★★½

“George Renshaw as Harry Wotton gives a show stealing solo performance”

Oscar Wilde seems to be having a bit of a moment. There is a production of The Importance of Being Earnest upcoming at the National Theatre, and The Picture of Dorian Gray was recently staged with Succession star Sarah Snook bagging an Olivier for her performance. Now the Southwark Playhouse is putting on a musical adaptation of Dorian Gray.

In this version, with book and direction by Linnie Reedman and music & lyrics by Joe Evans, Dorian is an overnight online sensation, taken in by the music industry who promise him his youthful beauty can live forever through his music. There are some oblique references to the 27 club of famous musicians who died young and versions of Wilde’s original characters who inadvertently guide Dorian towards his eventual end.

The main challenge with this adaptation is that, conceptually, it just doesn’t work. A musical set in the modern era, that purports to explore how social media affects our perception of beauty can’t just throw in a couple of references to Dorian having gone viral on YouTube, cocaine fuelled industry parties, or things being ‘all over the newspapers… and also social media’. Equally the costume and set (Isabella Van Braeckel), are more Victorian gothic than modern, although the set is successfully reminiscent of a recording studio – multiple Moroccan carpets strewn across the floor, LPs and guitars on the walls and piled with books and bric-a-brac. The story needs greater integration of the contemporary themes it claims to explore in the adaptation to pull it off – or else a straight 19th century adaptation would do.

More heinously though, to evoke the spirits of some of rock and pops greatest talents – Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse – the music and lyrics have got to attempt to match. At a minimum, the music has to lean more ‘pop’ than musical theatre. But all the music is drab and dull, seemingly inspired more by the gothic musicals Phantom of the Opera or Sweeney Todd, but without any of the musicality or lyricism of Lloyd-Weber or Sondheim.

The casting unfortunately doesn’t help matters. Alfie Friedman as Dorian Gray has a very musical theatre voice, with plenty of vibrato, opening the show with a number about living forever that has the potential for a pop-rock ballad inspired by Queen’s, but is instead memorable only in its blandness. There are some exceptions of course. George Renshaw as Harry Wotton gives a show stealing solo performance of Where the Yellow Roses Grow, a highlight of the second act with his intelligent interpretation of the tune. Gabrielle Lewis-Dodson and Megan Hill as Sybil/Fabian Vane are also strong vocalists and being much needed comic relief, particularly in the second act.

Overall, Dorian: The Musical gives sixth-form production energy due to the safe but bland musical numbers, some odd directorial choices, and the half-baked ‘contemporary’ setting. Saved from the abyss by some stand out performances, including a superb guitar solo from a member of the live band, this piece will most appeal to Wilde superfans rather than the masses.

THE BLEEDING TREE at Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★

“Vaguely Gothic, but down to earth; a touch of the supernatural brushing against domestic tragedy”

A crackling wail, somewhere between a synthesized didgeridoo and a death rattle, rises from the red earth, swelling into an anguished crescendo while three nameless women hiss with venom, spitting bitter fear and loathing at a corpse we cannot see. The mother and two daughters move and speak in staccato, jarring rhythms; locked in their state of shock and disbelief, dread and relief. The lifeless body is their husband and father, who gasped his last with a bullet through the neck.

This is not going to be comfortable viewing. Angus Cerini’s “The Bleeding Tree” is a hard-hitting murder ballad, poetic in its delivery yet full of raw rage. Mariah Gale is the mother while Elizabeth Dulau and Alexandra Jensen play the daughters, interchangeable and often indistinguishable from each other. The emotional power is impressive as they sway between culpability and victimhood. Their abuser, now lifeless on the ground, still torments them.

The one flaw in this otherwise impeccable hour-long play is that we are never sure whose side we are on. But then maybe that is the whole point of Cerini’s writing. The lines between the abused and the abuser become blurred. We never learn the full extent or true nature of the suffering caused by the deceased, but we are stealthily led to believe his end is justified. Yet somehow, we are not asked to judge. We are witnesses but not the jury.

Ali Hunter’s atmospheric lighting places the action in an eternal twilight. Jasmine Swan’s simple setting cleverly conveys the internal claustrophobia of these characters while also evoking the bleak terracotta backdrop of the Outback where further perils may lie. A knock at the door causes panic. The women ripple in unison as their savage secret is in danger of being discovered by their neighbours. Gale, Dulau and Jensen deftly switch into the roles of the outsiders; Mr Jones and Mrs Smith, and the postman-come-policeman who feed them with alibis and cover-ups. The beautifully flowing dialogue belies the complex issues bubbling underneath. Many a blind eye is being turned. Yet it seems that the events that led to this bloody conclusion were also equally ignored by those that perhaps should have seen it coming.

Sophie Drake’s minimal staging allows the cast to focus on the crucial and radical text. We learn what ‘The Bleeding Tree’ of the play’s title refers to, and it is quite harrowing. The protagonists may be left with mixed feelings eating away at them, from the inside out, but that is nothing compared to the literal fate of the decomposing body of evidence before them that needs to be disposed of.

“The Bleeding Tree” forces us to face important questions. Instead of offering answers it dresses them in atmospheric layers of theatricality. The result is something quite extraordinary. Vaguely Gothic, but down to earth; a touch of the supernatural brushing against domestic tragedy. Cerini writes with the pen of a poet but the mind of a crime writer. A thrilling combination that, combined with the excellent performances, is a theatrical experience that makes us look at its extreme subject matter in a new light.

DORIAN: THE MUSICAL at Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★½

“George Renshaw as Harry Wotton gives a show stealing solo performance”

DORIAN: THE MUSICAL at Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 10th July 2024

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Danny Kaan

More shows reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

DORIAN

DORIAN

THE BLEEDING TREE at Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★

“Vaguely Gothic, but down to earth; a touch of the supernatural brushing against domestic tragedy”

THE BLEEDING TREE at Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 3rd June 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Lidia Crisafulli

Previously reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

THE BLEEDING TREE

THE BLEEDING TREE