Hinge Theatre’s Dorian is a stage adaptation of Will Self’s novel Dorian, itself an adaptation of the Oscar Wilde original, The Picture Of Dorian Gray. The story is relocated to the 80s and set amongst a group of homosexual heroin addicts whose sexual promiscuity and carelessness with drug apparatus leads them to HIV infection. Baz, in love with Dorian, creates a short voyeuristic film capturing his beauty from all sides. As in the original, the art ages while its subject remains young, except in this adaptation the film also bears the ravages of the virus while Dorian possesses none of the symptoms.
This visceral production brings its audience queasily close to the activities of this debauched group on their quest for meaningless hedonism. The cast is strong and talented if occasionally a little affected, with a particularly memorable performance from Helena Clarke as every female character. As art modernizes in the script from portrait to film, the art in front of us modernizes too: the show is edgy and avant-garde, mixing multimedia with pop music and interpretive dance. The psychedelic world of the 80s is projected onto screens as drugged nights ending in orgies are choreographed to heavy dance music. Of special note was the method with which set was moved around during scene changes, wrapped and slid around emerging characters so they seem to spring from and disappear to nowhere. The cast are all stagehands until the lights go on and they suddenly snap into character.
The play is set over sixteen years, and it is a testament to the quality of acting that we see great development and ageing of the characters. Although the adaptation for stage has been achieved professionally, the complicated ending that was criticized of Self’s novel is similarly blurred and confusing here. It is left unclear what the great twist or revelation really was and this is a frustrating ending to a performance that gets in your face and under your skin, catching on every nerve.
