Tag Archives: Oscar Wilde

Pictures of Dorian Gray – A
★★★

Jermyn Street Theatre

Pictures of Dorian Gray - A

Pictures of Dorian Gray – A

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed – 10th June 2019

★★★

 

“The performances are all beautifully executed”

 

As director Tom Littler notes in the programme, Dorian Gray has become a kind of folklore: even if you haven’t read the novel you know the story, or at least some abridged version of it; a withering portrait hung in an attic. But it’s Wilde’s combination of wit and wisdom that has kept the story alive, seeing both the humour and tragedy of the premise. Unfortunately, Littler and writer Lucy Shaw have leaned instead on unsmiling introspection, leaving the light-heartedness out almost completely.

The content itself is still round about where Wilde left it – a beautiful young man wishes that his portrait would age rather than himself so that he might retain his youthful allure, and his wish comes true. The moral implications unfold – if you were to wear no signs of your transgressions, carry no cross for your regrets, and therefore lose sight of your humanity, would it all still be worth it, to be beautiful and to enjoy all things pleasurable?

The dialogue is also lifted directly from the page, so technically the humour is still present, but the sound design (Matt Eaton) has strange atmospheric soundscapes and heavy ominous echoes trounce any comic delivery – it’s hard to laugh when the audience feels they’re supposed to be taking it all very seriously.

It seems this is more of a dramatic exercise than an audience-ready production. The directive decisions are more out of curiousity – what if we did this – than to enrich the story. The big gimmick is that each night the actors will switch roles and thus the characters will switch genders- there are two men and two women. Quoting Littler directly from the programme notes, “We didn’t have a point to make – it was just a series of questions.” It’s the sort of thing you might try in rehearsal as an experiment but it seems bizarre to play it out on stage when there’s no reason.

As is fitting for a plot filled with hedonism, the production does look beautiful (William Reynolds). Two slanting mirrors flank the stage and tens of bauble filament bulbs hang low. The costume follows suits (Emily Stuart): there’s lots of black velvet and silk encrusted with gold and jewels, and whilst everyone has their own outfit, they all follow a similar theme, lending a very pleasing aesthetic cohesion.

The performances are all beautifully executed. Richard Keightley (playing Henry Wotton in the production I saw), is particularly adept, a perfect combination of predatory and charming. The trouble is that whilst everyone performed well and delivered their lines with conviction, it was mostly drowned out by the over-stylisation of the production – the strange ‘narrators’ interrupting the scenes to quote abstractly from Wilde’s well-known preface, for example, or the need to have the whole cast on stage throughout, beautifully choreographed (Julia Cave) to move with inexplicable purpose. What is the message we’re supposed to be receiving here? Unfortunately, I don’t think the cast knows any more than we do.

 

Reviewed by Miriam Sallon

Photography by  S R Taylor

 


Pictures of Dorian Gray – A

Jermyn Street Theatre until 6th July

The cast switch roles at different performances, giving you a choice of four versions:  A – Male Dorian with male Wotton, B – Male Dorian with female Wotton, C – Female Dorian with male Wotton and D – Female Dorian with female Wotton. See Jermyn Street Theatre website for dates each version is performed.

 

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:
Tomorrow at Noon | ★★★★ | May 2018
Stitchers | ★★★½ | June 2018
The Play About my Dad | ★★★★ | June 2018
Hymn to Love | ★★★ | July 2018
Burke & Hare | ★★★★ | November 2018
Original Death Rabbit | ★★★★★ | January 2019
Agnes Colander: An Attempt At Life | ★★★★ | February 2019
Mary’s Babies | ★★★ | March 2019
Creditors | ★★★★ | April 2019
Miss Julie | ★★★ | April 2019

 

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The Importance of Being Earnest
★★★★

Watermill Theatre

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Watermill Theatre

Reviewed – 27th May 2019

★★★★

 

“an inventive new take on an old favourite”

 

Should we care about ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’? Oscar Wilde’s best-known play about misplaced identities was written at the height of his fame. His brilliant wit shines in every scene and the piece features that line about a piece of left luggage that is probably as much quoted as ‘to be or not to be’.

The Watermill’s new production partly attempts to prove its relevance by setting the play in a contemporary apartment, which is all dull grey minimalism, and in the opening scene, decorated with a road traffic cone. It’s the kind of achingly trendy place that’s all concealed doors and cupboards, with a big Morris wallpaper feature wall, which in Sally Ferguson’s lighting design is cleverly lit to match the mood. At the start of the play the set seemed simply incongruous, lacking the glitz that might be expected of a London socialite’s pad. Weirdly, the cups are paper and the plates foil, a kind of knowing send-up that seemed just odd in the first half, but made perfect sense in the second when the play takes a surreal turn. The almost empty apartment does however come complete with a fully-liveried butler, played with glassy-eyed determination by the impressive Morgan Philpott. He begins and ends the show, as well as sustaining a crowd-pleasingly clever running gag throughout it that calls for the most impeccable timing.

So the scene is set for an inventive new take on an old favourite, as much beloved of amateur productions as it is of countless high profile cinema and stage versions. The lead, Algernon, is played by a splendidly gangling Peter Bray (RSC and the Globe). Wilde seems to have put most of himself into this ‘Bunburying’ young fop who gets some of the best lines. Bray more than rises to the challenge. As Jack, Benedict Salter is also excellent. In a splendid piece of direction by the very inventive Kate Budgen, Bray and Salter perform a kind of mad pas-de-deux to a Liszt piano concerto in a scene about muffins. ‘I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them’. Much has been written about the gay sub-text, in a play which was written when to be ‘earnest’ was to be gay. What with the Bunburying and cucumbers for ready money, it certainly doesn’t lack in innuendo, and this was nicely handled in this production.

Both young men and their female opposite numbers, Gwendolen (Claudia Jolly) and Cecily (Charlotte Beaumont), are splendidly dressed in period costumes. Wilde’s young women may be trapped in a suffocating Victorian system where a woman’s marriage is more about money than love, but his characters shine in these interpretations. Charlotte Beaumont in particular has a kind of winningly mad insistence, that in the second half almost took the play into Lewis Carroll territory.

And what of Lady Bracknell’s ‘handbag’ line, so famously delivered with ringing disdain by Edith Evans, then whispered by Maggie Smith in a role also played by Judi Dench and even David Suchet? Connie Walker certainly brings the ‘gorgon’ to life in her commanding interpretation. Wendy Nottingham makes a suitably dowdy Miss Prism, and Jim Creighton is a satisfying Dr Chasuble.

‘To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of modern life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution’. Just for lines like this, ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ is more than worth the price of a ticket. This fresh and inventive new production at the Watermill makes it more than doubly so.

 

Reviewed by David Woodward

Photography by Philip Tull

 


The Importance of Being Earnest

The Watermill Theatre until 29th June

 

 

The Watermill Theatre – winner of our 2018 Awards – Best Regional Theatre

 

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:
The Rivals | ★★★★★ | March 2018
Burke & Hare | ★★★★ | April 2018
A Midsummer Night’s Dream | ★★★★ | May 2018
Jerusalem | ★★★★★ | June 2018
Trial by Laughter | ★★★★ | September 2018
Jane Eyre | ★★★★ | October 2018
Robin Hood | ★★★★ | December 2018
Murder For Two | ★★★★ | February 2019
Macbeth | ★★★ | March 2019
Amélie | ★★★★★ | April 2019

 

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