“Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tells us of form and colour ~ that is all. It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him.” ~ Oscar Wilde, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’
Ever since seeing my very first Broadway production helmed by a star (Sandy Duncan flying around the Lunt-Fontanne in ‘Peter Pan’ way back when I was a child) I have never declared an actor’s performance to be the best or most impressive I’ve ever seen, because there was simply too much space for someone else to thrill and enthrall me more. I consider myself extremely lucky and privileged to have seen the following, all of whom have made lasting impressions:
Glenn Close in the original Broadway production of ‘Sunset Boulevard.’
Zoe Caldwell in ‘Master Class‘.
Billy Porter in ‘Kinky Boots’.
Janet McTeer in ‘A Doll’s House’.
Neil Patrick Harris in ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’.
Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel in ‘Wicked‘.
Christine Ebersole in ‘Grey Gardens’.
Bebe Neuwirth and Ann Reinking in ‘Chicago’.
Mercedes Ruehl in ‘Lost in Yonkers’.
Stockard Channing in ‘Six Degrees of Separation’.
Up until this moment I have safely steered clear of declaring any of these performances the ‘best thing’ I have ever seen in my lifetime, because there was always room for more. That room has astoundingly disappeared with the performance Sarah Snook is giving right now in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ at the Music Box Theatre, and there is a very good chance I will never again in my lifetime witness such an extraordinary feat of raw, concise, visceral, gorgeous, and breathtaking human expression.
Snook plays 26 wholly distinctive characters, centering on the titular Dorian Gray, painter Basil Hallward, and society dandy Lord Henry Wotton – and there is never a doubt as to which one is on stage at any given time, given how adroitly and masterfully she imbues shading and personality to each. Vocally, physically, and with split-second timing, she never misses a beat, and the sheer precision of each line, and the emotional abandon she at turns captures, is the stuff of pure genius. I have never seen anything so mesmerizing and astonishing, and every single moment is rooted in the human experience.
The main characters are established early on, via camera angles and a few simple accessories – a cigarette for Lord Henry, a paintbrush for Basil, a foppish wig of ringlets for Dorian and a simple knowing wink for The Narrator. Snook does not actually require any sort of accoutrement whatsoever, so strikingly does she convey the mannerisms, voices and tenor of each character. That she does it so spectacularly is the clever lynchpin of one of the main tenets of the production: that we are multitudes, and rarely one singular person at any given moment.
Kip Williams is writer and director, and in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ he has revolutionized the way technology and live theater can meet to create a work that manages to be both heartbreakingly intimate and breathtakingly infinite. It cannot be conveyed or fully described with words – it simply must be seen and felt and experienced. In the shape-shifting trickster-like hands of Snook, Williams has found a worthy embodiment of the multi-faceted jewel-like grandiosity that Wilde’s indelible creations demand; it’s a testament to their exquisite execution that this is quite likely the first version of ‘Dorian Gray’ that is successfully gorgeous, and compelling, in every way.
Williams explains his approach to the piece in the Playbill: “While I was inspired to conceive a work that would embrace a range of contemporary technologies that might, amongst other things, reflect our modern obsession with youth, beauty and the individual, I also wanted to root the play in the most ancient and analogue of theatre traditions: a single storyteller coming to an audience directly to recount a story. This led to the creation of the present day character known as The Narrator, a conduit between present and past, who in the conjuring of the story becomes subsumed by its eponymous character, Dorian Gray. This ancient story telling form called for the play to be written with a singular narratorial voice, which led to the task of largely seeking to maintain Wilde’s linguistic style, tone and rhythm throughout my writing, despite the many departures from the original text.”
It’s a testament to Wilde’s work (which was a formative influence on my younger self), and his understanding of the darker and more vain aspects of humanity, that this translates so well into the modern, selfie-obsessed filter-addicted social media world of today. In one of the most brilliant flashes of the play, Snook’s cel phone captures and filters her face showing how we are all pulling a reverse Dorian Gray in the way we constantly present our social media with our most perfect selves, while reality is our hidden portrait.
Weaving a modern sensibility into Wilde’s words is dangerously difficult, as proven by the number of stilted attempts at adapting ‘Dorian Gray’ over the years, but through ingenious use of cameras and videos (the camera operators create their own modern-day dance of documentation), as well as impossibly-choreographed precision between Snook and her pre-recorded bits, it’s not far-fetched to predict that the technological mechanics of this play will be a revolutionary touchstone for the future of theater. Despite this cutting edge aspect of the work, and the very real and resonant connection the work makes with this precise moment in time, the guttural punch of Snook’s spellbinding performance is grounded in the search for self, the uncomfortable and simultaneously-addicting pull of the mirror, and the multitude of fractured pieces with which we try to put ourselves together.
“What an exquisite life you have had! You have drunk deeply of everything. You have crushed the grapes against your palate. Nothing has been hidden from you. And it has all been to you no more than the sound of music. It has not marred you. You are still the same… You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.” ~ Oscar Wilde, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’
