“How tragic it would be if you were wasted”, made me smile in a melancholic way. I know moments when “unnecessary things are our only necessities”. And I’ve not been hesitant to give “rebellion its fascination” and “disobedience its charm.”

It is also etched in the corners of multiple pages of the notebook I am writing this draft in. It is on my passport, also on my pajamas. It is the word the world knows me by—my name. Specifically, my last name, Nuri.

Even with improvisations, the show feels like the book coming to life. The little scenes that have been picked straight from the pages hit very close to home.

To me, Wilde’s novel articulates the deepest anxieties of the late Victorians and continues to offer us ways to interpret our own experiences.

It got me thinking that we are fascinated by the behind-the-scenes lives of our cultural obsessions, and the personal lives of authors can come to feel like public possessions just as much as their works. It is this sense of ownership that can risk conflict over films about literary icons.