The Picture of Dorian Gray
This one-woman stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s short horror is a dizzying technical masterpiece, boasting a tour-de-force performance from Sarah ‘Shiv Roy’ Snook in a multitude of roles. It is also incredibly camp. As in literally one of the campest things I’ve ever seen, a show that makes ‘Mamma Mia!’ look like a monster truck rally. Wilde was of course, famously both gay and a waspish wit, and ‘Dorian Gray’ contains some of his most famous aphorisms (‘conscience and cowardice and the same things’, ‘the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it’ etc). But there is something particularly revelatory about adaptor-director Kip Williams staging it as pretty much a celebrity drag king show. Snook plays every single character; many minor roles are pre-recorded and consequently, she is able to be lavishly costumed in parts that range from elderly pink-haired gentlewomen to rough, bearded scoundrels. On the whole, these bits are less kitschy than her actual live performance: surrounded by a battalion of camera operators, Snook is constantly giving knowing, eyebrow-raising close-ups as she flits between characters, each camera angle typically representing a different speaker. Early on, Aussie Snook does little more than a quick expression change and tweak of her English accent when leaping between parts: when she initially walks on there’s virtually nothing on stage bar a large video screen. Things get fancier when she claps on blonde curls and mutton chops to play the