Gang, in the age of the Web, and of Google that we live in, it's so fascinating to be able to hear these plays 30+ years later and be able to look at them, their actors and their authors in a whole different way while appreciating the original play (and story).

First, an interesting take on Wilde and "Dorian Gray" from a National Review writer a couple of years ago...

Quote:
In this age of political correctness, in which people are so often recognized for how they identify themselves rather than for what they accomplish, Wilde's renewed popularity in Hollywood and Manhattan is quite likely due largely to the fact that he was gay. But whatever the reason for the revival, if it leads more people to discover his works then it can only have a salutary effect on our greatly debased culture. For Wilde, in addition to being among the most witty and brilliant craftsmen of the English language since Shakespeare, was also the quintessential moralist.

Both in his plays and his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Wilde dispenses justice and moral judgment in true Victorian fashion. We know precisely who the villains are and who the decent folk, and we see them both get their just desserts — which is to say exactly what they've brought upon themselves as a direct consequence of their own actions.

Wilde respected social norms, the necessary standards of decent and indecent public behavior without which any society collapses into anarchy. An Ideal Husband (1895) concerns a thoroughly honest and respected government minister who refuses to be blackmailed for a mistake he made years ago, even though it potentially means his personal and professional ruin. In Dorian Gray, a young man's portrait becomes increasingly disfigured while he remains youthful and handsome, indulging in every form of sin, but coming inevitably to a bad end.

Wilde assumed many poses in his life; he frequently remarked, for instance, that art existed merely for art's sake, and that no artist should have "ethical sympathies." But his work belied such flippancies. Wilde said of Dorian Gray, "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment." Indeed, it is only because Wilde recognized and approved of social norms and standards of conduct that he was able to detect and ridicule hypocrisy so well, most notably and hysterically in Earnest (1895).

...Unfortunately, revisiting Wilde's work is a reminder of just how far our modern culture has traveled down the road of self-celebration. The embarrassing and tiresome spectacle of gay camp is splashed across our film and television screens — and thus into our living rooms. To be a gay character (and increasingly, a heterosexual one) on television or in a movie nowadays is virtually an automatic license to be silly, irresponsible, selfish, flamboyant, and sexually promiscuous (this, of course, is a partial list).

Displaying such consequence-free behavior for the purpose of entertainment is not only lazy, but unhealthy and disrespectful of every social norm that has ever existed in Western civilization, and thus does a disservice to us all. Wilde would likely agree. However he behaved in his personal life, Oscar Wilde, to his great and lasting credit, recognized that engaging in private vice does not exempt one from the obligations of public virtue.