The second offering of Soulpepper’s 2024 season is the moving and enthralling De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail. Written and directed by actor/director/creator Gregory Prest, De Profundis turns Wilde’s epic love letter written during his final months of incarceration into a tantalizing 100 minute play. I sent some questions to Gregory about the process in creating this work, the rehearsal process, and how Oscar Wilde still captures our imagination today.

1. Could you please introduce yourself to my readers, as well as your role with De Profundis?

Hello, my name is Gregory Prest, and I am the adapter and director of “De Profundis”

2. What about Oscar Wilde’s epic letter, “De Profundis”, inspired you to set it to music?

In a way, setting this letter to music is a crazy idea. For Sarah Wilson (lyricist), Mike Ross (composer) and I, it was an impulse. It was intuitive. So, we thought we’d follow the path to see if there was any fruit in the trees with this idea. It’s all been a bit of an experiment. We had hunched that music could help explode moments of great feeling – despair, rage, sorrow, desire, beauty, ego, hope – that could help an audience place themselves at the centre of an unimaginable experience.

3. The trials of Oscar Wilde captured the attention of the world in 1895; what is it about Wilde’s story that you still find captivating today?

The actual trials and the circumstances around them are so complicated. What I find beautiful about Wilde’s story and what he comes to by the end of the letter is an understanding of acceptance – of how to move forward carrying impossible amounts of fear, humiliation, sorrow, and loss. He says that one cannot deny one’s past, alter it, weaponize it, blame it, but rather accept it and walk with it hand in hand. It is a very compelling, humane, and useful proposition to consider.

4. What was the biggest challenge you faced when creating the show?

Making something that is not meant to be a piece of theatre into a piece of theatre is not easy and requires a commitment to breaking the original and omitting foundational gestures and principles of the source. We were always grappling with this – how to be reverent and irreverent at the same time. I find it’s always the same challenge in any creative endeavor – fear.

5. What has been your favourite moment from the rehearsal process?

I feel lucky in that we’ve been able to repeat (in a way) my favourite moment from this process. I love when people are seeing what we’re doing and how we’re treating it for the very first time. Sometimes they look confused, and their faces say, “What the beeeeep?” But then, they seem to get what we’re doing. They are responding to the gesture of the piece which is to use this letter as a base to build an exploration of the size of Oscar Wilde’s genius. 

I want to thank Gregory Prest for taking the time to answer my questions. De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail is an incredible piece of theatre which I think everyone should get out to see! The production runs until February 23 so make sure to get your tickets ASAP: https://www.soulpepper.ca/performances/deprofundis

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