The Judas Kiss - Softcover

Hare, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802135722 ISBN 13: 9780802135728

Publisher: Grove Press, 1998

Synopsis

Portraying the two critical moments in Oscar Wilde’s late life when he decides to stay in England and face imprisonment and the night after his release, two years later David Hare’s The Judas Kiss presents the consequences of taking an uncompromisingly moral position in a world defined by fear, expedience, and conformity.

About this title

Review:

The rise and fall (and ultimate rise again) of Oscar Wilde is usually portrayed as a personal drama pitting hubris against humorlessness, wit against witlessness, with the political and more obvious social aspects of the drama usually left out. In The Judas Kiss, David Hare, one of England's most noted political playwrights, rebalances the scales.

Set during Wilde's trial for "acts of gross indecency," The Judas Kiss examines why the playwright--given the chance--did not flee to France when it appeared that a guilty verdict (and harsh prison term) was inevitable. The interconnectedness of the personal and the political that has always been the theme of Hare's stage and screen work is present here as well. Hare's Wilde is a man of sexual, romantic, and political principle; what appears to many to be nothing more than an iron-willed whim of self-destruction is revealed as a matter of deeply held belief. As usual, Hare aims at provocation (and achieves it), but the genius of The Judas Kiss lies in his ability to make us rethink and reevaluate familiar history and force us to abandon preconceptions and prejudices to view the world--as well as our own experiences and emotions--in a new, and often startling, light. --Michael Bronski

About the Author:

David Hare was born in Sussex in 1947. He is the author of twenty-nine plays for the stage, seventeen of which have been seen at the National Theatre. These plays include Plenty, The Secret Rapture, Amy's View, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, Gethsemane, The Power of Yes, Racing Demon, The Absence of War and South Downs. His many screenplays for cinema and television include Licking Hitler, Damage, The Hours and The Reader. He recently wrote and directed a trilogy of films for the BBC: Page Eight, Turks & Caicos and Salting the Battlefield.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0802135722
• ISBN 13: 9780802135728
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 115