Oak Forest HS Students Go Wild over a Visit from Oscar Wilde

As Oak Forest High School AP Literature and Composition students in teacher Katie Cotrano’s class prepared to study Oscar Wilde’s comedy The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, written in 1895, they got an unexpected visit from the literary genius, portrayed by Oak Forest High School teacher Steve Batsch.

Students were delighted to have Oscar Wilde interrupt Ms. Cotrano as she was about to provide relevant biographical information on the profound intellectual, poet, playwright, essayist and novelist.

With fur, flowers, white gloves, knee breeches, and cane in hand, Wilde adopted the aesthetic pose and informed AP students about his early life, education, marriage, writing, imprisonment, and the 19th-century Aesthetic Movement, which advocated that art existed for the sake of its beauty alone, devoid of moral, philosophical, or political agendas.

Wilde reminded the audience that “there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about” and he candidly shared autobiographical information with the students.

After Wilde informed the students about the tumultuous events of his life and the highs and lows of his writing career in the morally conservative Victorian era, several intrigued students seized the opportunity to ask the author questions about his literary influences, social advocacy, writing style, and of course flamboyant fashion sense.

Wilde flaunted his epigrammatic style, sharing some of his greatest memorialized expressions including: “I can resist everything except temptation”; “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars”; “I have nothing to declare except my genius”; “Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”; “When I was young I thought money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.”

Oak Forest High School Senior Kathy Correa said, “I was amazed at how much information Mr. Batsch said [while in character]. Half of the stuff he said was famous lines. How did he remember all of it?”

Mrs. Cotrano and AP Lit & Comp students would like to thank Mr. Batsch for jumping on board to bring Wilde to life through his engaging (Oscar-worthy) performance.