A Woman of No Importance

Production history

Viola Tree (Hester Worsley) and Charles Quartermaine (Gerald Arbuthnot), 1907 revival at His Majesty's

A production toured the British provinces in the latter part of 1893, with a cast headed by Lewis Waller as Lord Illingworth.[14] After the first London run, the play was next seen in the West End when Tree staged a revival at His Majesty's Theatre. The production ran for 45 performances from 22 May 1907; Tree again played Illingworth, Marion Terry played Mrs Arbuthnot, and the cast included Kate Cutler, Viola Tree, Charles Quartermaine and Ellis Jeffreys.[15] The Liverpool Playhouse company presented the play during a London season in 1915.[16] A revival at the Savoy Theatre in 1953 was, in the view of the critic J. C. Trewin, marred by cuts and inauthentic additions to Wilde's text; Clive Brook was Illingworth and the cast included Athene Seyler, Jean Cadell, Isabel Jeans and William Mervyn.[17] There were revivals at the Vaudeville Theatre, London (1967), the Chichester Festival (1978), the Abbey Theatre, Dublin (1996), the Barbican, London (1991) and the Haymarket (2003).[18][19] A revival at the Vaudeville in 2017, starring Dominic Rowan and Eve Best, ran from October to December.[20]

The Internet Broadway Database records two New York productions of A Woman of No Importance. Maurice Barrymore and Rose Coghlan played Illingworth and Mrs Arbuthnot in an 1893–94 production, and Holbrook Blinn and Margaret Anglin starred in the roles in 1916.[21] Robert Brough and his company presented the first Australian production in 1897.[22] Les Archives du spectacle record no performances of the play in France, in contrast with Wilde's other three drawing room plays, which have all been staged in translation on various occasions.[23]


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