Just days after the British government announced posthumous pardons for men convicted of homosexual acts, I sat in the chapel of Reading Prison, where Oscar Wilde was incarcerated from 1895 to 1897. I was listening to the stage and screen actor Maxine Peake read from “De Profundis,” the 50,000-word letter Wilde wrote from his cell to his lover, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas.

I had been here before over the last few weeks, for an arts project that gathered performers to interpret Wilde’s letter. Each one brought something different to the role — steeliness, bewilderment, detachment. Ms. Peake’s Wilde had a lightness of tone, and drew laughter.…  Seguir leyendo »