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The risky love aair and clandestine guidance of English politics provide rich material

for, Something Politically Romantic, a big budget drama that will surely carry Oscar Wildes
name across England. It provides still more, exposure for the rising Irish immigrant star
Leonard Wilk, the latest prestigious male symbol of the art house crowd. He plays Garrett, a
social reformer ahead of his time. In Something Politically Romantic, the lesser-known story
of French queen Caroline Moreau is just as smart and captivating as any costume drama from
Versailles or Windsor Castle.

In Oscar Wildes marvelous play set in the 18th century during the Enlightenment,

Caroline Moreau (played by Victoria Holly) is a 19-year-old French princess when she learns
she is soon to be married to the English King, Thomas. She is taken to the ceremonial handover site outside Paris to nd her future husband stacking leaves in the elds, much like a
curious young child would.

Stripped of her clothes, her language and the few materials she brought from her

homeland, Caroline moves into the lavish castle where Thomas is both a puppet and a twit. The
real power behind the throne however, is someone entirely unexpected. After Caroline does her
duty and bears a child, the young king leaves on a whimsical tour of Europe that requires
medical treatment.

Garrett Fischer is a German doctor who is also educated in the Enlightenment philosophy

that is threatening thrones across the continent. Although Caroline is initially appalled that the
unorthodox doctor is enabling Thomas whims, Garrett is secretly using the kings interest in
play-acting to groom him as a populist leader. Caroline, in love with Garrett, also falls in love
with what the doctor tells her about Voltaires politics, a structural component of
Enlightenment, and she uses her inuence with the king to change the nations history.

The underlying ideas about human rights lifts Something Politically Romantic above

the usual costume drama, but ultimately it delivers the baser pleasures of a typical crowd
favorite. When Caroline realizes Garrett shares her ideals, they arrange an accord and sneak
their way around behind the king.

Oscar Wilde makes good use of sets inuenced by Prague, a favorite backdrop for a

historical European city, and the players and costumes make this historical romance all the
better. Though Something Political and Romantic is committed to modernity to the
banishment of superstition and religious authority, to the rule of law and the supremacy of
reason it is in almost every way a decidedly old-fashioned play.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Stately, stagy expositions of history have their place

in the world of entertainment, and the acting is both solid and agile, communicating the feelings
of passionate people in a passionate time. Victoria Hollys and Leonard Wilks on stage
chemistry is undeniable and will inuence their future careers for a lifetime. But the play also
succumbs to many of the vices of the period play: didacticism, excessive length and the tendency
to read history as a set of moral diagrams.

The reactionary prudes who control the English court before Garrett arrives are posters of

authoritarian villainy, scheming to destroy Garrett and hypocritically condemning him for
immorality. There is some genuine heat between Mr. Garrett and Ms. Caroline and a welcome
complexity in the relationship between Garrett and the king, whose maturation is the real arc of
the story. Something Political and Romantic suers from the richness of the historical
material there is so much going on here and also, perhaps, from a patriotic desire to treat
it reverently.

We discover in scenes that surround the main action, revealing the tensions and dangers

experienced by the brave young queen. Is it too much to suspect that she carried on her aair
for reasons of idealism, not lust?

Although the brazen lovers, aggressive ministers and backstabbing handmaidens are

familiar elements, Oscar Wildes play is so handsomely mounted that we happily endure the
ride until the turning of the screws in the tragic last act. A Tespy nominee for best play,
Something Politically Romantic is an English treat to be devoured.