Oscar Wilde’s first theatrical success evokes the glittering world of Victorian London society and the hypocrisy and intrigue that lies beneath its’ sparkling surface. Lady Windermere’s Fan is a multifaceted play offering us both a provocative domestic drama

and a delightful  social comedy replete with Wilde’s brilliant use of language and epigram. Auburn University’s sumptuous production offers us an engaging look at a

world not unlike our own- -materialistic, striving and in search of a  moral center.

Notes from the Director
A student who was auditioning for Lady Windermere’s Fan, suddenly
turned to me and asked ” Why this play?" I was momentarily taken
aback (students don’t often ask) but it was a valid question. The
obvious answer is that it provides our students with the
opportunity to explore the work of a major dramatist. It challenges
them to move and speak with precision and elegance and to embody
characters that use language in a very particular way to
alternately conceal and reveal their intentions. It offers our
audiences the distinct pleasures of Wilde’s pungent wit and
scathing social commentary. The mirror that Wilde claims to have
held up to the elite of London society in 1892 might also reflect
our own, with its intense materialism, moral hypocrisy and its
struggle to allow women full and free choice over every aspect of
their lives. So the best answer to the question "Why this play?"
may be that our greatest dramatic works are worth re- visiting not
just because they are extraordinarily entertaining, but also
because the questions they ask are as relevant, as compelling, and
as critical to consider as the day they were first performed. --
Daydrie Hague