There are few subjects more fit for the stage than Oscar Wilde. He was a larger than life personality, who fundamentally changed the way many think about art, about society, and about sexuality. And of course he was best known in his lifetime as a playwright, so the stage is doubly appropriate. Moises Kaufman’s Gross Indecency was performed on Zoom by the University of Idaho Theatre Department under the direction of Ricky Kimball, and the production was excellent.

Gross Indecency utilizes Kaufman’s frequent approach to documentary theatre, where the script is composed of primary sources woven together to create a distinct impression of the subject. The play primarily draws from transcripts of Wilde’s three trials in 1895, along with memoirs from key participants (especially Lord Alfred Douglas), contemporary news accounts of the trials, reviews of Wilde’s works, and Wilde’s own writing. The first of the three trials was a libel suit Wilde brought against the Marquis of Queensbury for leaving a card at Wilde’s club inscribed, “For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite [sic].” Queensbury was the father of Wilde’s lover Douglas, and Douglas pushed Wilde to pursue a libel suit to preserve his reputation. The problem was that Wilde couldn’t prove he had not committed sodomy—especially when the defense began bringing in witnesses who would swear they had sex with Wilde. So, Wilde’s lawyer, Sir Edward Clarke, recommended dropping the suit and tried to convince the judge that Wilde assented only to the term posing in Queensbury’s note, not to the actual charge of sodomy. But Wilde was quickly arrested and stood trial for gross indecency. The arrest was catastrophic for Wilde, as his plays were cancelled and all of his creditors called in their debts simultaneously. However, at the first gross indecency trial, the jury was unable to reach a verdict, and so a second trial was launched—specifically with the intention of convicting Wilde no matter what, in many people’s opinions. Wilde defended himself, but his unwillingness to acknowledge conventional Victorian condemnation of homosexual acts and generally repressive Victorian morality worked against him (as did the fact that he was almost certainly guilty). At the end of the second trial, Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to two years hard labor, which almost certainly played a major role in his death just a few years after leaving prison.

With any play written for the stage, there are practical difficulties in converting it for a Zoom presentation, but Gross Indecency does seem to lend itself particularly well to a digital format—though there were some awkward closed captioning lines, my favorite being one to the effect of “Oscar Wilde is an author and sex.” Because the play is largely driven by readings of transcripts and other documents, it doesn’t require as much direct interaction as many other plays, and so the Zoom performance under Kimball’s direction worked really naturally.

The performances across the board were strong, with the cast universally conveying the complexity of characters caught in legal and ethical systems that often extorted or demanded conformity. The two most complex characters are Oscar Wilde, played by Luke Holt, and Lord Alfred Douglas, played by Angel Kalasz. In the post-show talkback, both Holt and Kalasz talked about creating their characters. Holt focused on the larger than life aspect of Wilde, drawing inspiration from his excesses. But the performance was not driven by excess, there was nothing over-the-top or stagy about Holt’s performance, especially in the latter portion of the play as Wilde falls into a deep depression facing the inevitable guilty verdict. For Kalasz, the process involved finding a way to sympathize with Douglas, who, in many senses, is not an admirable figure (he was a Nazi sympathizer in later life, so there’s that). Douglas at times seems devoted to Wilde and he expresses a progressive desire for homosexuality to be seen as legitimate. However, many of his actions and statements, especially pushing Wilde into the initial libel suit, lead effectively to Wilde’s downfall. Kalasz did an amazing job performing these complexities, at times looking almost smarmy and at times clearly mourning his beloved Oscar.

One of the big challenges for much of the rest of the cast—as it is in others of Kaufman’s plays, like The Laramie Project—is the vast number of parts they need to play to enact members of the court, Wilde’s friends, witnesses, etc. This was done admirably through a series of costume changes to mark different people, as well as by giving each character their own distinct personality. The only aspects of the costumes and characters I could have done without was some of the fake beards, muttonchops, and moustaches—like those on Queensbury (Nick Hansen) and Bernard Shaw (Blake Presnell)—and some of the English or Irish accents made it slightly difficult to understand the lines over computer microphones. Though, to be fair, I’m not generally a fan of actors doing fake accents anyway, unless they’re exceptionally well done.