Wilde Perfection in Love and Satire
Ensworth actors, musicians, and student designers took to the stage this fall in a gorgeously rendered, music-infused interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband.
As all Wilde’s plays do, An Ideal Husband celebrates human wit and beauty. The play also seems to want to explore the worst in the best of us—before it redeems us through the beauty of love.
Time and again while working on this show, I was taken aback by how directly it speaks to our school’s mission and vision statements, challenging us to ask ourselves again what it means to be In Search of Truth and to follow “the highest principles with the greatest love.” We trust our students to engage and grapple with texts that challenge us as students, educators, and community members.
The challenges inherent to Wilde’s text make numerous demands on the student actors charged with bringing it to life on stage. There are certainly the intellectual demands of interpreting Wilde’s heightened 19th-century text and playing that text with clarity and immediacy for a live audience. There are also the demands of grappling with the play’s central questions: How do we love one another well? What ideals should we ultimately be in search of?
When pursuing those questions, there is no one I trust more than our students. Over the years, my most common reaction to working with our students is to be humbled. I am humbled by their dedication. I am humbled by their relentless work ethic. I am humbled by their emotional and intellectual intelligence. And I am humbled by how they love and care for one another with such steadfast courage.
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Red Gables Campus (K–8)
Frist Campus (9–12)
Ensworth is a coeducational, kindergarten through twelfth grade, independent day school.