By Matthew Wexler
“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion,” says artist Basil Hallward in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Does the same apply to a play’s director? If so, Kip Williams’ new adaptation and direction of Wilde’s 1890 classic reveal a theatrical event so beautifully complex, genre-busting, and thought-provoking, the desire to get inside its creator’s mind is alluring as eternal youth itself.
Wilde’s novel about a muse who succumbs to vanity to preserve his physical prowess while his soul rots in the form of a hidden portrait has been the subject of 10 film adaptations and dozens of TV, theater, opera, and audio incarnations. Williams reverts to a theatrical tradition of a single storyteller through a decidedly 21st-century lens.
Fans of HBO’s Succession may recognize Sarah Snook’s name above the title, but if theatergoers are worried about another instance of celebrity stunt casting, think again. Snook’s shape-shifting performance, enhanced by live and pre-recorded video and an adept team of five onstage camera operators, catapults the narrative into a wholly new art form.
Video integration has appeared more frequently on Broadway stages, most notably in Ivo van Hove’s 2020 revival of West Side Story and the current adaptation of Sunset Boulevard starring Nicole Sherzinger, but Williams and his creative team go the next level as Snook morphs into a cornucopia of characters, often in dialogue with herself, aided by Clemence Williams’ seamless sound design and auditory prowess.
Snook’s physical and emotional command is unrelenting yet avoids strain or histrionics despite playing 26 characters. A watershed moment of the Broadway season, The Picture of Dorian Gray places vanity center stage. Ugly never looked so good.
IMC takeaway: According to the National Library of Medicine, nearly 35 million surgical and nonsurgical aesthetic procedures were performed in 2023, and in the last four years, overall procedures have increased by 40%. Despite our collective desire to “look” better, some might say our souls are rotting as hate crimes continue to rise.
The Picture of Dorian Gray plays on Broadway at the Musix Box Theatre through June 15.
Feeling artsy? Read about my encounter with Edward Hicks’ “Penn’s Treaty” at the Met.
