Well, this is certainly different: a dystopian musical tribute to the life and works of Oscar Wilde in a basement venue dressed to look like a mashup of a Berlin club and Mad Max: Beyond the Hippodrome. If you’re eagerly looking for a meaty plot, you’re in for slim pickings. Originating in New York and the brainchild of its book-writer Mark Mauriello (also playing ‘Oscar’), this is a production big on vibes: a loud confection of shiny surfaces, breathless choreography and a thumping, punky score.
If the kids from Fame were queer fugitives hiding underground from a totalitarian state in a climate-wrecked near future, it might be a bit like this. That's basically also the premise. For these social renegades and misfits on the run, Noughties pop culture has become their religion, evil step-mum Julie Cooper from The OC their goddess and The Real Housewives their saints. This show is not bezzie mates with understatement, as Mauriello goes nuclear on how performance is reality.
As the rise of Twitter gets thrown into the mix, it’s about as deep as a puddle and as subversive as taking a photo of your middle finger in front of Trump Tower. But in spite of this – maybe even because of its raucous earnestness – it sweeps you up. And as part of the in-show musical re-telling of his life that the characters stage every night, the re-imagining of Wilde as the original social media influencer is absurdly enjoyable.
Andrew Barret Cox’s score is a frantically vibrating wall of sound into which the show’s well-intentioned switch to giving the perspective of Wilde’s wife collides with an energy-sapping jolt. And the attempt to connect the grim outside world of the show’s universe to the themes of Wilde’s life – that reality will get you, even if you pretend it doesn’t exist – involves some Frankenstein’s monster stitching together.
But director Shira Milikowsky’s production wisely lives on adrenalin, powered by a cast of actors and dancers who don’t pause for a second as they fling themselves around the dancefloor and stage. Is this a great show? No. Does the plot make sense? Not really. Will it sweep you up in its brash spectacle and attitude, if you let it? Just maybe, yes.
