Wilde was publicly destroyed by the proceedings and the outcome, and was essentially railroaded by the forces of "decency" into disgrace, imprisonment and eventually, death, for being a "deviant", i.e. homosexual.As usual, I was invited to the photo call on the main stage, along with a photographer from The Houston Chronicle.
The etiquette in such shoots calls for each photographer to be given the opportunity to frame and shoot his own images, and not get in the way of the other photographer. It can be a quite complicated dance of give and take.
I had worked with the Chronicle photog before, and things went smoothly, but he had obviously had his marching orders from his editor, and at one point, when the actors playing Wilde and his lover, Lord Douglas, struck an intimate, and perfectly natural, pose, he stopped the shoot and announced that he had been instructed not to photograph any images that would show the two male actors in close physical contact, so as not to offend his paper's readers. I was flabbergasted.
Since my editor had requested the exact opposite, I waited for him to finish and then shot mine.
Jeffrey Bean, as Oscar Gregory Woodell, as "Bosie"
The images above were photographed on black and white film in stage light, sepia toned and "antiqued" for a period look.
I had intended a piece on the play and its background, but the incident described changed all that, and instead I interviewed the director on his reaction to it. It seems we hadn't come all that far in a hundred years.
The photos above accompanied the article.
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