One thing leads to another. The year 2000 marked the 100th year of the death of eminent Victorian art critic, writer, reformer John Ruskin. Coincident with celebratory exhibits both in England and in this country, there appeared a de-mythologizing play about Ruskin that centered on his wife Effie and his protege the painter John Everett Millais. That play, "The Countess," by first-time American playwright Gregory Murphy, dramatized Victorian England's most intriguing marital scandal: the annulment of the Ruskins' marriage and Effie's subsequently becoming the wife of Millais. "The Countess"...
