CityLife

Interview: Matthew Bourne

Richard Winsor and Michela Meazza star in Dorian Gray

WITH his brilliant dance version of The Picture Of Dorian Gray, at the Lowry this week, Matthew Bourne is delving into material that is a little darker and more controversial than previous productions, such as his MEN Theatre Award-winning Edward Scissorhands and The Car Man.

It’s even further away, of course, from his work as co-director on the blockbuster musical Mary Poppins.

“Many of the stories that I have told in my work have had a sympathetic character, someone you feel for, someone who you want to succeed,” the acclaimed choreographer agrees.

“In Dorian Gray we have a different kind of story – dark, obsessive and sinister, with a beautiful and charming hero who also happens to be a perverse and sadistic character.

“As a storyteller, that concerned me for a while but I soon realised that Oscar Wilde’s story was a cautionary tale with as much to say now as it did in 1890.

“Making a piece set in the present day is something that I have never done but we are in a society in which people are obsessed by youth and by maintaining the appearance of youth as long as possible. We have all seen photos in Hello! or Heat magazines of people who walk around as the living embodiment of Dorian’s portrait in the attic.

Lukewarm critical response

“The more I looked at it the more I realised that everything goes in circles and that Wilde’s novel was pushing me into a darker vision of the present than I might otherwise have found.”

Matthew, whose other shows have included the famous all-male Swan Lake (as glimpsed in Billy Elliott, penned by Lee Hall), Highland Fling and Nutcracker! as well as the current West End smash Oliver!, acknowledges that “it is harder to comment on your own time as you, obviously, do not have the benefit of hindsight.

“Dorian’s discovery of the power of his own beauty and youth begins a journey that turns him into a heartless monster and leads to his destruction at his own hand.

“For most of us, the knowledge of youth and the attraction and power that it brings you are fleeting things. Dorian’s tragedy is that he holds on to that power for too long.

“I recognised this in the novel when I first read it at the age of 19. That was in 1979 when disco was at its zenith and I was at the height of my clubbing days.

“That feeling of walking into a club, as a fresh-faced youth, was probably the most powerful I have ever felt.”

When Dorian Gray was premiered at the Edinburgh Festival it received an unusually lukewarm critical response, many critics complaining that Matthew had laid unnecessary emphasis on the character’s homosexuality and the story’s violence.

'Anti-hero'

Even the fact that it has since been feted at its Sadlers Wells productions can’t quite compensate for that, if Bourne’s uncharacteristically tetchy response to questions about that reaction are anything to go by.

“That was simply homophobia,” he believes, “which you wouldn’t expect in the dance world of all places. I cannot imagine that there is anyone in the 21st century, apparently apart from some dance critics, who is still shocked by homosexual relationships.

“Although Wilde’s novel is not explicit in its descriptions of sexual relationships between men, it is pretty clear to modern readers what is going on.

“I would say that Dorian is an anti-hero, much like ?Sweeney Todd, Hannibal Lecter and even television’s charming everyman serial killer Dexter.

“We do not exactly like these characters but they fascinate us. They are driven by twisted passions, they are highly charismatic and they make their own rules.

“But things that people will happily watch on television are sometimes regarded as more shocking in the context of a dance performance.

“The story of Dorian Gray is not pretty.

“It is an ugly story about beauty and I think that the staging should reflect that.”

Matthew Bourne’s Dorian Gray is at The Lowry until October 24.