Woman not worth attention

After the success of Fan Lady Windermere’s work at the St. James Theater, Herbert Birbom Three, actor-manager of the Haymarket Theater, asked Oscar Wilde to write a play for him. Wilde did not want to at first, since Three would play a character the way Wilde did not see him: the playwright wrote that Lord Ealingworth is himself.

However, Three did not sacrifice, so Wilde wrote the play while on a farm near the village of Felbrig, Norfolk, with Lord Alfred Douglas, while his wife and sons remained in Babbuck Cliff near Torquay. Rehearsals began in March 1893. Three enjoyed the role of Lord Ealingworth and continued to play him outside the theater, to which Wilde remarked that “every day Herbert becomes de plus en plus oscarisé” (“more and more Oscarized ”).

The premiere took place on April 19, 1893. The first performance was very successful, although Wilde was booed for the line “England lies like a leper in purple”, which was later deleted. The Prince of Wales attended the second performance and told Wilde not to change a single line ^[1] . The play was also staged in New York and the tour was planned, but the tour was canceled when Wilde was arrested and charged with indecent behavior and sodomy due to his conflict with the Marquis of Queensberry through Wilde’s relationship with the Marquis’s son, Lord Alfred Douglas.

• Lord Illingworth ^[2]
• Mrs. Arbuthnot
• Gerald Arbuthnot
• Mrs. Allonby
• Miss Hester Worsley
• Lady Jane Gunstanton
• Lady Caroline Pontefract
• Archdeacon Daubeny
• Lady Stutfield
• Mr. Kelvil ( MP )
• Lord Alfred Rufford
• Sir John Pontefract
• Farquhar, Managing Director ( Farquhar )
• Francis footman ( Francis )
• Alice, the maid ( Alice )

The play takes place in the present (that is, 1893) ^[3] . Lady Jane Ganstanton receives guests on her estate, including Lord Ealingworth. He flirts with Mrs. Allonby, who is married, but at a reception without a husband. Ealingworth falls into the hands of a letter and the handwriting seems familiar to him, but he does not attach any importance to it, because it was "a woman not worthy of attention." Later, Lady Jane also invites Mrs. Arbuthnot, whose son Lord Ealingworth decided to take as his secretary. Mrs. Arbuthnot recognizes in the Lord her lover who seduced her, but did not marry her, although he promised, even when she became pregnant. And then she herself left him. Since then, she has always pretended to be a widow so that her son is not ostracized. The son does not know about her shame, and she does not want him to know, but also does not want him to work for his father. She loves her son, but considers herself a sinner and does not want society to turn away from her son through this sin.

Money

In the play “A Woman Not Worthy of Attention,” money is presented as an unlimited resource, since most of the characters belong to the aristocracy and live for the state that their ancestors acquired. This contrasts them with Mrs. Arbuthnot, who had to fight all her life to put herself and her son Gerald on her feet. They represent the rest of the population of Victorian Britain, which worked hard, unlike the nobility.

Innocence

This theme is presented in the role of Esther - an American girl who is alien to the views of the British aristocracy and their morality and etiquette. She embodies a new woman from the new world. Esther believes that others are too quick to value others and too materialistic. Wilde sneers at Esther's blind idealism ^[4] , which is not ready to forgive and accept people's mistakes.

“A Woman Not Worthy of Attention” was described as “the weakest of Wilde’s plays written in the nineties” ^[5] . Many critics note that the first one and a half act are the backdrop for witty conversations of the upper class, and the drama itself begins only in the second half of the second act, when the past of Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Arbuthnot opens. ^[6]

As with many of Wilde’s other plays, the main theme is top-level secrets: Lord Illingworth discovers that the young man he hired as a secretary is actually his illegitimate son, a situation similar to the central plot of Lady Windermere’s Fan. Secrets will also affect the characters of How Important It Is to Be Serious. In one scene, Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Allonby (whose husband is Ernest) agree: “All women become like their mothers. This is their tragedy,” “But not a single person does this. This is his tragedy. ” Algernon will make the same remark in "How Important It Is to Be Serious."

• In 1921, the film was directed by Denison Clift. In 1936, the film was directed by German director Hans Steinhoff . In 1945, the film was shot in Argentina .
• In 1991, BBC Radio showed an adaptation with Diane Rigg and Martin Harvis.