Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde

Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde is a 1997 play written by Moisés Kaufman. It deals with Oscar Wilde's three trials on the matter of his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, which led to charges of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons". (The first trial was a civil suit brought against Douglas's father by Wilde himself; the second and third were on the criminal charges against Wilde, with the second reaching no verdict and the third resulting in a conviction and sentence to hard labour.) The play uses real quotes and transcripts of the three trials.

Read more about Gross Indecency: The Three Trials Of Oscar Wilde:  Performances

Famous quotes containing the words oscar wilde, gross, trials, oscar and/or wilde:

    When one pays a visit it is for the purpose of wasting other people’s time, not one’s own.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

    The gross feeder is a man in the larva state; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy or imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    Mr. Edward Carson, QC: Do you drink champagne yourself?
    Mr. Oscar Wilde: Yes; iced champagne is a favourite drink of mine—strongly against my doctor’s orders.
    Mr. Edward Carson, QC: Never mind your doctor’s orders, sir!
    Mr. Oscar Wilde: I never do.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

    Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite impossible to live with; they are too clever, too assertive, too intellectual. Their meaning is too obvious, and their method too clearly defined. One exhausts what they have to say in a very short time, and then they become as tedious as one’s relations.
    —Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)