Oscar Wilde’s Big Secret, Ghastly ‘Don Giovanni’: London Stage

There’s brittle-clever dialogue, an explosively guilty secret and swathes of gorgeous period frocks. Why then does a clammy hand of theatrical torpor hover over “An Ideal Husband” in London?

Oscar Wilde’s 1895 play uses the kind of solid dramatic device beloved of Ibsen -- a terrible mistake in the past -- and mixes it with frothy aphorisms.