In Dublin, in Merrion Square, there is a statue of Oscar Wilde that reclines with its arms crossed, one eyebrow raised, eternally smirking. “I have nothing to declare except my genius,” the great writer once told customs officials in America; it’s as though his statue is frozen in that moment. Had they existed at the same time, you can imagine that the more Wilde quipped, the smarmier the statue would get. Even wit can be a vice, and if it’s yours, then you’ll get your fill at the new student adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, where it’s wit—above all—that leads down the road to depravity.
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ID: Edward Williams and Elliott Reed . Credit: Jack Maguire. |
The play, which is directed by Caroline Kerr, opens on a beautifully composed tableau of three figures and an easel, in a natural summer light. Birdsong is piped in by sound tech Annie Schofield—it is early yet, and Dorian Gray (Edward Williams) is in the full flower of youth, much admired by his male companions, the rakish socialite Lord Henry Wotton (Eilidh Read) and the sweet-natured, idealistic painter Basil Hallward (Elliott Reed). This pair of aesthetes marvel—objectively, of course—at the loveliness of their friend’s lips. They are the proverbial gay angel and devil on Dorian’s shoulders, the former encouraging Dorian to exploit his beauty and the latter wishing to hide it away, along with his apparently glorious portrait (we never see it). Lord Harry, in a light-absorbing velvet, has the more convincing argument for Dorian, whose cream-coloured outfit still suggests maidenhood. “Beauty is higher than genius,” Harry instructs him. “Always seek new sensations.” By the following scene, Dorian, too, has donned velvet, abandoned Basil, and embarked on a more sensual life, starting with his courtship of a young actress, Sibyl Vane (Lila Patterson).
It’s no wonder that Harry’s insouciance wins out over Basil’s piety. He is, more or less, the authorial voice of the play, portrayed by Eilidh with Mephistophelian charm and Earnest-ian composure—as in, he seems to have dropped in from The Importance of Being Earnest, in which the chief mode of conversation is witty pronouncements. “Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious,” he declares at a party, sounding like Wilde himself at a Victorian society party. The production itself is a faithfully Victorian costume drama (with costumes courtesy of Henry Huron and Ben Stockil), sharing both time period and setting (London) with the original. As the Gothic horror of the story begins to dominate, Harry is the only character to keep his wits—and his wit—about him. Life’s good when you stay on the surface of things, and Harry, like Wilde, understands that style is substance: unless you happen to own a picture of your own soul.
And this is a stylish play, from the costumes—I also loved Harry’s top hat and Sibyl’s floral-patterned dress—to the sets, by Risha Srinivas and Mireille Oppenheimer, that are spare (a chaise longue, a table, a streetlamp, the fateful easel) but evocative of both luxury and dissolution. It also has a live musical score, conducted by Ben Williams and mixed by Anoushka Paymaster Thatcher, with stirring and ominous tunes composed by James Walsh. When Harry remarks that he prefers the opera, because the loud music permits conversation, there’s an answering swell from the strings behind the curtain; ironically, this music sometimes overtakes (though doesn’t completely drown out) the fast-moving dialogue. I preferred it in the scene transitions. More than anything else, though, the show is stylish—or let’s call it beautiful—in its images and its sentences. The opening scene isn’t the only one that begins with a striking tableau; the play habitually poses its characters, like sitters for a portrait, before they unleash dialogue that is just as gorgeously, and painstakingly, constructed. (Though you’ll have to form your own opinion on the accents.) In one very fine moment, a conversation is heard over the sound system, in darkness, before two cones of light are thrown dramatically over the actor who was just speaking. As Harry puts it, “Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know.” If one is to pose (and they must), they should at least put some effort into it.
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ID: Heather Tiernan and Lila Patterson. Credit: Jack Maguire. |
Which is to say that it’s all very Wilde, though not exactly as wild as you might expect, to make a pun that definitely no one else has thought of before me. Something happens with Sibyl (no spoilers!), played movingly by Lila, that exposes the callousness at the basis of Dorian’s new worldview; afterwards, he embraces the cruel “experience” as just a taste of the notable sensations to come, and dives full-on into a hedonistic lifestyle. But when we next see him, surrounded by low company, the scene is entirely decorous: his new friends lounge, slink, and slither around with louche menace; as they arrange themselves around him sensually, he looks, in freeze-frame, like Laocoön attacked by serpents. It’s too still, too sculptural. And when Dorian is finally confronted about his crimes against society, they are detailed in language that is merely allusive. Maybe that’s how it is in the novel, which I confess I haven’t read, only ever seen adapted. Nevertheless, a play is a world of images, as this production’s image system clearly recognises, and the images that we are presented with—as well as the dialogue, which can have the cadence of reported speech; the rest of the scenery; and the good manners—are the picture of tasteful restraint. That’s why, although the back half of the play is full of murders, crawling spectres, and shrieks of despair, they feel unearned. Because we don’t sense the weight of Dorian’s violations, it’s difficult to imagine his terror at the unseen portrait.
There are some exceptions. The lighting, by Willa Meloth, is forceful and communicative, drenching the stage in tenebrous purple, like a torch cast under a face; a lurid red; a poisonous green. (My favourite choice, though, came at the end of the first act, when an illusion is shattered and the light changes from an intense blue to an appalling plainness.) And let’s just say that this adaptation makes the homoerotic themes of Wilde’s novel more explicit, though having gone there, it could stand to go further. When Basil and Dorian reunite, they embrace with more passion than Dorian and Sibyl ever did. Yet despite Dorian’s seeming lack of remorse about her, Sibyl, not Basil, is treated as the manifestation of his regret, the tragic one-that-got-away. To me, their useful dramatic functions seem to have been conflated.
Still, the play is a sophisticated, ambitious production, surprising and rewarding. Memorable minor roles include Orsi Haynes as Harry’s wife; Heather Tiernan as Sibyl’s overbearing stage mother; Ona Wright as the sonorous Lady Ruxton; and Emma Smicklas as a prostitute with the funniest line delivery of the show: “Just give me some money for tonight’s orgies.” If I were you, I might instead say, “Just give me some money for tonight’s (sadly orgy-less) play.” You can catch
The Picture of Dorian Gray on the Byre’s main stage for its second and final performance tonight. Sorry, Dorian. Beauty is fleeting, after all.
By Eliza (she/her)
