"Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of art." -The Decay of Lying by Oscar Wilde.

 

This wonderful quote lends my play, Beautiful Untrue Things, its title and inspiration. I have long been fascinated by the intersections between the theatrical and political and felt that this Wildean epigram could just as well have been referenced to politics rather than art. Or, perhaps both, as the two are so much the same.

 

Beautiful Untrue Things was written on a commission from the Manhattan-based theatre company, Resonance Ensemble. Resonance focuses on the presentation of classic works paired with a contemporary and original companion piece that comments on the classic as source material. The classic I was asked to write a companion for was The Importance of Being Earnest and Beautiful Untrue Things is both my deconstructive response and contextual adaptation.

 

Beautiful Untrue Things maintains most of the original play’s character names and relationships but pulls the world of ‘Earnest’ into the Washington/New York power-corridor of the ‘90’s. In this re-visioning; the rigid caste structures and rules of rapport so vital to Wilde’s play are still very present. Rather than the social maze of polite London society, the characters of Beautiful Untrue Things are navigating Byzantine connections between the political and media elite.

 

Where “Earnest” focuses on John Worthing as its protagonist; “Beautiful” directs attention to Lady Bracknell instead. In my play Lady B is now Senator Augusta Bracknell, a senior leader on the Hill, who is on the verge of her last and greatest electoral campaign. All of the important “optics” must, of course, be in place for Augusta to win and this is complicated by the whirldwind of a modern sex farce.

 

Beautiful Untrue Things was originally commissioned by Resonance Ensemble and was first produced at the Pantheon Theatre in New York City. Subsequent revisions have been staged at Arkansas State University Beebe and as part of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival new play program. In 2012, Beautiful Untrue Things was a contestant for the KCACTF/David Mark Cohen playwriting award and received its competitive mounting at the KCACTF Arkansas State Festival.