Anyway, my wife and I know one of the partners, so we were asked to go, and we did.
The whole play consisted of a passionate acting out of Wilde's problems as a homosexual in Victorian England, particularly in a notorious/celebrated case in which he accused the father of his young lover of libel, lost the case, and was in turn prosecuted for gross indecency, for which he was convicted.
It was basically a waste of time. The actors (all male) had obviously worked very, very hard on it, and put everything they had into it, but on the whole it was entirely uninteresting, unconvincing, and boring.
There was no discussion between anyone afterward. The audience members filed out without a word. I think many (like myself) were embarrassed by the ham-handed ideological/emotional drubbing we had just endured. I believe the reaction of most was something along the lines of "well, that was special."
It seems to me that the entire world of theater in the United States has basically been turned over to the task of drilling into the head of anyone who can be forced to listen the idea that homosexuality is normal, and that we are all parties to the most heartless and cruel crime in history by not retraining our minds to see homosexuality as equivalent in every conceivable way to heterosexuality. This they will do for a pittance, or even for nothing, as long as they can experience the sensation that someone is paying attention.
Shakespeare is awesome. I actually saw MacBeth there about 20 years ago. It was outdoors in an amphitheater among the redwoods, and the initial battle scene featured people fighting with swords thoughout the audience. Very entertaining. Since then they have become more and more PC to the point of this silliness.
Hmmm....
Coming soon: Romeo & Juliet as two transgendered teens kept apart by Bible-thumping heterosexual Tea Party parents.