The Picture Of Dorian Gray
St James Studio Theatre
17 June 2015
5 Stars
The 20th June 2015 is the precise anniversary of the first publication of the original serialized magazine version of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. While there have been several attempts to turn it into a work for stage and film, there is no accepted version for stage performance and therefore this new venture is both timely and useful. The outline of the story is so familiar that it needs no repetition here, but all the same I have to start by recording my sense of the continuing, compelling relevance of its main themes. Given the cult of celebrity that encroaches ever further onto our screens and headlines a study of the nature and consequences of narcissism could not be more contemporary. As the famous aphorisms hove into view, you cannot help thinking that ‘Genius lasts longer than beauty’ would these days be a open question rather than a statement, and that Wilde mined a deeper truth than he knew when he stated that ‘only shallow people do not judge the world by appearances.’ The glittering verbal dexterity and the darkness below demonstrate the truth and wisdom of another saying that flashes past early on: ‘all art is both surface and symbol.’
Tribute needs to be paid first of all to the skill of the adaptation, carried out with scrupulous care by Merlin Holland, Wilde’s grandson, and John O’Connor. Crucially, they have gone back to the original texts of both magazine and (longer) published novel and reinstated several key lines that Wilde prudentially omitted from the final standard text. These lines make more explicit the various homoerotic themes of the play and in particular clarify Basil Hallward’s character, lost in hopeless and helpless adoration of Dorian Gray, and make Dorian’s knowing manipulation of Basil all the more calculated and shocking. There are many other minor adjustments which usefully iron out or fill in aspects of the characters that are only only obliquely implied in the original.
Any adaptation has to turn a great deal of narrative, as reported by Dorian, into drama, dialogue and character. A large number of interpretative choices have to be made here, and for the most part the creative team and actors make entirely the right calls. For example, Sibyl Vane (Helen Keeley) is developed into a much more substantial character here than she is the original. A choice is made to present her as a good actress who has a crucial bad night rather than as a terrible ham whom only Dorian wishes to place on a pedestal. This adds considerable force and poignancy to his rejection of her. Likewise, with the creation of Hettie, another victim of Dorian’s Faust-like preoccupations, who is only described in passing in the novel.
Plotting is the least credible and perhaps least important aspect of the play: just as in any Gothic novel the ending in particular seems peculiarly abrupt, an effect accurately reproduced in this adaptation. But then plotting was always the least important part of Wilde’s art in his comedies and as a whole this adaptation stands comparison well with the great plays that sustain his reputation. It is in effect a prototype. There is a core theatricality embedded in the original: the dialogue is already of a piece with Wilde’s theatre work – and indeed some of it was re-used later in Lady Windemere’s Fan. Also many scenes actually relate to or are based in the contemporary theatre. Finally, the whole two-way tug-of-war between picture and subject, hero and image, external beauty and internal corruption of the soul cries out for representation and enactment beyond the printed page.
We open to a cluttered suggestion of a Victorian artist’s studio: some large, skewed, empty gilt picture frames, artist’s paraphernalia, a chaise longue and planter, a scatter of chairs, and in the background the insinuating lines of a Chopin Nocturne. Basil Hallward (Rupert Mason) is placing the finishing touches on his portrait of Dorian Gray (Guy Warren-Thomas) before they are interrupted and subverted by Lord Henry Wotton (Gwynfor Jones). In addition to the lead roles, each of the actors (apart from Warren-Thomas) contributes a plethora of well-defined character roles, populating the stage with the knowing servants, supercilious duchesses and crafty tradesmen that are part of the social texture of the great comedies. In this most sensual of books it is crucial that there is a lot to hold the eye, and therefore great credit goes to the creative team for ensuring that the set is well dressed and a wonderful parade of period costumes of gorgeous hue and texture passes before us. Even a minor character, such as Lord Henry’s wife truly does look as though her billowing dress was ‘designed in a tempest and dressed in a storm.’ A lot of thought has gone into how to appeal to the audience’s sensual imagination, and in particular the director has found ways of integrating the references to Huysmans’ book Against Nature and the Yellow Book, both important inspirations to Wilde, and embodying Dorian’s love affair with fabrics and scents as recounted in chapter eleven of the novel.
It would be invidious to single out any one member of this cast for praise – there are manifold forms of excellence on display; but suffice to say that Warren-Thomas does not rest on the laurels of his looks – he marks out the journey towards ruthless cruelty with plenty of hesitation and humane detail. Mason makes Hallward a much more sympathetic and anguished figure than usual, and Keeley creates a real, rounded character out off Sybil. Inevitably there are lots of scene and costume changes but these are accomplished deftly and without interrupting our concentration. In fact fluid, flexible movement is a fine feature of the whole production, and one difficult to accomplish in such a confined and cluttered space.
In some ways the most difficult role to bring off is Lord Henry, who has to deliver most of the jewel-like epigrams while framing them in naturalistic speech. Finding the rhythm in Wilde is usually the key to a great performance and production. How do you create a plausible flow when the epigrams stand in your way, demanding time and space for delivery and recognition? Sometimes it seems as though Wilde has assigned his actors a tray full of jam and clotted cream, and no scones. Gwynfor Jones navigates this challenge very delicately, with a lot of stage movement, and carefully graded and varied accelerations and pauses, rather in the same way as an opera singer blocks out an aria. This is an object lesson in rhetorical delivery.
Sadly this fine adaptation has a very brief run – I do hope another theatre can be persuaded to allow us to experience this play with this cast once more – and soon…..It deserves to be seen for its own qualities, for the fresh insights it brings to a work we think we know all too well, and for what it tells us of Wilde as well. It showcases in exemplary fashion the jostling, unstable and ultimately tragic combination of talents and aspirations that comprise Wilde’s unique persona. As usual, he perceived the truth ahead of all the critics: ‘Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks me: Dorian is what I would like to be – in other ages, perhaps.’
