LED screens over 16 feet tall. Four small things floating like clouds. Another one with a kind of walk-on cameo. Five camera operators with electronic burden. Nine dashing people in all ways in their wardrobes, wigs and more. 3 million pixels in case you're counting. 16 million colors. Two phones on a recent glitches night when at least the first malfunction occurred. And one Sarah Snook.
Rather, there are many snooks.
These are one of the many wonders on the stage of the Music Box Theater. There is a technically epic adaptation of “Dorian Gray Photography,” which Snook played 26 roles and opened Thursday.
What I can't find is a photo of Dorian Gray.
The 1890 magazine story by Oscar Wilde, whom he attached the novel in 1891, has proven attractive to adapters thanks to its clever plot device. Basil Wholeward's paintings are so ughed that gorgeous Dorian Gray falls into the decadent influence of Lord Henry Wotton.
But to reach that plot, what Wild wrote is no more psychological thriller than a perfume essay on aesthetic philosophy, so the adapter has to adapt a lot. Another thing that is usually sacrificed is the undercurrent of homosexuals. This was so deep that he drowned, even after repentance by the story's first editor. Convicted in 1895 of “crude indecency,” Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison, and died in 1900 at the age of 46.
(As in the 1945 MGM film, the current adaptation written and directed by Kip Williams downplays aspects of the paper. But Queerness is straightforward if complicated, as she is still a woman while Snook, the Emmy Award-winning star of “Succession” plays a man. Or even a man. Her cherubic, shiny cheekd durian is barely more like the 20-year-old god of novels than the adolescent boy.
His age declined, his corruption grew, and Watton became a more villain than I intended. Perhaps that's good for creating stages. This requires sharp contrast in the pages that Turner can finesse. Snook offers easily. Her Wotton has a wonderful, leaning-down physicality, and, as mentioned in the novel, a seductive, sonic voice that delivers wild appella. (“There's only one worse thing to the world than being spoken to. It's not spoken.”) Her near Halward is all ticks and convulsions, boring, and tense to ensure that the stummer matches. Her Dorian is Beamish until besmirched.
Snook's virtuosity is compelling and convincing, at least in the first two hours of the play, whether it's live or not recorded, or not at once. Another major character, Dorian, worships, but falls cold, Cibil Vene, is unfortunate and shrinks down to a large head of curls protruding from the floor of a miniature stage at one point. Despite her cruel ending, offering her purely for laughs, the play seems to flatten each of us Wotton.
Laughter is strange to aim for in “Dorian Grey.” This is a deep and seriously told story, even if it is completely indifferent to morality. Art “is not intended to direct or influence actions in any way,” Wilde wrote to younger fans of the story. He instead is interested in the seriousness of the senses – even if it leads Dorian in the past 18 years or so, it leads him to a sinkhole of gender, drugs and murder without letting it fly.
His portrait is a different story. At last we see it here, it's a smartly shaped selfie that has been turned into a monster by a facial distortion filter.
But Williams encourages an attitude towards both text and technology, as if it would become difficult to swallow as if to sweeten the drugs he fears. She scouted one of her video's incarnations surrounding ownership of the narration and many times. The new characters leaning towards several shots, as if we were looking at the glass at a reptile display, a reptile. Extreme caricatures of secondary figures (ancient maids, various daftgentry) are further removed than in the camera.
This does not mean that play may not benefit from marriage to the screen. For one thing, screen images can become strange in their own right. Here, David Bergman's video design naturally takes the lead. I have never experienced such saturated realistic resolution on stage. The scenery and costumes (by Marg Holwell), lighting (by Nick Schreeper), music and sound (by Clemens Williams) are equally fantastic even by Broadway standards, which were recently raised by “Redwood,” “Maybe a Happy End,” and “Sunset Boulevard.”
As a group, the designers are undoubtedly part of why Snook won the Olivier Award for his performance in London production last year. Allow one person to play so many roles – so this suggests that it is very wild.
So you're Andrew Scott, and that solo man “Vanya” is currently running from Broadway, and he does exactly the same thing, but in technology it's not as fancy as a naughty sound effect generator. A mere gesture makes him a woman. Butt scarf.
However, it is not the technology itself that the sense of “Durian Grey” is so vulnerable in the place where “Vanya” is a tear festival. This technology governs all other values, including Wild, who often denies human contact and contracts at the heart of the theatre's effectiveness. Some important scenes have been filmed live on stage, but they must be viewed on screen as the screen itself blocks Snook's upper half of his body. Her huge face is rendered in a very close-up where you might be an ENT doctor. Only her legs are left to perform an IRL performance.
There's nothing to do anyway before Dorian finally descends into insanity. The story paragraphs are merely pronunciation, as they are detoured in a mouthful of fast monologues that are incomprehensible.
Still, the thing I missed the most about this “Durian Grey” wasn't Wild. He originally wrote it brilliantly, but I find the story because I can only drink slowly, like absinthe. (The novel is more conventional.) What I missed was eye contact. The audience and actors are like disputes kept in different rooms and are forbidden from seeing each other in full. Theatre is empty in that sense. She and we may not be there.
Dorian Gray Photos
It will be held at the Music Box Theater in Manhattan until June 15th. doriangrayplay.com. Running time: 2 hours.
