Secrets of Immortality
Inspired by the prison writings of Oscar Wilde, conceived  and performed by Jeff Page

"One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art."

In 1900, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, celebrated for his Irish wit and vivacity, dies alone and broken.

During two years of imprisonment for morality crimes, Wilde writes perhaps his most insightful and trenchantly funny works. At once a vicious strike against hypocrisy and a painful cry to a world that has betrayed him, Wilde’s prison writings form the basis of an original performance created especially for the Serca Festival.

"A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."

Conceived and performed by Jeff Page, Secrets of Immortality steals from his previous shows Love Letters from the Unabomber and The Granite Man & the Butterfly to complete a sonata of solitude, a trio of solo performances that erupt from a madness inherent in isolation. Ricocheting between times, places, themes and characters, Page’s solo performances create what CBC Radio’s Robert Enright calls a “a kind of multiple consciousness.”

The production will be graced by the visually textured direction of Liz Hobbs, whose work with Theatre Prospero, Next Fest and the University of Alberta offers a striking complement to the emotional, dramatic and intellectual layers of the source material.

"The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius."