Gregory Prest’s De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail is currently playing at Soulpepper. It’s the same production (more or less… it may have been shortened by a few minutes) and the same cast as when first performed in February 2024 and I feel pretty much the same about it as I did that first time. It’s a terrific piece of theatre and I’m not sure I can greatly improve on what i wrote back then. There were though a few things that jumped out at me more this time.
On one level Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke seems like just another Southern Gothic tale of repressed small town folk with southern accents shouting at other members of their thoroughly dysfunctional families. There’s plenty of that of course but there’s also a fascinating analysis of how relationships can be made or broken according to, essentially, how individual life arcs align. This aspect is very clearly brought out in Paolo Santalucia’s production that opened at Crow’s Theatre on Wednesday evening.
