Sarah Snook is Dorian Gray -- and everyone else

 

Sarah Snook is the Cory Booker of theatre, stamina personified.  Not only does she portray all 26 characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray, writer and director Kip Williams’ adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 gothic novel, but she must also position herself in the exact right spot throughout the two-hour intermission-less production at the Music Box Theatre.  Williams’ elaborate concept involves live and video presentations of each character Snook must transform into with the help of five onstage camera operators, numerous costumers and wig providers.  It is the most imaginative show currently on Broadway and possibly ever on Broadway.

I had never seen the Australian actress but she is known to many from her starring role in the HBO drama “Succession” in which played Shiv Roy, a role that won her two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy.  She won an Olivier Award last year for the London production of Dorian Gray and she will likely be adding a Tony for Best Actress this June

The story, written in Victorian England, is just as timely today with our obsession with youth and appearances.  Artist Basil Hallward paints a full-length portrait of Dorian Gray, a pretty 20-year-old man who looks more like a young boy with his full head of golden curls, apple cheeks and plump red lips.  Gray is so mesmerized by his image that he becomes despondent at the thought of not always being so appealing.  He says he would give his soul to remain looking just like that and having the painting age instead. 

 He gets his wish but in time is haunted by his eternal youth and hides the portrait in a closet.  As the years go on and he falls ever deeper under the spell of the dissolute aristocrat Lord Henry Wotton he is driven to madness and murder.  And the painting becomes grotesque.  Wilde was never known for subtlety.

Snook is a marvel as she switches voices, sports Marg Horwell’s luscious period costumes and maneuvers many props.  I thought she was overdoing Gray’s hysteria toward the end but for most of the play she becomes those characters through her commitment and that of David Bergman’s videos, Horwell’s sets, Nick Schlieper’s lighting and Clemence Williams’ composition and sound design.

In a program note director Williams describes his intentions.  First, to show that humans lead myriad lives and are complex creatures.  “Second, that life itself is one grand act of theatre, one where we are all engaged in perpetual acts of performance in order that we might reveal or conceal our truth.”

He said he also wanted to root the play in the ancient theatre tradition of a single storyteller talking to the audience, which called for it 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.”

The show has been extended beyond its original 14-week run and now plays through June 29.