I'll say this for Neil Bartlett's adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray as commissioned for the Abbey Theatre. It was an ambitious project. He took seriously the import of trying to put such a complex, slippery text onto the stage. When it comes down to it, while the basic plot is quite dramatic, it's not the basic plot that stands out from the many Faust stories and doppelganger narratives in the Gothic mode. Rather, it's a text that drowns itself in the beauties of words, revels in paradox, reference, lists, and layers of words, building an effect that takes as much mystique Although the story has caught our collective imagination to the point of entering the folklore of vernacular reference, it is far from a simple text to adapt.
One of the natural questions in adapting this work, of course, is how to represent the central image of the changing portrait. This was done very deliberately with a lot of metatheatrical mirroring but a frame mirroring a blank. In fact, the only "picturing" reflection of Dorian was glimpsed in his repeated viewing of himself in a hand-mirror (we had excellent seats, but the Abbey's house is well-set-up enough that I wouldn't be surprised if a good portion of the audience got a bit of his face through the mirror at some pont). However, the metatheatrical mirroring was very explicit, to the point of commentary on the difficulty of adapting the material to the stage. The elaborate red drapes that eventually covered the portrait mirrored the proscenium stage curtain — an effect heightened in its metatheatricality by the addition of gold footlights that reflected the gold frame of the "portrait". This was paired with the only nod to the preface, the statement that "all art is quite useless" made in unison by the full cast in Greek Chorus style.
The staging itself was pared down, minimalist and largely monochromatic, with a blank-stage/black wall set highlighted by a few baroque touches, particularly the frame for the "portrait" (which remained un-pictured and rather changed from cloudy gray to black blank in a way that reflected the bare, black painted theatre wall.
In tone, at least, the play was sterile. In style, it was a jumble. Everything and the kitchen sink got thrown in when it came to dramatic technique. There was a Greek chorus (unfortunately not very in unison), explicit narration, leaders of the chorus (male and female respectively) using microphones to directly address the audience, characters who gave asides to the audience, and on occasion the near constant interruption of a buzzer calling the performers back to the "stage". There was even a bit of a suggestion of standup-comedy. The Chorus remained throughout the play, observing, narrating and commenting, occasionally commenting. And, fair enough. That's one way to answer the question of what the heck you do with staging such a language-heavy text. However, it was far from seamless. The Chorus often carried things forward in a telling-not-showing manner, also seeming sinister and judgmental in their tone. On one hand, the Chorus was possibly an inspired way to try to work in the sheer complexity of the words in the novel. On the other hand, I was not impressed by the effect. It ended up quite disjointed, with a mix of Gothic ghost-story and modern black box theatre with a bit of Verfremdungseffekt. It was like a mix of The Woman in Black (Gothic ghost story) and Pippin (existentialist, metatheatrical musical comedy). However, it didn't even have the overt sexuality of something like Pippin (I'll digress on this further later). In fact, for an adaptation of such a scandalous and sensual book, one that recognized Wilde's riff on Pater's Marius the Epicurian regarding curing "the soul by the senses the senses by the soul" -- repeating it more than once to be sure the audience caught and remembered the line -- it was oddly austere. It was, frankly, a laboured, disjointed, mess despite the way the visual design hammered home the framing motif in a mirroring unity of elaborate golden frame/costume/proscenium and footlights, dark cloudy "portrait"/stage / chorus-spectator that makes the audience complicit and comments on the "use" of art and theatre.
One of the problems was that of genre. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Decadent novel . . . in fact, it is one of the defining texts of the Decadence. It's also a tale of the supernatural in the Gothic mode, one which is so well-known that it's entered the common mythology of reference in the English language. But, Wilde's iteration of a Faustian doppelganger narrative using a supernatural portrait didn't capture the imagination simply because of the Gothic narrative, but because of everything surrounding it. Bartlett's adaptation is clearly aware of this. It's incredibly aware of the difficulty of adapting a novel that revels in the opulent beauty of words, that digresses into lists of furniture and possessions, that holds a life outside of the text in its importance to Wilde's life as evidence of his own "corruption" when Wilde was on trial.
In fact, I think that the greatest weakness of this adaptation was the complete lack of Decadence. And this was one of the biggest problems with the staging. For all the mirroring of stage and picture, there was no evocation of the decadent sensuality of the book. The elaborate and baroque cataloging, the exquisite lists of objects and nearly erotic love of language was replaced by a black box. In fact, the "garden" passage in which Dorian is first symbolically seduced by the idea of "curing the soul by the senses the senses by the soul" may be the singularly least erotic or seductive seduction scene I have ever witnessed. And also, oddly, considering that homosexual content was made explicit rather than symbolic homoeroticism in a rather homosocial context (Lord Henry kissed Dorian, Dorian forces a kiss onto his valet -- the staging leaving the implication of rape as well) there was a distinct lack of eroticism. Also, in the timing of the (added) kiss between Lord Henry and Dorian, the (added) (implied) rape of "Victor" the valet, in the explicit connection of Basil's passion for Dorian infusing every line and color of the painting, and in the rather orgasmic staging of Basil's death, it ended up that homoeroticism / queerness was actually linked to corruption and evil. To put it mildly, this is oddly heteronormative for an adaptation of this book. (My sister-in-law didn't quite see this at first, but when I listed these things all together at intermission (just after Basil's murder), she saw exactly where I was coming from. And speaking of moralistically heteronormative, there was also a repeated use of the Chorus reciting the paternoster, (this started with Basil's exhortation to Dorian to repent when he sees what the portrait has become, and Dorian stabbed him just as "deliver us from . . ." and then after Basil Dies "Amen". Ah. Just checked the programme/ script. The stage directions call for Dorian to have stripped down to the waist so as not to get blood on his clothes (in actuality, they had him remove his coat but kept him in a white shirt that he wiped his bloody hands on after):
"DORIAN stabs BASIL in the neck and holds him in the chair while he bleeds out. Some of the CHORUS amplify his death-throes making them sound strangely sexual; others implacably finish the Pater Noster as BASIL slowly and messily dies."
I didn't notice the "strangely sexual" noises so much, but that direction reinforces my sense that the production was uncomfortably linking homosexuality with corruption/evil. Ick. I haven't read adapter/director Neil Bartlett's introduction yet. I'll probably do that tomorrow but I suspect this wasn't intended. (In which case, major fail in pattern recognition on a creator's part).
While Bartlett's production does manage to retain the Gothic sensibility that is also part of The Picture of Dorian Gray, it doesn't manage decadence. Rather, it ends up with more moralistic repression than should ever be associated with The Picture of Dorian Gray. Part of this is the stark, pared back, near-monochromatic staging. However, what I found truly disturbing was the pattern that was created by the portrayal of desire and sexuality in different relationships.
A bit of a digression: Pippin is a Steven Schwartz Musical originally directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse in which the titular son of Charlemagne searches for meaning in life. He is led and tempted throughout by the Leading Player (accompanied by a chorus of players) as he tries everything: war, revolution, sex, settling down, love, trying to find his "corner of the sky". At the end, once everything has left him frustrated and unsatisfied, he's shown the "grand finale" in which he can immolate himself. When a player demonstrates it, it's just a trick. But, when he does it, it'll be real (he backs off and is left stripped of the "magic'" of theatrical accoutrements on an empty stage . . . but, ya know, alive and feeling "trapped" with a love interest):
Note that golden frame in the background. That's the device for the finale, and that's exactly where I went when I saw the frame of Dorian Gray's portrait, and then it was completely confirmed and amplified by the sleight of hand of the ending. Okay. Pippin is one of my favorite musicals (very possibly my all-time favorite musical), so it's not an insult to say I was reminded of Pippin. But, the sleight of hand of the portrait and Dorian Gray's death at the end paired with that gold frame reflecting back on the audience, and what works for a Musical Comedy ironically commenting on "everyman's" search for meaning in life (and ultimately our preference for an unfulfilling life over dying), doesn't work for a "Serious Drama" adaptation of a decadent novel. It's again a question of genre. What is pointedly a cheap trick in Pippin ends up feeling like a cheap trick in Dorian Gray (one which again evokes overtly religious symbolism as the newly aged Dorian presenting himself to the audience with arms raised almost as if he's on the cross . . . and then turns it into the showman's bow before he collapses dead). Pippin also pointed up other parallels where Dorian Gray fell short: decadence and sex. Pippin is also clearly metatheatrical and comments on its own genre quite a bit in a way that points back to the audience. It is also pretty stripped down in its staging, but it still manages to be decadent. Bob Fosse's staging and choreography are both cynical and riotous, oozing with sex and sensuality while giving a nudge and wink. But, this is done with the passion and inverted precision so characteristic of Fosse's ouevre (and in this case performed to the hilt by a cast including the incomparable Ben Vereen and Rita Moreno). The send-up of musical comedy in musical comedy is riotously anarchic and deliciously amoral. Pippin had much more of the Wildean artistic disregard for the moralistic in art that somehow didn't make it into this Dorian Gray.
Praise where praise is due, however. The acting ranged from good to spectacular. Tom Canton, making his professional debut as Dorian, is stunning in an exceptionally difficult role. He is not only perfectly physically cast, he manages a seamless mix of Narcissus and Faust with an energy and subtlety that are truly impressive. Frank McCusker's was also excellent as Basil, and Jasper Britton's Lord Henry Wotton was masterful and versatile. (Although the casting of McCusker and Britton ignored the novella in a typical misinterpretation of age . . . it's explicit in the text that Lord Henry is a young man at the beginning . . . specifically, Dorian Gray is attracted to the "tall, graceful young man who was standing by him" with a "low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating" and "cool, white, flowerlike hands". Britton, while he showed a great versatility and range, started with a solidly middle-aged character that moved into infirm age with the passage of time. In fact, the script explicitly states a 20 year age difference. This may seem rather nitpicky, but it makes a big difference in the question of influence and the pederastic suggestion of the age difference forces interpretations of male love and "influence" in the play that I believe betray the text. The relation between a middle-aged active seducer of a youth is entirely different to the variety of relations suggested by three aesthetic young men enacting variations of male desire and voyeurism while flinging themselves on divans, recumbent in gardens, etc.)
Some people will love the production. I suspect, however, that most of those people will not be Wildeans. It's not just that we are an opinionated lot, though opinionated we are. It's that we're passionate about the interface between surface and symbol. We soak ourselves in the intricacy of reference and the seduction of words. This production was entirely too blatant and heavy-handed with its symbolism while at the same time lacking focus, working the wrong genre, and creating a pattern linking homosexual desire to corruption and evil (which is so entirely un-Wildean that I can't even).
The overtly theatrical commentary inherent in the play suggests to me that Neil Bartlett clearly knows and has come to terms with the fact that adaptation, like translation, is and always will be an act of betrayal. So, how do you solve a problem like Dorian Gray? Is it simply an impossible text?
