Dorian, review: drawing out the tragedy of Oscar Wilde's masterpiece

A stone’s throw from Reading Gaol, where Oscar Wilde was imprisoned on charges of gross indecency, a new adaptation of his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray clears the cobwebs from a former Salvation Army centre, and sizzles with homoerotic fervour.

There’s something reparatory in this – a deliciously camp rebuke of the attitudes which saw a man humiliated, brutalised and outcast for being gay. Wilde, whose novel was used against him at trial, would surely have enjoyed the irony.

Dorian is the debut production from local company Reading Rep at their new theatre, the result of an impressive fundraising effort that yielded over £1million.

It also marks the continuation of a cultural awakening in Reading. For years, the town’s theatrical estate amounted to whatever touring production The Hexagon could drag in – a multi-purpose venue more suited to stand-up tours and snooker tournaments than theatre. These days, Reading Rep are joined by companies like Rabble and StrikeUp in a thriving dramatic landscape, which could yet see the decommissioned prison itself repurposed as an arts centre.

Phoebe Eclair-Powell and Owen Horsley’s lusty adaptation establishes two parallel love triangles: that between Dorian Gray, Lord Henry Wotton and Basil Hallward, and, beyond the novel, between Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas and Robbie Ross. It’s dynamic, Berkovian melodrama, with three actors working breathlessly between roles.

Andro Cowperthwaite cuts a Prince-like figure as Dorian – gaunt, fabulous and madly in love with himself. Upon seeing Basil’s finished portrait – which, crucially, is appointed with all the beauty and affection the painter holds for him – Dorian is taunted by Lord Henry about the ephemeral nature of youth and the ravages of time. He pledges his soul to switch places with the face in the picture, and remain young and beautiful forever.

Dorian’s vanity is mirrored in the figure of Wilde, who we see courting handsome, young student Bosie. Wilde introduces Bosie to the hedonistic glamour of London’s queer nightlife scene – which takes on the neon aesthetic of 1980s rave culture. Their affair is passionate, but conditional upon Bosie’s youth and Wilde’s literary esteem. The analogue is an interesting one, if somewhat undeveloped, hanging on a vague connection between Wilde and Dorian as two victims of the same incipient, unsustainable sensuality.

Unfortunately, the complexity of the two narratives ends up piling ever more gruelling degrees of exposition onto an already saturated story. The actors are lumbered with hefty chunks of narration, a transition marked for no apparent reason by the introduction of handheld microphones.

The discordant strands are finally drawn together in a showdown between Wilde and Dorian, artist and artwork staring back at each other. They rue their mutual compulsion to lie, to conceal parts of themselves from the world. Oddly enough, it’s the only relationship not charged with sexual tension.

Ché Francis is magnificent as Lord Henry and Wilde, an effortless comic actor who introduces moments of quiet pathos to the burlesque chaos. Their performance captures the theatricality and humour of contemporary gay culture while drawing out the tragic elements of Wilde’s character; evidence enough that you don’t need to traipse through London for a decent night at the theatre.

Until November 7. Tickets: 0118 370 2620; readingrep.com