Christopher Wheeldon Aims to Normalize Queer Storytelling in His Oscar Wilde–Inspired Ballet

On a call from Hamburg, where he’s restaging his Tony-winning choreography for MJ: The Musical, Christopher Wheeldon reflects on the absence of gay love stories in ballet: “Sir Matthew Bourne was a pioneer when he did his Swan Lake”—a 1995 reimagining replacing female swans with men—“but his company isn’t classical, and that was nearly 30 years ago.”

This year, Wheeldon aimed to fill that gap with Oscar, a new full-length ballet exploring the life and writings of Oscar Wilde, the Irish-born, London-local author of The Picture of Dorian Gray known for his wit, flamboyant style, and legal persecution due to his relationships with men. Choreographed for Australian Ballet, the work premiered in Melbourne back in September. Now, it will be livestreamed from Sydney Opera House to a global audience from November 19–December 3, and will be available on demand for 14 days after.

Ahead of this digital debut, Pointe spoke with Wheeldon to find out more about interlacing fact and fiction, crafting male pas de deux, working with intimacy coordinators, and why queer love stories are just love stories.

How did you come up with the idea of making a ballet based on Oscar Wilde?

It wasn’t until seeing the 1997 film starring Stephen Fry as Oscar and Jude Law as his lover, Bosie Douglas, that I learned more about [Wilde’s] life. From there, I did some research and realized how vividly he wrote himself into so much of his work. That was when I started to explore the idea of making the ballet.

You spoke to Fry during your research. How informative was his input?

He was incredibly generous and gave Joby Talbot, my composer, and I an hour of his time. He gave me more of a sense—the “perfume”—around Wilde and his place in London, which was really important. Even when you’re making a biographical ballet, you’re capturing the essence and ideas surrounding a person rather than truthfully telling their story. Dance is just not the medium to do that.

Oscar isn’t a traditional biographical ballet. How have you structured it to ensure a comprehensive dramaturgy?

Act I is a chronological telling of Wilde’s fairy tale The Nightingale and the Rose (1888) that aspects of his life are woven into. For example, there’s a sequence where Wilde admires three of the greatest actresses of the time—Lillie Langtry, Sarah Bernhardt, and Ellen Terry—who then transform into the white rose from the story. Then, Act II shows Wilde in prison suffering from tinnitus, malnutrition, and deep loneliness. It’s more symphonic than Act I, like a fever dream that takes in scenes from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), as well as memories of Bosie and Wilde’s legal trial [for gross indecency].

We don’t always have to live in a literal space in ballet. We can exist in both abstract and narrative worlds at the same time. It’s been fun to push myself to tell a story in a less linear way.

Why did you select The Nightingale and the Rose and The Picture of Dorian Gray as your main source material?

Nightingale is the perfect representation of Wilde’s willingness to sacrifice himself to the pursuit of ideal love. Then, The Picture of Dorian Gray reflects his desire to remain beautiful and stop the aging process. Wilde was an aesthete: He surrounded himself with beauty. Dorian Gray displays how this obsession can lead you down a dangerous path.

Is there any narration to support audiences through this poetic approach?

Yes! Placing ballet into context, whether it’s through program notes or narration, isn’t something to be afraid of. Some people think that if you can’t understand something without the program note then it’s not worth doing in dance, but I challenge anyone to see Swan Lake without knowing the story and to come away and explain it to someone else. Helping the audience and giving them a chance to lose themselves in a work is only a good thing.

Oscar is one of the first classical ballets centered on a homosexual relationship. Why was it high time that this happened?

For me, it’s just important to tell stories that resonate with the culture of our time. I’m really thrilled that I’ve received very little pushback on it. One assumes that the ballet audience is very conservative and not necessarily willing to go on these journeys, but that was not the case in Australia.

How have you navigated choreographing male pas de deux?

It’s been interesting coming at it from a very romantic perspective. It’s been about finding a way to keep it masculine while also showing the beauty and delicacy of love.

You worked with an intimacy coordinator, which is more common in film than in ballet.

Amy Cater, our intimacy coordinator, is wonderful. She is very narrative-driven and thinks about the why and how of getting into intimate moments, which I really appreciate.

In the U.S., intimacy coordination can become all about permission. In ballet, our hands are all over each other: It’s just an accepted part of being a dancer and there’s a level of trust that’s required. That trust has inevitably been broken in the past, so I’m not suggesting that intimacy coordination isn’t important—it’s vital when you’re dealing with themes that are innately sexual or potentially triggering. In Oscar, there’s a lot of straight guys playing gay roles, and moments that are physically confronting. It was essential that we had Amy with us.
What are your hopes for the future of Oscar?

I feel like Oscar’s been a big enough success that Australian Ballet will get quite a lot of touring out of it, which is great because it means they will get to take their beautiful company out on the road. They are very far away, so any opportunity to see Australian Ballet outside of Australia is very exciting.

I want people to come and see Oscar and realize that, while it is a queer story, it’s actually just a love story. As a queer man, my hope is that we continue to normalize queer storytelling. We’re just people who love other people. There’s nothing strange about it.