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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Feb 6 – May 11, 2024
18 Suffolk St, London SW1Y 4HT, United Kingdom

In his stage productions, the Australian theater director Kip Williams “takes the best of cinema and the essence of theatre and combines them into a new space where you can see the juxtaposition of those art forms.” A great example of Williams’s method is his adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, which had an unprecedented three-season, sold-out run in Sydney. Wilde’s classic is set in motion when the artist Basil Hallward, enthralled by the young and beautiful Dorian Gray, paints his portrait. While sitting for Hallward, Dorian wishes that his portrait would age instead of him. He gets his wish. Williams’s version casts one woman in all 26 of the book’s roles thanks to recorded videos projected onto the stage. For the show’s much-anticipated London debut, Succession’s Sarah Snook, fresh off a Golden Globe win, takes over the role that Eryn Jean Norville played to rave reviews. —Jensen Davis