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Dorian

Reading Rep Theatre

Reviewed – 19th October 2021

“a thoroughly modern and uncompromisingly Queer story”

In an age of toppling statues, do we need heroes any more? Reading Rep has just begun its first ever season in a new home with a play which is partly about Oscar Wilde. This multi-facetted new adaptation of Wilde’s only novel ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ is an appropriate choice for a Reading-based community-focused professional producing theatre which has as its mission the transformation of lives through theatre.

The Rep’s new home is an impressive £1m conversion of a former Salvation Army hall on the east side of the town.

Phoebe Eclair-Powell and Owen Horsley’s smart and engaging play interweaves the story of a beautiful man who makes a Faustian pact with his own portrait with that of Wilde himself, who was imprisoned in Reading gaol after being found guilty of gross indecency with another man. For many of us, Wilde remains an inspiring and heroic figure, not only for his literary talent but also for the great injustice of his conviction. An official pardon was issued in 2017, the 50th anniversary of the abolition of the crime for which he was convicted.

Eclair-Powell and Director Horsley have made ‘Dorian’ a thoroughly modern and uncompromisingly Queer story. It is peppered with references to the hit TV series ‘Pose’, EastEnders and even Blackadder. Some 16 roles are shared by a lively and appealing cast of just three young actors.

In this fast-moving show we see Dorian in a Victorian artist’s studio as well as in the gay nightclub Heaven. We are also reminded of the death of George Michael. It features an excellent picture frame themed set by E.M. Perry and some effective lighting by Simeon Miller. There are also some gorgeous costumes supervised by Fran Levin.

Successfully casting a ‘wonderfully handsome’ character of ‘passionate purity’ is no mean feat. Andro Cowperthwaite is a most impressive choice for the role. His characterisation is committed and compelling, his delivery excellent and his physical presence entirely suited to the role.

Ché Francis tackles the difficult role of both Wilde himself and that of Henry Wotton, who convinces young Dorian of the extraordinary value and fragility of his own beauty. In this fairly breathless piece, their delivery sometimes lacked clarity.

Francis was partnered by RADA graduate Nat Kennedy who plays both the painter Basil Hallward and Wilde’s lover Robbie Ross as well as a number of other characters. These were vivid and often appealing performances which made much of the comic material in the play, partly at the expense of genuinely engaging this reviewer’s sympathy for Wilde’s predicament.

According to one psychologist, to be a hero, one has to be deviant. See the play yourself to decide if Dorian’s Wilde is a hero or not. Whatever you conclude, you will be guaranteed a rich and engaging evening from an enterprising company which deserves every future success in its impressive new home.

Reviewed by David Woodward

Photography by Holly Revell

Dorian

Reading Rep Theatre until 7th November

Other shows reviewed this month:

Dumbledore Is So Gay | ★★½ | Online | October 2021

Back To The Future | ★★★★ | Adelphi Theatre | October 2021

Roots | ★★★★★ | Wilton’s Music Hall | October 2021

The Witchfinder’s Sister | ★★★ | Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch | October 2021

Rice | ★★★★ | Orange Tree Theatre | October 2021

The Cherry Orchard | ★★★★ | Theatre Royal Windsor | October 2021

Love And Other Acts Of Violence | ★★★★ | Donmar Warehouse | October 2021

Yellowfin | ★★★★ | Southwark Playhouse | October 2021

Brief Encounter | ★★★ | Watermill Theatre Newbury | October 2021

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★★★★

“Ailin Conant’s slick direction keeps the frequent scene changes characterful, allowing the energy to consistently simmer”

There are some words which don’t quite fit into an English definition, like schadenfreude (pleasure from someone else’s misery) or kummerspeck (the weight you put on from stress eating). Dipika Guha’s stellar new play demonstrates how ‘gaman’, too, is a word that cannot be served by our standards, and delivers it all in a mighty allegory about fish.

The Art of Gaman follows the journey of Tomomi as a young girl arriving in New York from Hiroshima through the subsequent sixty years of her life, and explores huge and complex themes of identity, sexuality, gender roles, purpose, and unfulfilled dreams. She finds herself desperate to become an actress and share her story, but hindered by the social and cultural expectations of women, as well as the hostile attitudes towards the Japanese during and after the Second World War. Guha’s script manages to deftly navigate these lofty concepts with care and wit; it’s rich with metaphors about koi fish, radios, and sunlight, and creates a vocabulary of textual references that layer on new meanings when called back to throughout. Unfortunately, however, a few fluffed lines from the actors occasionally prevent the delivery from landing with the impact that was no doubt intended.

Additionally, the scenes often felt quite filmic in their brevity and left a lot of momentous choices that the characters make to happen off stage. Luckily, Ailin Conant’s slick direction keeps the frequent scene changes characterful, allowing the energy to consistently simmer. This is aided by Helen Coyston’s smart and purposeful design which uses translucent curtains to instantaneously convey a number of locations and atmospheres. The performances from the whole cast were tremendous, particularly from You-Ri Yamanaka who primarily plays Tomomi – in an intimate space like Theatre503, the fact that she felt continuously spontaneous and authentic is all the more commendable. The other actors were tasked with depicting a variety of characters each throughout the story; Philip Desmeules and Alice Dillon especially succeeded in imbuing each one with an identifiable history from the moment they stepped into the scene, portraying exceptionally detailed and nuanced people in an instant.

Gaman is presented in the play as something beautiful being born out of an arduous struggle, like how carbon needs to be placed under immense pressure to become a diamond. The Art of Gaman is immensely ambitious in its scope and themes but largely achieves gaman itself, and delivers on those ambitions with aplomb, and in doing so provides a platform for a story that is often ignored and marginalised.

Reviewed by Tom Francis

Photography by Helen Murray