Following acclaimed runs in Sydney and London and an Australian tour, Sydney Theatre Company’s (STC) production of The Picture of Dorian Gray is now running on Broadway through June 29th. In this inspired adaption of Oscar Wilde’s late 19th-century gothic novella by writer-director Kip Williams (former Artistic Director of STC) all 26 roles—including the narrator—are majestically taken on by one performer, Emmy-winning Succession star Sarah Snook, who won an Olivier for her efforts in the West End run.
Snook is joined on stage by a deft ensemble of camera operators (captained by Dara Woo with Luka Kain, Natalie Rich, Benjamin Sheen and understudies Will Colacito and Benjamin Wheelwright) who capture every nuance of her impeccable delivery in this breathtakingly impressive undertaking. On a primal level, all of us love sitting back and being told a captivating story, and Williams taps into and delivers on that desire, opening with storytelling in its purest form, enhanced by today’s technology. Snook is seated as the narrator, going on to switch between two key establishing characters, devoted portrait artist Basil Hallward and hedonistic aristocrat Lord Henry Wotton, indicating her movement between them with the simplest of props and gestures (like a cigarette for Wotton and a paintbrush for Hallward).
It is a fairly static beginning with Snook sitting in profile towards the back of a bare stage as we see a close-up of her expressive face on a giant screen centre-stage. As the show progresses, the video work builds to an elaborate, highly choreographed dance by the camera operators that takes in the entirety of the stage, as Snook moves from lens to lens. While the height and breadth of the space fills with multiple screens as Snook interacts with pre-recorded videos of her portrayal of various characters throughout. The pre-recorded elements only serve to heighten the thrill of Snook’s live performance in Williams’ exhilaratingly dynamic production.
With a meta wink at times, Snook takes us from hilarious, broad comedy to poignant emotion and chilling horror, all tethered by the truthfulness at the core of her work as she breathes life into each distinctive characterization. Not only is she playing to the house, but often playing to us through a camera lens, delivering characters that read effectively when we look at her human-scale figure as she walks the stage, without being overbearing as we view her magnified face on screen. It is a tricky feat which Williams and Snook pull off with flair. To call Snook’s performance bravura or tour-de-force doesn’t do it justice.
When we are first introduced to the title character, he is “a delicate young man of twenty summers” who makes a Faustian bargain to retain his youth and “extraordinary personal beauty” in return for his soul. Meanwhile, Hallward’s portrait of him will age and bear the marks of his increasingly abhorrent misdeeds. Snook’s expertly calibrated portrayal captures Dorian’s internal aging, moral decline and eventual self-examination, as he satisfies his every urge and begins to cover his tracks. Despite our repulsion, Snook manages to keep our sympathies with Dorian just enough for us to remain connected to him and utterly engrossed by his fate.
As well as allowing us to take in the subtleties of Snook’s acting, including the slightest of hints in her eyes, the cameras also offer us the chance to admire the detail of Marg Horwell’s exquisite costume design, with its rich fabrics and vibrant florals, that reflect Dorian’s journey into decadence. There are gorgeous details in Horwell’s set deign too. One particularly enjoyable element sees actress Sibyl Vane—whom Dorian becomes engaged to before cruelly discarding—performing Shakespeare rendered as a puppet treading the boards of a miniature stage, with Williams making the most of the absurdity of a life-sized Snook interacting with it. Horwell’s sparing yet continually inventive sets fire up our imaginations alongside Wilde’s words, channelled through Williams and Snook, as the production immerses us in Victorian London before visually and aurally shifting decades forward, opening up a timeless scope.
As Dorian recounts 18 years spent indulging in music and fashion, partying his life away, the sublimely anachronistic sound of Donna Summer’s 1970s disco anthem “I Feel Love” serves to expand Dorian’s story into something that feels eternal. It chimes with Dorian’s musing that “the whole of history was merely the record of his own life”. Another surprising musical gem comes courtesy of a lip-synch to the manic showstopper “Gorgeous” from Passionella, part of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s The Apple Tree, which adds a heavy dash of dark humour and heightens the gruesomeness of the scene. While a later episode plays out in an opium den that feels like a modern day nightclub, accompanied by the sounds of a 2020s dance track. These musical choices are typical of a production that is not afraid to take big swings and that boldness pays off.
Visually, one such sequence sees Snook film and photograph herself live with a cellphone camera in hand, snapping a selfie that includes the audience before going on to distort her own face with a filter. She flips between an enhanced, beautified version of herself as Dorian and an eerily disfigured image that she has created in real time before us, which represents Hallward’s supernatural portrait. Dorian’s obsession with youth and beauty—ignited by Wotton’s words—feels bitingly relevant in today’s age of social media filters and cosmetic procedures, something that resonates throughout the production.
The gender play of Snook taking on both male and female characters serves to enhance the work’s inherent queerness. Although extensive edits were made to the printed versions of Wilde’s original texts—first published in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1890 and in an expanded novel form the following year—nevertheless the writer was cross-examined about Dorian Gray at his trials in 1895 and its perceived “immorality” was used as evidence against him. Although the queerness that is spoken about wisely remains implied rather than all-out explicit in Williams’ adaptation, one never has to strain to pick up on it and it is playfully underscored in Snook’s delivery. The meaning of words like “great friend”, “inseparable” and “intimacy”—or what is suggested by frequenting “seaside haunts”—is unmistakable when used to describe the men whom Dorian is linked too, often with tragic consequences. While the sexual tension between characters pulsates in each interaction, such as Hallward’s unrequited love for Dorian or Dorian’s own adoration of Wotton.
Fizzing with Wilde’s wit and perceptive take on human nature, Williams’ Dorian Gray is as funny as it is profound. Every moment is riveting in this electrifying, unmissable theatrical event.
By James Kleinmann
The Picture of Dorian Gray officially opened on March 27th and is now running on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre (239 West 45th Street) in a strictly limited engagement through June 29th, 2025. For more details and to purchase tickets head to DorianGrayPlay.com.