern asking for his help. The letter is on pink paper. (Important detail) The letter could be mistaken, in appearance and in its cryptic tone, for a love letter. Mrs. Cheverley arrives at Goring’s home, and is ushered into the parlor by the butler to wait for Sir Robert. At the same moment, Sir Robert also shows up at Lord Goring’s house – to ask Lord Goring for advice. He is unseen (at first) by Mrs. Cheverley, waiting in the parlor. While Mrs. Cheverley waits, she finds the pink letter from Lady Chiltern. A very compromising letter, indeed. Sir Robert eventually discovers Mrs. Cheverley in the parlor, and is immediately convinced that Lord Goring and Mrs. Cheverley have revved up their old affair. He is enraged by this (Lord Goring is his friend, after all – what about loyalty? Why would his friend pick up with a woman who is trying to destroy him??) and storms out of the house.

Lord Goring finally comes in to see Mrs. Cheverley – she confronts him with the pink letter – and offers up a bargain. She offers to exchange the old business letter (evidence of Lord Chiltern’s shady deal) for Lord Goring’s hand in marriage. She says that she is still in love with him. Lord Goring says no. He say has reduced marriage to a financial transaction, and he can’t abide by that, and he also can’t stand that she had ruined the marriage of the Chilterns. Then Lord Goring goes to a desk drawer, takes out the brooch, and suddenly goes at her, and attaches it (with some hidden clasp thingie) to her wrist. Mrs. Cheverley is confused by this whole thing – and then Lord Goring comes clean: he knows that Mrs. Cheverley actually stole the brooch from his own cousin years and years ago. He threatens to call the police to arrest her for the old theft. In order to avoid arrest, the trapped Mrs. Cheverley hands over the old incriminating letter. Lord Goring throws it in the fire. While his back is turned – the conniving Mrs. Cheverley pockets the “pink letter” from Lady Chiltern. Her plan? To send it to Sir Robert Chiltern – who will obviously read it as a love letter from his wife to his bachelor best friend.

We are nearing the end now …

In the last act: We are in Lord Goring’s house on Grovesnor Square. Lord Goring proposes marriage to Mabel, his partner in crime. She says yes. (Minnie Driver says “yes” with such smug giggling self-pleased glee that I found her despicable. Ew.) We learn that Sir Robert stood up in the House of Commons and publicly denounced the fraudulent Argentinian canal scheme. It was a desperate ploy to get his wife back, to get back in her high regard. Lady Chiltern appears at the door, and Lord Goring tells her the whole story about how he burned the old letter – but then he tells her that her own letter, on the pink paper, had been stolen by Mrs. Cheverley. She obviously is going to use that as blackmail – because Mrs. Cheverley is now determined to destroy the Chiltern marriage. Sir Robert enters the house, and he is reading the pink letter from Lady Chiltern to Lord Goring – but he mistakes it for a letter of forgiveness to HIM. (It’s an ambiguous letter). Because of this “mistake” – the two are able to reconcile.

Lord Goring asks Sir Robert for his sister’s hand (Mabel’s hand) in marriage. Sir Robert, who knows Lord Goring’s reputation as a bachelor better than anyone, says no. Remember: he also believes that Lord Goring is also cavorting about with that conniving bitch Mrs. Cheverley. So he refuses. In light of this misunderstanding, which threatens to derail two lives – Lord Goring’s and Mabel’s – Lady Chiltern, she of the “ideal” fantasies, finally comes clean. She explains about the pink letter, and what it was really about. This puts to rest the rumor that Lord Goring is going around with Mrs. Cheverley – so Sir Robert finally says: Yes, Lord Goring can marry Mabel. That self-pleased giggling over-eager wench. No, just kidding.

Okay, so did you get all that?

I had forgotten many of the details – and relied on IMDB’s plot summary to remind me of the intricacies – but it’s actually quite a satisfying morality tale, and it’s one of my favorite Oscar Wilde plays.

Too many good scenes with too many epigrams to count!

I will excerpt the scene when Mrs. Cheverley arrives at Lord Goring’s house and is shown into the parlor – where she sees the pink letter. Here is the scene between Lord Goring and Mrs. Cheverley. Watch the sparks fly!! Such fun language, such a battle of wits. Sharp-edged, too, one shouldn’t forget the sharp edge, and the stakes involved here.

EXCERPT FROM Next play on the shelf is An Ideal Husband (Dover Thrift Editions) by Oscar Wilde

LORD GORING: Mrs. Cheveley! Great heavens! . . . May I ask what you were doing in my drawing-room?

MRS. CHEVELEY: Merely listening. I have a perfect passion for listening through keyholes. One always hears such wonderful things through them.

LORD GORING: Doesn’t that sound rather like tempting Providence?

MRS. CHEVELEY: Oh! surely Providence can resist temptation by this time. [(Makes a sign to him to take her cloak off, which he does.)]

LORD GORING: I am glad you have called. I am going to give you some good advice.

MRS. CHEVELEY: Oh! pray don’t. One should never give a woman anything that she can’t wear in the evening.

LORD GORING: I see you are quite as wilful as you used to be.

MRS. CHEVELEY: Far more! I have greatly improved. I have had more experience.

LORD GORING: Too much experience is a dangerous thing. Pray have a cigarette. Half the pretty women in London smoke cigarettes. Personally I prefer the other half.

MRS. CHEVELEY: Thanks. I never smoke. My dressmaker wouldn’t like it, and a woman’s first duty in life is to her dressmaker, isn’t it? What the second duty is, no one has as yet discovered.

LORD GORING: You have come here to sell me Robert Chiltern’s letter, haven’t you?

MRS. CHEVELEY: To offer it to you on conditions. How did you guess that?

LORD GORING: Because you haven’t mentioned the subject. Have you got it with you?

MRS. CHEVELEY: [(sitting down.)] Oh, no! A well-made dress has no pockets.

LORD GORING: What is your price for it?

MRS. CHEVELEY: How absurdly English you are! The English think that a cheque-book can solve every problem in life. Why, my dear Arthur, I have very much more money than you have, and quite as much as Robert Chiltern has got hold of. Money is not what I want.

LORD GORING: What do you want then, Mrs. Cheveley?

MRS. CHEVELEY: Why don’t you call me Laura?

LORD GORING: I don’t like the name.

MRS. CHEVELEY: You used to adore it.

LORD GORING: Yes: that’s why.

[(MRS. CHEVELEY motions to him to sit down beside her. He smiles, and does so.)]

MRS. CHEVELEY: Arthur, you loved me once.

LORD GORING: Yes.

MRS. CHEVELEY: And you asked me to be your wife.

LORD GORING: That was the natural result of my loving you.

MRS. CHEVELEY: And you threw me over because you saw, or said you saw, poor old Lord Mortlake trying to have a violent flirtation with me in the conservatory at Tenby.

LORD GORING: I am under the impression that my lawyer settled that matter with you on certain terms . . . dictated by yourself.

MRS. CHEVELEY: At that time I was poor; you were rich.

LORD GORING: Quite so. That is why you pretended to love me.

MRS. CHEVELEY: [(shrugging her shoulders.)] Poor old Lord Mortlake, who had only two topics of conversation, his gout and his wife! I never could quite make out which of the two he was talking about. He used the most horrible language about them both. Well, you were silly, Arthur. Why, Lord Mortlake was never anything more to me than an amusement. One of those utterly tedious amusements one only finds at an English country house on an English country Sunday. I don’t think any one at all morally responsible for what he or she does at an English country house.

LORD GORING: Yes. I know lots of people think that.

MRS. CHEVELEY: I loved you, Arthur.

LORD GORING: My dear Mrs. Cheveley, you have always been far too clever to know anything about love.

MRS. CHEVELEY: I did love you. And you loved me. You know you loved me; and love is a very wonderful thing. I suppose that when a man has once loved a woman, he will do anything for her, except continue to love her? [(Puts her hand on his.)]

LORD GORING: [(taking his hand away quietly.)] Yes: except that.

MRS. CHEVELEY: [(after a pause.)] I am tired of living abroad. I want to come back to London. I want to have a charming house here. I want to have a salon. If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilised. Besides, I have arrived at the romantic stage. When I saw you last night at the Chilterns’, I knew you were the only person I had ever cared for, if I ever have cared for anybody, Arthur. And so, on the morning of the day you marry me, I will give you Robert Chiltern’s letter. That is my offer. I will give it to you now, if you promise to marry me.

LORD GORING: Now?

MRS. CHEVELEY: [(smiling.)] To-morrow.

LORD GORING: Are you really serious?

MRS. CHEVELEY: Yes, quite serious.

LORD GORING: I should make you a very bad husband.

MRS. CHEVELEY: I don’t mind bad husbands. I have had two. They amused me immensely.

LORD GORING: You mean that you amused yourself immensely, don’t you?

MRS. CHEVELEY: What do you know about my married life?

LORD GORING: Nothing: but I can read it like a book.

MRS. CHEVELEY: What book?

LORD GORING: [(rising.)] The Book of Numbers.

MRS. CHEVELEY: Do you think it is quite charming of you to be so rude to a woman in your own house?

LORD GORING: In the case of very fascinating women, sex is a challenge, not a defence.

MRS. CHEVELEY: I suppose that is meant for a compliment. My dear Arthur, women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the two sexes.

LORD GORING: Women are never disarmed by anything, as far as I know them.

MRS. CHEVELEY: [(after a pause.)] Then you are going to allow your greatest friend, Robert Chiltern, to be ruined, rather than marry some one who really has considerable attractions left. I thought you would have risen to some great height of self-sacrifice, Arthur. I think you should. And the rest of your life you could spend in contemplating your own perfections.

LORD GORING: Oh! I do that as it is. And self-sacrifice is a thing that should be put down by law. It is so demoralising to the people for whom one sacrifices oneself. They always go to the bad.

MRS. CHEVELEY: As if anything could demoralise Robert Chiltern! You seem to forget that I know his real character.

LORD GORING: What you know about him is not his real character. It was an act of folly done in his youth, dishonourable, I admit, shameful, I admit, unworthy of him, I admit, and therefore . . . not his true character.

MRS. CHEVELEY: How you men stand up for each other!

LORD GORING: How you women war against each other!

MRS. CHEVELEY: [(bitterly.)] I only war against one woman, against Gertrude Chiltern. I hate her. I hate her now more than ever.

LORD GORING: Because you have brought a real tragedy into her life, I suppose.

MRS. CHEVELEY: [(with a sneer.)] Oh, there is only one real tragedy in a woman’s life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband.