The Importance of Being Earnest has been seen on countless stages, but Oscar Wilde’s much more dramatic life has not. To Patrick Trettenero and Jerome Stauduhar that life seemed a show that could almost sell itself. Its wild arc–Wilde went from the closet to jail for sodomy and from there to his grave–was the impetus for their play, Living Up to My Blue China: The Art and Passion of Oscar Wilde.
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The inspiration for Blue China was the late Richard Ellmann’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Wilde biography–a book Trettenero spent two months reading. It convinced him and his partner Stauduhar that Wilde’s riches-to-rags plummet and the hard-earned wisdom he gained would be a sure thing on the right stage. “As long,” Trettenero says, “as the play spoke of the man through his work and would make an audience wonder–did this man really live up to the standard of his blue china?” (When Wilde had been teased about his blue china at Oxford, he replied that with life as it was, he found it harder and harder to live up to the standard of his blue china.)
The two young theater artists quickly discovered that Blue China would test their dedication to the full. Or as Wilde put it, “Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes.”
Still, none of the six established theaters that sent emissaries to the reading or were approached later would commit to the play. Says Trettenero: “Either they said, ‘We don’t accept original work outside our own company,’ or ‘The next two seasons have already been planned and we’ll get back to you.’” Unwilling to wait for years, Trettenero and Stauduhar did what so many have done before them–they founded their own company, Cloud 42.
After so many near misses, Living Up to My Blue China opens Saturday, July 29, at 8 PM. Harry Althaus and Tom Blanton play two sides of Oscar’s soul (not unlike Oscar’s own Dorian Gray), with support from Patricia Acha, Nathan Rankin, and Michael Regier. It runs through September 3 at Stage Left Theatre, 3244 N. Clark, Thursday-Sunday at 8 PM. Tickets are $10; call 829-5861 for more.
