CityLife

Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray
The Lowry
October 21, 2009

MORE than a century after Oscar Wilde wrote his then scandalous The Picture of Dorian Gray, Matthew Bourne has taken its shocking core and reworked it into a damning tale of our times in what the Lowry calls ‘a dance theatre event’.

The result is dark, obsessive and sinister while at the same time beautiful, witty and utterly compelling.

It is an uneasy mix, which doesn’t always make for comfortable viewing. In this sense it’s not what many fans of Bourne’s Swan Lake and Nutcracker might first expect.

Here, on its first visit to Salford since premiering at the Edinburgh festival in 2008, Bourne presents us with a theatrically slick, no-holds barred view of our celebrity obsessed age.

Dorian (a flawless Richard Winsor) is a naïve drinks waiter at a glitzy party when he meets fashion photographer, Basil Hallward (brooding Jason Piper), the portrait painter of the novel. The infamous portrait is updated to an iconic photo, making Dorian the face of a new fragrance, aptly named, Immortal.

Evocative score

The book’s implied homosexuality of the anti-hero is explicit in Bourne’s piece. Within minutes the two are embroiled in an erotically charged scene which is tense, athletic and breathtaking.

There are also some clever gender switches in the characters – Lord Henry, Dorian’s influential corrupting influence becomes Lady H (Michela Meazza), a Devil Wears Prada style media mogul who takes Dorian under her wing and into her bed, introducing him to a life of fame and celebrity parties.

Sybil Vane, the young actress who Dorian admires becomes Cyril (Christopher Marney) a male ballet dancer, with whom Dorian is briefly entranced.

Now a billboard star, Dorian is a magnet for both men and women; his lust becomes insatiable and his narcissism uncontrollable. We see the lure of easy sex, alcohol and drugs; glamorous parties, chat shows and the paparazzi.

It’s made all the more powerful by Terry Davis’ evocative score, which takes us from full on club anthem to a menacing breath. Dorian’s hedonistic lifestyle makes him as cold as Lez Brotherston’s monochrome set and inevitably turns beauty to beast.

The result is brutal, gory and ultimately thought provoking, because while the quest for eternal youth is futile our fascination with it is as strong as ever.

Until October 24.

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