Actor brings Oscar Wilde to Jakarta

JAKARTA (JP): His name was once a dirty word, sullied by the homosexual scandal which sent him to prison and left him a broken man, but today Irish playwright Oscar Wilde is someone to celebrate.

Books, plays and a collection of his private letters were rolled out in his honor in November last year, the centenary of his death.

Among those paying homage is Irish born actor Patrick Marley, who will perform the play Wilde at Heart in a sold-out performance on Wednesday at the Mercantile Athletic Club in the World Trade Center in Central Jakarta.

He is accompanied by Genevieve Allenbury, who plays various important women in the life of the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and Lady Windermere's Fan.

Marley, who conceived the play and has brought it to such diverse places as Bangkok and Saudi Arabia, considers Wilde a tragic figure, a victim of circumstance and his own arrogance.

"The sad thing is that people tend to forget that he was such a great writer. He started a whole new way of writing -- nobody had ever written like him before," Marley said. (brc)

For more information about the play, call the Mercantile Club at 521-1320. 3