«Succession» star Sarah Snook plays all the roles in Broadway’s «The Picture of Dorian Gray,» a send-up of the Oscar Wilde classic.
A better title would be “The Parody of Dorian Gray.” Sarah Snook plays all the characters from Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel about a young man who doesn’t grow old but whose portrait reflects both his real age and moral corruption. This solo “The Picture of Dorian Gray” opened Thursday at the Music Box after a run in London.
At the top of the two-hour show, written and directed by Kip Williams, Snook gives us three impersonations in quick succession: the epigram-spouting roue Lord Henry Wotton, the troubled portraitist Basil Hallward and the callow young beauty Dorian Gray. Depending on where you’re sitting in the Music Box, you may or may not be able to see Snook while she performs this revolving-door act. You can definitely see her face as it is projected on a big screen that’s suspended middle stage. Snook sits behind that screen as she’s recorded by four camera operators. Maybe, if Snook where seated downstage and facing us, her acting here would be more impressive. From what we see on the big screen, her impersonation of three male characters is pretty crude in a burlesque sort of way. Eventually, Snook does move downstage with her scrum of camera operators in tow. It’s then that other characters emerge, not always in person on stage but on that big screen, which is joined by a bunch of other smaller screens that float under the proscenium.
Yes, a lot of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is taped, and it’s in these canned performances that Snook achieves remarkable transformations that elude her when performing in person.
