Discover how New York critics are reacting to Kip Williams’s adaptation and production of Oscar Wilde’s story starring Sarah Snook.
Variety: “At its core, then, if the production doesn’t utilize its technology for commentary and is hampered rather than strengthened by its single-actor format, what’s left? The very premise of the production is a gimmick, a way to let an actor show off and dazzle the audience with some tricks. It’s an empty spectacle, though, and it remains unclear what – if anything – the production is trying to say other than that vanity is bad.”
New York Times: “Yet it’s not technology itself that leaves “Dorian Gray” feeling so brittle where “Vanya” is a tear fest. It’s that the technology dominates all other values, including Wilde’s, often denying the human contact, and contract, that are at the heart of theater’s effectiveness. Some important scenes, though shot live onstage, must be watched onscreen because the screen itself blocks the upper half of Snook’s body. Her giant face is rendered in such super close-up that you might as well be an otolaryngologist; only her legs are left to do IRL acting.”
Time Out: **** “And as his tale becomes more urgently personal, so does Snook’s performance: By the finale, she is speaking straight out to the audience, and we are staring right back at her actual body, not a body mediated through somebody’s lens. It’s the show’s most stunning transformation of all—the folding of multiplicity back into singularity and sincerity—and Snook makes it a thing of beauty.”
Deadline: “Equal parts acting masterclass, tech wizardry, illusion and clockwork stage management, all costumed and set designed with the wit and color schemes of the most vivid Cindy Sherman photographs, Dorian Gray marks audacious Broadway debuts by both Snook and director-adaptor Kip Williams.”
Vulture.com: ” It’s a mark of Williams’s savvy—combined with the expert calibrations of his adaptation’s solo performer, Sarah Snook—that neither this moment nor any other in the show is approached with the heavy highlighter of relevancy. “
New York Theatre Guide: “Her performance is a masterpiece in both the physical demands of theatre and the brilliance of camera work, with every subtle rise of an eyebrow captured on screen. She deserved all the cheers at the multiple curtain calls, and a very long nap.”
Broadway News.com: “Sarah Snook is a masterful shapeshifter in this triumphant one-woman adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s once-salacious morality tale.”
Talkin’ Broadway: “Williams and Snook deserve all the laurels heaped upon them, but let’s reserve a special hoorah for the eye-popping work of video designer David Bergman. If nothing else, collectively they have transformed this skeptic into a believer, or, at least, an agnostic, regarding the collaborative potential between live performance and videography.”
New York Post: *** 1/2 “It’s discombobulating. It’s fantastical. And, in the end, it’s crushing. “
To find out more about the production visit: https://doriangrayplay.com/