By Cameron Woodhead
THEATRE
The Picture of Dorian Gray ★★★★★
Playhouse, Arts Centre, until July 31
Every international arts festival should have at least one centrepiece, a performance you might willingly travel overseas to see. Rising has found it close to home in this magnificent adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Eryn Jean Norvill plays a multitude of characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray.Credit: Daniel Boud
Kip Williams’ production is an impeccably choreographed and totally engrossing merger of theatre and live cinema. It brings Oscar Wilde’s only novel to the stage through a Victorian gothic frame bearing ghoulish flickers of a more contemporary portrait – one that shimmers and shifts and twists its features to reveal the soul of 21st century narcissism.
Keeping us spellbound for two hours is Eryn Jean Norvill, whose tour de force encompasses every character in the novel.
Histrionic genius and technical wizardry unite to effect thrilling live transformations. You watch in awe as Norvill morphs from the unspoilt meringue of Dorian as a youth to the chain-smoking libertine Lord Henry, whose amoral wit leads Dorian (unwittingly) to make a Faustian pact.
I’m underselling the scale of Norvill’s achievement: she has the range to perfect every piece of the Wildean jigsaw, from the ill-fated actress Dorian destroys to the infatuated, morally troubled artist whose painting grants immunity to the ravages of vice and time.
An elaborate dance between live performance and film also allows Norvill to act with herself, playing every guest at a dinner party, or setting up a tussle between Dorian and a narrator for control of the story.
In one telling scene, she even takes a selfie and fiddles madly with the beauty filter on her phone – an inspired way to portray the aesthetic warping of Dorian’s portrait as he pursues a life of pleasure without consequence.
Blending cinema and theatre requires utmost care, lest the immediacy of live performance be lost.
This production takes that risk with daring creative intelligence, and audiences are rewarded with gloriously innovative, forward-looking hybrid performance that stands alongside the best in the business. It’s at least as compelling as Ivo van Hove’s 2010 stage adaptation of the John Cassavetes film Opening Night, for instance, or Sisters Grimm’s Calpurnia Descending from 2014.
What makes it work isn’t just the glamour and dramatic intensity of a one-woman show splintered into the broken mirror of a fully cast production, it’s the depth of engagement with Wilde’s argument.
Dorian’s portrait is a metaphor for conscience, consciousness, and the inescapable relationship one has with oneself. Filtering that conceit through the narcissistic hall of mirrors that is contemporary screen culture jolts the imagination and deepens appreciation of the philosophical paradoxes surrounding life, art and morality that lie at the heart of Wilde’s novel.
Playful modern flourishes never displace a faithfulness to the setting and tone of the original story. Attractive period costumes, inventive set and lighting design, mesmerising acting and a sharp script all combine to create the delightfully immersive sense of an audiobook come to life in 3D.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a dazzling masterpiece no one should miss. It stands as a reminder that – even during a pandemic – Australia can and does produce world-class theatre capable of taking the West End and Broadway by storm.
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