The beautiful Ben Whishaw reading ‘De Profundis’ in front of Oscar’s cell door — Reading Gaol @Artangel
Source: Sarah Thacker on Twitter.
Don’t really know where to start. I’ve been in love with Wilde’s works since high school and I’m suffering from Ben Whishaw fever which doesn’t seem to ever stop. Over the past few months I’ve been reading all of the posts describing The Crucible on Broadway, but as a trip to the US is not really possible for me right now I was hoping that maybe after the well deserved post NYC holiday Ben would play somewhere in London in a year or maybe more considering he’s doing some film projects right now. So when I saw a post on Tumblr saying he’ll be in Reading in September, and that the exhibition is about Oscar, there was no other choice but to buy a ridiculously long bus journey from Belgium to the UK and even more ridiculously expensive Eurostar train for the way back. But oh dear some things in life are priceless.
I didn’t even get to see that much of the exhibition - managed to see Oscar’s cell and books and some other items but other than that decided to go straight to the queue for the prison Chapel, which was a good choice cause I started to talk to a lady that had the luck to actually see him on Broadway and told me a lot about it. Ben has got some really nice fans 😊
So when we entered I think my heart skipped a beat as he was already sitting there looking so vulnerable and delicate and not even watching the people entering but for a short moment right at the beginning when he actually looked at me before I sat down. I still find it surrealistic that knowing every single movement of his face I got to see it live. Was it really him there?
Ben decided not to make a break in the reading of the 50000 words letter that Wilde wrote to his lover, Bosie. I’m really happy he chose to do it in one go cause in that way the atmosphere was not interrupted. I decided to stay there for the entire performance, thinking that if he can manage this for us then I can certainly manage it for him.
I watched the performance of last week, done by Neil Bartlett. And though both equally long, much longer than originally announced, I’m so so happy I had the honour to see Ben’s one. I really had the impression Oscar was speaking through him. What a talent. What a tremendous talent that boy has. Out of an extremely long letter that might bore if read in an ordinary manner he made a one man theatre. How I loved when he was turning pages and slamming them on the table when he was reading an angry paragraph. How everything he did yesterday was perfect is beyond me. In the middle of the performance (wasn’t looking at my watch but was following the text every now and then from my copy of De Profundis) there was an amazing light entering the Chapel through vitrage windows and you could hear a bird sing. And even though the letter was so hard and emotionally stuffed I felt for a moment such a lightness and happiness.
I’m a frequent concert goer where I always also try to be in the first row. But there was no comparison; sitting yesterday in the first row right next to this genius man,watching his tears and genuine suffering while reading the letter felt so intimate that at the end of it though having a slight heart attack before he read the last words, I felt as if I have known him forever. And I don’t think any theatre performance can give you that. Here, the format of the performance made it really easy for the audience to feel a bond with Ben, I think.
I could write so much more cause throughout the day I had these moments when I suddenly remembered him crying while reading about Oscar’s kids being taken away from him or crying while reading one of the last paragraphs in which one of the cities I have lived in (Bruges) was mentioned. So I’ll stop here. It was just a purely out of body experience. This man is talented beyond words.
After the show he was the most delicate, poor thing standing there so emotional, still crying. He also cried right before the very first words of the letter, before he even started to read. But it is indeed impossible not to shed a tear.
I decided that since I spent half of my weekend travelling under water to get to the UK and see my lovely boy performing, I will try my luck to tell him how gifted he is and how he really makes my life better with his beautiful, inspiring performances. He thanked me like four times (he is cute beyond words and was so shy) and said that the painting on the cover of my De Profundis copy is very beautiful. I felt quite guilty talking to him cause I can’t imagine how exhausted he must have been but then again I really felt the need to thank him for this amazing, insanely beautiful performance, which I did. And now I’m back on the other side of the Channel, trying not to cry at my work when thinking about yesterday.
As Tavi Gevinson said, Ben Goddamn Whishaw indeed.
Sharing some pics with those who couldn’t go/did go but didn’t take any. If anyone wants to talk to me about yesterday please write as I feel the need to let it out.
Edit - on a fun note the bus ride from Belgium was so long cause the driver got totally lost in London and was circulating over the Vauxhall Bridge three times, which with the traffic jams lasted around 1h, giving me a totally hilarious Bond + London Spy Tour 😍 I also find it cute that the train to Reading was leaving from Paddington and got myself one of the bears!
OMG. YES. ^ So fun to read. Thank you for this account @monikea! <3
De Profundis
“Dear Bosie”
So starts Oscar Wilde’s letter to his erstwhile lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. It was written while Wilde was incarcerated at Reading Gaol (Prison) serving a sentence for gross indecency (or simply being a homosexual as normal people call it these days) and, as good old Wikipedia recounts;
“Wilde wrote the letter between January and March 1897, close to the end of his imprisonment. Contact had lapsed between Douglas and Wilde and the latter had suffered from his close supervision, physical labour and emotional isolation. Nelson, the new prison governor, thought that writing might be more cathartic than prison labour. He was not allowed to send the long letter which he was allowed to write “for medicinal purposes”; each page was taken away when completed, and only at the end could he read it over and make revisions. Nelson gave the long letter to him on his release on 18 May 1897.”
I was lucky enough to go to Reading Prison today (which is now an art gallery) and listen to a reading of De Profundis, performed by Ben Whishaw in the former prison’s chapel.
