Oscar Wilde’s notorious antihero Dorian Gray most likely would’ve liked to have a barrage of cameras pointed at him, reflecting his attractive visage. This is precisely what Kip Williams’ tech-heavy new Broadway manufacturing does, with Sarah Snook (“Succession”) starring in all of the roles and surrounded by a group of digital camera operators. However, regardless of some fancy digital camera work and close-ups, this manufacturing solely goes skin-deep. Wilde himself was an aficionado of artifice, which makes the irony right here all of the extra painful, since this manufacturing can’t discover any depth in its surfaces.
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” — which performed to a lot acclaim in London final 12 months — creatively integrates video, with Snook typically showing on display screen each in simulcast and in pre-recorded bits as different characters. Although expertise is a ubiquitous a part of this manufacturing, the piece has virtually nothing to say about it, aside from acknowledging its mere existence — expertise is said to vainness, and a front-facing selfie digital camera is sort of a mirror. These primary concepts, removed from revelatory, by no means come near the trenchant critiques of hedonism in Wilde’s 1891 novel.
This is the uncommon revival that’s worse for these aware of the supply materials, who’re certain to be dissatisfied. Williams appears to have basically misunderstood the novel, or on the very least to have solely a diluted grasp of it. While there’s a common sense of constancy to the plot, the ultimate product feels wildly completely different from the unique as a result of the manufacturing is performed as a broad comedy. Snook’s numerous characterizations, particularly her minor characters, are so caricaturish they veer into British panto. Throughout, Snook hams for laughs, turning Wilde’s witticisms and epigrams into slapstick. The tone is nicely established however nowhere close to that of the novel; as an alternative of a gothic, nightmarish parable, Williams and Snook deal with it as a frolicking, satirical romp.
Figuring out when precisely this manufacturing takes place is a dropping battle. Dorian at one level begins utilizing an iPhone, face-tuning a selfie and making use of Snapchat filters as a stand-in for the notorious portrait, which ages whereas Dorian himself stays youthful. It’s unclear if this iPhone is supposed to be diegetic, for the reason that manufacturing in any other case seems to be set (just like the novel) within the late nineteenth century. Later, although, two pre-recorded movies function characters utilizing iPhones; maybe that is an exaggerated model of the story’s time soar, but it’s unclear why the characters are nonetheless in Victorian garments.
It’s a missed alternative to not set this manufacturing in modern-day, which might have allowed it to make extra nuanced factors about social media and its relationship to gender, sexuality, growing old, self-image, physique dysmorphia, and the glorification of youth and sweetness.
The costume design (by Marg Horwell) takes a whimsical strategy to the interval, however ultimately turns into gaudy and confounding, with Dorian ending in what can solely be described as unhealthy Elvis drag. This look is topped with a swirling pompadour, one of many manufacturing’s many hideous wigs. The most egregious is the wig Snook wears as Dorian for the primary half of the play, a curly, blonde, clownish mop. It’s fully unsuitable for the character, styling Dorian right into a petulant cherub as an alternative of the drop-dead attractive, swaggering intercourse image he’s meant to be in Wilde’s conception.
Regardless of the course any adaptation desires to take the story, it is important that the viewers is interested in Dorian: He should have an simple sexual magnetism. Snook’s Dorian, although, has no intercourse enchantment, and the sexual stress between Dorian, Basil, and Henry — the core triangular relationship of the textual content — has right here been nearly totally eradicated. The very foundation of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is Dorian’s magnificence; he’s meant to be the exemplar of a Victorian twink whom everybody lusts after. Snook’s Dorian is just not an aesthetic best — he’s a joke, laughing as he takes a selfie flashing a peace signal.
Snook’s accent work all through the play – which, to her credit score, consists of creating distinct voices for a wide selection of characters – does the present no favors. Her Dorian seems like a British youngster in an SNL skit; her “narrator” is a farce of a stuffy English voice-over; her Basil has a shaky stutter; and her minor characters have such exaggerated vocal inflections it seems the one inspiration was to get laughs.
The job for Snook right here is certainly not straightforward. However, in tackling it, she flattens many of the characters into meaninglessness, unable to seize their complexities. The broad arc she creates for Dorian doesn’t completely work, since Dorian is supposed to be unchanging outwardly. Her efficiency will get laughs from the viewers, however she doesn’t encourage introspection or convey any of the deeper themes of the piece — as an alternative choosing bodily and vocal gymnastics, pausing for applause after every bit.
In a shocking transfer, modifications and deletions within the textual content have made this “Dorian Gray” far much less queer than its supply materials. An uninformed viewers member would possibly depart the play with out even understanding that Basil, Henry, and Dorian are themselves all queer. All that continues to be is a single euphemistic speech of Basil’s itemizing some gossip and tragedies surrounding Dorian, lamenting, “Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?”
Crucially, when the novel was printed it was seen as so explicitly queer that textual content from “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was used throughout Oscar Wilde’s trial as proof of his homosexuality and supposed immorality and perversion. Just as Wilde’s novel was censored by its unique editor, the play removes among the most clearly queer passages, together with when Basil admits to Dorian, “It is quite true I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man should ever give to a friend. Somehow I have never loved a woman.”
Likewise, Williams has made some questionable artistic selections relating to the manufacturing’s non-textual representations of queerness. As Dorian goes on a wicked “odyssey of the senses,” Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” performs. The tune, the primary disco hit and an indelible homosexual anthem, right here looks like a pandering cliche.
Later, Dorian visits an opium den, which Williams transforms right into a modern-day nightclub, full with techno, strobe lights, and a homosexual character smoking from a crystal meth pipe. While there may be an argument to be made for the historic parallel, the truth that one of many solely specific representations of latest queerness is meth dependancy doesn’t converse nicely to the manufacturing’s sexual politics.
A key side of the novel is its exploration of queer masculinity on the finish of the nineteenth century, a interval that noticed the rise of dandy style and aestheticism. This complicated nexus has been oversimplified right here into the universalized idea of vainness. The manufacturing turns away from each queerness and masculinity, as evidenced within the casting of Snook.
Another illustrative second happens when, within the novel, Basil admits his love for Dorian and Dorian reveals him the portrait, then murders him — a scene that may be learn as a gay-panic murder. Here Basil’s declaration of affection has been minimize and Dorian’s stabbing turns into comedy as he pouts within the mirror, and afterwards Snook does a lip-sync dance quantity (with digital camera operator backup dancers) to “Gorgeous” from The Apple Tree, full with the lyric “There’s this avalanche of beauty in one woman and I’m it” and Dorian throwing confetti. It’s selections like these that spotlight how far the manufacturing tonally diverges from the novel, and the way little this manufacturing cares about queerness or masculinity.
A big portion of the present options pre-recorded snippets of Snook as numerous characters, and though the actress by no means leaves the stage, it’s arduous to not really feel a bit cheated. After all, we come to the theater for reside efficiency. While there may be a substantial amount of simulcasting, using expertise is extra rooted right here in pre-recorded materials, serving to clear up the logistical puzzle of getting Snook play all of the roles. This will get at a a lot greater concern: This manufacturing fails to justify or clarify why this can be a one-person present or what’s gained by this alternative.
At its core, then, if the manufacturing doesn’t make the most of its expertise for commentary and is hampered quite than strengthened by its single-actor format, what’s left? The very premise of the manufacturing is a gimmick, a method to let an actor showcase and dazzle the viewers with some tips. It’s an empty spectacle, although, and it stays unclear what – if something – the manufacturing is making an attempt to say aside from that vainness is unhealthy. Wilde himself wrote that we should always not type issues into good and unhealthy, however charming and tedious; this manufacturing falls squarely with the latter.