An Ideal Husband

About

Written in 1894 and premiered in January 1895 — the same year as The Importance of Being Earnest — An Ideal Husband is Wilde at his most politically engaged: a cabinet minister whose glittering reputation rests on a youthful act of corruption faces blackmail, while his wife must choose between her idealized image of him and the real man. The play has more dramatic substance than Earnest, less comic perfection, and a genuine moral argument about the difference between idealism and honesty. It ran simultaneously with Earnest in early 1895, making Wilde the toast of two West End houses at once — a triumph abruptly ended by his arrest that spring. The role of Mrs. Cheveley, the blackmailer, is one of Wilde's great comic villainess creations.