Much like Lord Alfred Douglas whose beauty, selfishness and hedonism brought about the downfall and imprisonment of author Oscar Wilde, Dorian Gray is about 25, blonde, rich and idle. He’s also extremely impressionable. As stuttering, infatuated Basil Hallward paints the young man’s portrait, Lord Henry Wotton seeds the suggestion of profligacy as a means to realize one’s own nature.
“Resist temptation and the soul dies of longing…You have only a few years to live perfectly and fully…” Lord Henry poisonously remarks. Dorian blinks as if a light went on, rushes outside and sticks his whole head in the flowers. Returning, he gazes anew at the splendid painting. Why shouldn’t he always look like that? In fact, he’d give his soul to have the artwork age instead. As we learned watching The Twilight Zone, a wish like that comes with a price.
Gray, Hallward and Wotton are played in meticulous make-up, dandyish costume and exaggerated wigs by Sarah Snook, formerly Shiv in HBO’s Succession. There will be twenty-six distinct roles before end of play. Five camera operators and nine wardrobe assistants swarm around the actress (mostly) upstage effecting real time change. Meanwhile, multiple characters interact from one of four screens on tracks.
Wilde’s was an era of “professional beauties” whose visages and presence were clamored after and rewarded solely because of appearance. One’s life could be “made” by an accident of nature. His stories are full of aesthetic dominance. In 2024, approximately 4.7 million cosmetic procedures were performed in the United States. The contemporary adaptation resonates.
Standing in front of us Snook sometimes argues with herself on video as to who should continue narrative, i.e. who is real. She takes screen shots with an iphone (one with the audience) and later uses the phone to show differences between perceived Dorian and the deteriorating painting. Pop art style digital distortion and otherwise impossible magnification is as effective as any uglified canvas. At one point, partying, the narcissistic hero sings “Gorgeous” from The Apple Tree.
The first part of the play is full of mugging. Appearance, voices, and personas are more than sufficient to indicate the outrageous. This is a serious story. Wit should be darkly implicit, not spot-lit, another case of theater pandering to lowest common denominator. Fortunately the device fades.
It’s impossible to explain the coherence of so much going on, but it works. The mercurial Snook not only creates diverse affectations, but sails through choreographed movement with precision and energy, whirling around the stage, stepping in and out of sets, submitting to dressers.
On one of his walkabouts, Dorian finds actress Sibyl Vane, actress in a working man’s Shakespeare theater. He turns up every night and quickly proposes. She calls him “Prince Charming.” Basil and Henry want to see the girl. On screen, the three occupy Dorian’s box. A puppet theater is employed. Sybil’s enormous head pokes up from the floor, curls cascading all over (like Alice in Wonderland). Two perhaps eight inch puppets stand in for the lovers.
Sybil is dreadful, Dorian humiliated. Upstage in our theater, wearing the same gown and corset as her diminutive double, Snook comes forward to face unforgiving Dorian. The thespian explains -to no avail – why she behaved as she did, but the hero disdains her.
Marg Horwell’s sets and costumes are wonderful. Well executed ancestral portraits through the ages have Snook’s face. Grandiose floral arrangements reflect status and aesthetics. An attic playroom – to which the portrait is relegated once it begins to change – is aptly imagined. Screens zip in and out with fluency, sometimes bearing characters as they communicate. Costumes are elaborate and imaginative.
Wracked with conscience he thought subjugated, Dorian resolves to have an apology delivered to Sibyl in the morning. He’ll be good! Sibyl will save him! At breakfast, Lord Henry tells the young man that his fiancé committed suicide. “Why can I not feel this tragedy as I want to?” Dorian moans more out of curiosity than regret. He decides he has no need for love since immortality protects from consequences.
Eighteen years of debauchery and two murders to protect his secret follow. Dorian develops a reputation. Snook doesn’t miss a beat. Up until its second part, the play is engaging, but not affecting. Dramatization picks up vehemence and speed. Desperation and terror become palpable. There is comeuppance.
Director Kip Williams calls use of screens and interacting live actors “cinetheater.” His mercurial star even has to remember where to look. Exacting choreography requires every participant to be in sync. Results are impressive. Character divergence, aided and abetted by costume, wigs and facial hair is sufficient. Individual emotional turns spotlight Snook’s skill.
Tony Awards are given in four areas of theater design: sets, costumes, sound, and lighting. It’s time to add video. Proposed winner 2024: David Bergman. Nick Schlieper’s lighting and Clemence Williams music and sound design symbiotically enhance.
Once you’ve accepted the preponderance of video – a bit less wouldn’t hurt – the production is dazzling, Sarah Snook remarkable.
“Beauty is a form of Genius–is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in the dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.” Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray
The marvelous 1945 film can be streamed on Prime Video.
Do not confuse it with the remake!
Photos by Marc Brenner
The Picture of Dorian Gray
By Oscar Wilde
New Adaptation Written and Directed by Kip Williams
The Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th Street
Through June 29, 2005
