Playtime: David Bardeen plays 16 different characters and does 10 voiceovers in the Lantern Theater Company’s production, Oscar Wilde: From the Depths. SOURCE: MEG TRELEASE
As a seasoned actor, David Bardeen has dealt with many theatrical challenges — but none quite like the one in the Lantern Theater Company’s current production, Oscar Wilde: From the Depths.
In this world premiere, Bardeen plays 16 different characters. He also does 10 voiceovers (his voice is heard, although he’s not on stage). Actor Jered McLenigan has similar challenges. The only other cast member, Marc LeVasseur, has the leading role of Oscar Wilde.
The characters Bardeen plays are all people from Oscar Wilde’s life who are remembered by the playwright as he reflects on his life while he’s in prison.
The play, written by the Lantern’s artistic director, Charles McMahon, focuses on the dark time when the famous British playwright was in a cell in Reading Gaol. He was imprisoned for “committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons.” His conviction was based on a law in England passed in 1885 that wasn’t removed until 1967.
The play’s title, Oscar Wilde: From the Depths, is certainly appropriate. After his imprisonment, Wilde is in the depths of despair in his prison cell. Struggling to overcome this despair, he summons people from his memory as he revisits scenes from his past. All these characters are played by Bardeen and McLenigan.
“In one scene, I play five different characters without leaving the stage,” reported Bardeen. “My brain was exploding during rehearsals.”
The roles he plays — and they are brief — include Wilde’s lawyer, a prosecuting attorney, a jail warden and two friends of Wilde. They vary in age, and they speak in different dialects.
“Scottish, British, Irish, American, Cockney,” enumerated Bardeen, who worked with a dialect coach during rehearsals.
Each character has a different entrance and exit, and often different costumes and props.
“The challenge during rehearsals was remembering all the characters with their different entrances and exits,” he said. “I would often feel, ‘Who am I this time?’”
But he rose to the challenge impressively. In her Inquirer review, theater critic Toby Zinman praised the “dazzling display of virtuosity” of both Bardeen and McLenigan as they took on all these roles.
Bardeen was intrigued by the play as soon as he read the script. It deals with a relatively unknown part of Wilde’s life — his time in prison. Bardeen was well acquainted with Wilde’s life as a playwright. He’s read most of Wilde’s plays. And he was familiar with the 1997 play titled Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.
“But the missing part was what happened to him after he was jailed,” said Bardeen.
Life in Reading Gaol was grim.
“It was hard labor in silence. For someone like Oscar Wilde, who was a genius, it would have driven him crazy, except that he started to create in his own head,” said Bardeen. “What saved him was when he started writing again.”
Alone in his cell, he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol and De Profundis, the letter to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, whom Wilde called Bosie.
To get better acquainted with this phase of Wilde’s life, the actors read De Profundis in its entirety before rehearsals even began.
“It’s an amazing read,” said Bardeen. “It was incredibly personal. Wilde reviewed their whole relationship; it was almost like an exorcism to get Bosie out of his mind so he could write and create again.”
Bardeen also did his own research before rehearsals began. Each of the characters he plays was a real person in Wilde’s life.
“I researched all my characters to find out their histories,” he said.
Because this is a world premiere, the actors worked closely with playwright McMahon.
“It was a very collaborative effort,” said Bardeen. “We had workshops before we started rehearsals. Then, during rehearsals, we had a voice in what was working well or what wasn’t.”
That process continued even during previews.
“A new play is constantly changing,” he said. “We even got new scenes two nights before the first previews.”
Rehearsals were guided by director M. Craig Getting.
“He’s fantastic,” enthused Bardeen, who was working with Getting for the first time. “He’s insightful, detail oriented, and he’s unbelievably collaborative.”
Although it’s his first experience with director Getting, Bardeen has often been on the Lantern stage. He played the chief rabbi in The New Jerusalem and had a leading role in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. He’s also been in two Lantern Shakespeare productions, Taming of the Shrew last year and Henry V in 2013.
His varied career has included TV and film roles when he lived in Los Angeles. Since moving to Philadelphia, he’s performed on many area stages and earned a Barrymore award for best supporting actor in an InterAct Theatre production.
Now he’s delighted to again be on the Lantern stage, this time in a world premiere.
“It’s been a most rewarding experience — almost like a group of friends creating art together,” he said. “And it’s a fascinating look into the mind of Oscar Wilde.” ••
IF YOU GO…
Oscar Wilde: From the Depths continues at the Lantern Theater, 10th and Ludlow streets, through Feb. 14. Tickets available by calling 215–829–0395 or visiting the theater or LanternTheater.org
