Review: Dorian: The Musical (Southwark Playhouse Borough

Review by Raphael Kohn

⭐️

It’s such a good idea that it’s a surprise nobody’s thought of it before. Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, with its subtle homoeroticism and morality-exploring plot seems like perfect material for new musicals. Indeed, a recent production of it as a play in the West End starring Sarah Snook opened to rave reviews just a few months ago. But this one is quite different. This version, modernised to the present day and set to a glam-rock score, is a different beast altogether.

Our protagonist Dorian is no longer just a figure of beauty, painted by his doting ‘friend’ (in Wilde’s days, the mere hints of attraction he wrote were enough to be used as evidence against him in court). He is reinvented as a rock singer, a celebrity of the 21st century, deified on social media and loved by the masses. His photographer, Basil (sorry, ‘Baz’) is the painter; Lord Henry (sorry, ‘Harry’) is his music producer.

Painted by Baz (inexplicably both portrayed as a photograph when making it and a physical painting when complete), Dorian’s portrait ages while he himself does not after an act of cruelty inspires personal change. It’s the exact same plot as the novel… at least, mostly. Gone are the subtle hints of queer love, replaced with very clear portrayals of gay sex. Whether Wilde would have approved of this is up for debate – in ‘queering’ the plot to make explicit what was implicit, something is lost in the subtlety of the original queerness. Then again, perhaps he’d be thrilled that, in a world where what was illegal is no longer, we can tell his stories with more explicit queerness.

It's difficult to write this, but I must be frank and honest in this review. I always seek to uplift the positives in theatre and find the best in everything. But I believe that Oscar Wilde would have much bigger problems with Dorian: The Musical than the difference in the way queerness is presented.

Few things make sense in this musical. It starts acceptably enough, if a bit cheesily, setting the scene with black-hooded ensemble members skulking around mysteriously. But as composer and lyricist Joe Evans’s first few songs start, it soon breaks down into a series of musical dirges, each following the last in a similarly repetitive style, both in music and lyrics. They’re not bad to listen to, but are immediately forgettable. There’s no doubt they’re appropriate for the style of the show, but they don’t exactly make for interesting listening, indeed each time the band strikes up for a new song, especially in the second half, the feelings elicited feel closer to frustration than excitement.

Joining these together are Dorian’s spoken scenes, which fare even worse. Everyone speaks lines which are unengaged and cold, unable to draw together emotions or ideas at all.  It’s all structured together abysmally from the very beginning, scenes and songs alike, with the first few emotion-heavy songs arriving without any reason to care about any characters’ emotions. It’s probably best described as ‘clumsy’ – songs are poorly signposted, either coming out of nowhere or beginning with cheesy introducing lines that make it so painfully obvious that there’s a song coming, you can’t help but wish Wilde had been given a veto over this script.

It's always a tricky task to direct one’s own script, either meaning a good script can be directed perfectly by the person who understands it best, or a bad script gets directed by the only person in the world who understands it at all. Dorian unfortunately suffers from the latter, staged simplistically and confusingly at the best of times. Every problem the script has becomes amplified, with the production bordering on a confused mess at times.

Key moments which should be important are closer to silly, with Dorian’s wish to retain his youthful beauty drenched in green lighting in the aisles as Dorian gazes out over the audience. A moment which should be heartbreaking and a huge turning point for the show is staged in complete blackout, leaving its actor to cover themself with a white sheet and then just… lie on the floor for a while. I’m not sure the laughter I heard in the audience was what the production was going for, at this moment or others.

The key idea is there. This is supposed to be a gothic rock musical of The Picture of Dorian Grey. But it’s pointlessly gothic. Aesthetically it at least tries to work, with Isabella Van Braeckel’s tiered set allowing some variation in height and a few setpieces to work on, and her costumes attempting to back the gothic vibe. But it looks cheap and silly, simultaneously unable to conjure starkness in its emptiness nor gothic detail in what it has.

It could have been elevated by some power performances at least. But it isn’t, instead brought down by a cast who at times seem not to know what their characters are doing. Our protagonist comes in the form of Alfie Friedman, with his combed-back long hair and deep eyes bringing Dorian’s looks perfectly. However, with his beautiful tenor with a polished, quick vibrato, comes a key misstep – his vocals (while beautiful and certainly suitable for a part like Marius from Les Miserables) cannot match the demands of the score for a rock lead. Gabrielle Lewis-Dodson’s portrayal of Victoria suffers similarly, with a sassy attitude to her acting which works at times but vocals which clash with the score she is singing.

Our ‘photographer’ Baz comes to us in the form of Leeroy Boone, whose fabulous movement in Elliot Pritchard’s simplistic choreography at least works nicely for his character. But unfortunately, he makes Baz so cold, so unengaged, so completely withdrawn from the others, that there’s no reason to be moved by his love for Dorian. He speaks each line as if reciting words, not embodying a character – and in a queer musical that wants to display queer love and attraction, it loses the passion entirely. It may have been a deliberate choice, but it simply did not work for me at all.

Indeed, there’s little in the way of chemistry going on here, despite the passionate romance we might expect from this story. We get little to no reason to believe any of the romance or relationships going on, only being told that they are going on. Why certain events happen interpersonally between our characters become totally unexplained, and instead of this lending the show a curious, intriguing side, it simply becomes opaque and confusing.

However, George Renshaw’s Harry does manage to embody the glam rock vibe much better. Complete with a chiselled jaw and dark sneer, his credits as a previous J.D. in Heathers: The Musical are immediately obvious. His vocals match the demands of the score much more nicely, and he acts his posh, snarky role wonderfully. It’s a shame that his energy cannot be matched by the rest of the cast, who despite their abilities lack the necessary suitability for their roles.

The show has a small ensemble – of which Megan Hill as their dual role of Fabian and Sibyl gets the better deal. As Sibyl, they receive a woefully underwritten role to play, with little to do but die. Indeed, spending about ten minutes slumped over upstage may well be the most interesting thing they are given to do. The role’s ‘opera soprano’ characterisation is, however, strangely written for a rock belter, rather than having the music written for a soprano voice. And so, despite Hill’s excellent singing, it all makes no sense at all, detracting from the quality of their performance. As the reinvented ‘Fabian’, a sibling to Sibyl rather than Sibyl’s brother James from the book, they pull off a polished performance despite their lack of stage time.

Though most lacking stage time is Rhys Lambert as the ‘featured ensemble’, whose featured nature is almost nonexistent. He moves like a ballet dancer and flourishes beautifully, especially decked out in some pretty eye-catching make-up, but this is for practically ten minutes in total, wasting his abilities.

Dorian isn’t particularly hard to follow, luckily. Wilde’s plot remains mostly intact, with his beautifully virtuosic writing trimmed down to fit the theatre. This is, of course, save for the ending, which is staged so confusingly it’s hard to actually understand what happens unless you know the plot already. I can’t spoil it here, of course – you must see it for yourself to truly know what I mean – but why it is staged so strangely and emotionlessly is completely beyond me.

I want to be clear that this is all just my opinion. My hope is that you will go to see Dorian, and notice other things that intrigue and inspire you. The theatre is an amazing place, and everyone’s experiences are subjective. I only write my true thoughts and honest opinions – which you may well disagree with.

There’s a moment in Dorian where our protagonist asks ‘what the f- was that?’, and another where Fabian remarks ‘quite honestly I have no idea what the f- is going on’. I feel as if I agreed at times with these sentiments. I wanted to love it, I really did, this sex-and-drugs-and-rock’n’roll adaptation. And I think that with some very back-to-the-drawing-board rethinking of the very fundamentals of Dorian: The Musical to completely reconstruct it, there still could be something there. But it’s buried deep down, below the mess that is currently being presented.

Dorian: The Musical is playing at the Southwark Playhouse until 10 August 2024. Tickets from https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/dorian-the-musical/

Photos by Danny Kaan