Anticipating a memorable evening in the theatre, the London press sent a full co
Anticipating a memorable evening in the theatre, the London press sent a full complement of reviewers to the first night of what promised to be the crowning work of Oscar Wilde’s career as a dramatist. Many of them attended the opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest, at the St James’s Theatre in King Street, St James’s, on 14 February 1895, while others attended subsequent performances. The lessee and manager of the St. James’s, George Alexander, now in his fourth year of professional management, had set a very high standard of production at this gem of a venue, a short walk away from its chief competitor, the Haymarket Theatre, long a fixture on the eastern side of that thoroughfare. Its clientele included the cream of society, and occasionally even Edward, Prince of Wales and his entourage, in boxes and stalls, as well as a prosperous middle class and a lower class as well, swelling the pit at the back of the stalls—comfortable, armed seats upholstered in red velvet—and the gallery above, where even the benches had demarcations that allowed proper space for sitting, avoiding overcrowding. Many of these critics were seasoned journalists, veterans of a thriving scene that in the last few decades had witnessed the gradual return of an aristocratic, moneyed class of patrons to the theatres of the West End and a consequent rise in the level of sophisticated subject matter, along with a greater influx of upper-class characters onto the stage as well.
Critics and audience alike all thought they knew what to expect. After all, many of them had been among the patrons of the previous play by Wilde produced by Alexander at this theatre, Lady Windermere’s Fan, in 1892, and had joined the crowd that peopled the Haymarket, twice—in 1893 for Wilde’s second comedy-drama, A Woman of No Importance, and, just over a month before this night, in early January 1895, for An Ideal Husband. That most recent play had been the third instance of this celebrated dramatist’s successful venture into semi-serious comedy. Most of these patrons would have been regular theatregoers, for it was almost a social rule, born of long experience, that those who attend the theatre at all do so often; others, seldom or not at all. Representatives of the press would have blended well into this group of constant playgoers—and were in fact an essential component of that group themselves.
Journalists who made up the majority of these writers were joined by persons whose claim to literary or other notice did not depend exclusively on a workaday occupation as reviewer. Some were as well known as William Archer, the critic for The World and a major observer and chronicler of the contemporary theatrical scene. Writing almost a week after opening night, Archer responded on a note of genuine enthusiasm, throwing up his hands in mock despair and exclaiming, ‘What can a poor critic do with a play which raises no principle, whether of art or morals, creates its own canons and conventions, a