Die Märchen des Oscar Wilde erzählt im Zucht­haus zu Reading

In the organizer's words:

based on texts and motifs by Oscar Wilde in an adaptation by André Kaczmarczyk with music by Matts Johan Leenders - premiere on March 8, 2025 - Schauspielhaus, Großes HausSchauspiel

A prison cell in Reading gaol in 1895, where the most famous and scandalous poet of Victorian England is imprisoned: Oscar Wilde, accused of homosexuality and sentenced to two years' hard labor. The author of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" began his prison sentence as a broken man. Publicly humiliated, mistreated and abandoned by his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde is faced with the ruins of his existence. Should he survive the inhumane prison conditions and regain his freedom, he would have no choice but to become someone completely different.

From the perspective of the political prisoner, director André Kaczmarczyk and his team create a musical theater that tells of the power of the imagination at the threshold of death. Wilde's dramas and fairy tales come to life, as do the people who inspired them. We follow the flight of the nightingale through the enchanted garden, gaze into the pond in which Narcissus is reflected and recognize ourselves in the kiss that Salomé gives to the severed head of Jochanaan. Wilde gropingly approaches his old life and begins to draw parallels where none should actually exist: between his existence as a husband and father and his unhappy love for Lord Douglas; between celebrated fame and secret relationships with young men for sale; between conformity and rebellion; between the world's compelling morality and the aesthetic, erotic freedom of art. Piece by piece, what could perhaps be called a colossal self-deception is revealed: Wilde's hope of living as a glamorous free spirit with an unprotected open identity and not being persecuted, ostracized and hated for it.