The Picture of Dorian Gray - Haymarket 2024

[bigredapple]

Here tonight for second preview

[bigredapple]

Woo, first time being the first one to see something and post my thoughts here.

To preface, I’ve never read the text nor seen any other production. Did a quick google search of the basic plot in advance.

I enjoyed this! At its good moments, it’s great. Sarah is very capable of playing all the parts. Her Dorian is really interesting, especially seeing the character progression from beginning to end.

The general production is really interesting. I was going to draw comparisons to Sunset Boulevard, but it appears this production came first. Lots of very smart camera work and screens. It felt cinematic at times, and I really enjoyed the floral imagery, similar to that in the promo photos.

Worth mentioning that there’s a heavy lean on comedy. I wasn’t expecting this, is it standard for this play? Plenty of funny moments which I enjoyed at first, but thought they were a bit misplaced as the play got into its more serious parts.

Another slight issue I had is (spoiler)
The reliance on weird ass Snapchat/instagram filters? Sounds bizzare, I know. Obviously there’s a lot of characters to play, and at first the show does this really well with mixing pre recorded video with what’s happening live. But at some point, Sarah gets her hands on a phone and we see her swiping through as if choosing dodgy instagram filters, which turn her into different characters on the screen. It felt cheap and silly.

2 hours straight though no interval, so I thought I might get bored but the play moved really fast and kept me interested. Somewhere in the middle I zoned out as I hadn’t a clue what was going on, somewhere around the time Dorian is committing sins I think.

I thought it was in great shape for a second preview, granted I’ve never seen a preview before. A couple of flubbed lines which she quickly corrected herself on, and some of the costume changes felt a bit clunky as they happen onstage and she speaks through them, so sometimes when there was a ‘significant’ article of clothing being changed, the stage would go silent mid sentence.

Overall enjoyed, and keen to hear what others think!

[mrbarnaby]

The prices are insane for this!

[max]

Feb 7, 2024 22:04:57 GMT bigredapple said:

Woo, first time being the first one to see something and post my thoughts here.

To preface, I’ve never read the text nor seen any other production. Did a quick google search of the basic plot in advance.

I enjoyed this! At its good moments, it’s great. Sarah is very capable of playing all the parts. Her Dorian is really interesting, especially seeing the character progression from beginning to end.

The general production is really interesting. I was going to draw comparisons to Sunset Boulevard, but it appears this production came first. Lots of very smart camera work and screens. It felt cinematic at times, and I really enjoyed the floral imagery, similar to that in the promo photos.

Worth mentioning that there’s a heavy lean on comedy. I wasn’t expecting this, is it standard for this play? Plenty of funny moments which I enjoyed at first, but thought they were a bit misplaced as the play got into its more serious parts.

Another slight issue I had is (spoiler)
The reliance on weird ass Snapchat/instagram filters? Sounds bizzare, I know. Obviously there’s a lot of characters to play, and at first the show does this really well with mixing pre recorded video with what’s happening live. But at some point, Sarah gets her hands on a phone and we see her swiping through as if choosing dodgy instagram filters, which turn her into different characters on the screen. It felt cheap and silly.

2 hours straight though no interval, so I thought I might get bored but the play moved really fast and kept me interested. Somewhere in the middle I zoned out as I hadn’t a clue what was going on, somewhere around the time Dorian is committing sins I think.

I thought it was in great shape for a second preview, granted I’ve never seen a preview before. A couple of flubbed lines which she quickly corrected herself on, and some of the costume changes felt a bit clunky as they happen onstage and she speaks through them, so sometimes when there was a ‘significant’ article of clothing being changed, the stage would go silent mid sentence.

Overall enjoyed, and keen to hear what others think!

There's no way you'll hear what I think.   T  H  E      P     R    I    C    E     S    !!!!!!!!

Who could afford this?  £100 back row of the stalls.  Back row of Royal Circle £125   Okay, go for a cheap one..... £40 and £60 in the gallery with warnings of severely restricted views on some.  How about £75 or £100 for a "restricted view, and looking through clear perspex safety screen".   Any decent seat where you can actually see it with the naked eye is £125 or £140, before you get to big swathes named premium at £149, £199, £249.  For a one woman show.

I haven't set foot in the Haymarket since (decades ago) seeing but not hearing Sir Michael Horden in 'Heartbreak House'.  Couldn't hear a word of him from the cheap seats.  So going cheap isn't an option here. Perhaps video blows her up, and maybe there's sound enhancement.  But despite Wikipedia the star meriting these fantastic prices is a nobody to me.  Who the hell does this actress think she is? I'd want the reincarnation of Oscar Wilde himself for these prices.

The Haymarket has always smacked of fusty dead theatre to me, and however high tech this is they retain the dead part by greedy prices.  

[Rory]

Feb 8, 2024 0:50:42 GMT mrbarnaby said:

The prices are insane for this!

Absolutely bonkers pricing.

[couldileaveyou]

There's some dynamic pricing going on. I checked yesterday and they were selling the back of stalls for 50£, so if you're in London it might be an option

[bigredapple]

Feb 8, 2024 13:46:48 GMT couldileaveyou said:

There's some dynamic pricing going on. I checked yesterday and they were selling the back of stalls for 50£, so if you're in London it might be an option

Indeed. I got a great seat for 47 at the box office an hour before showtime, 150 online in advance.

[Fleance]

I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think the pricing approach of the TR Haymarket group should be supported, no matter how prices may decrease nearer to showtime. The theater has fallen into ownership by a greedy group.

[theatrelover123]

Feb 8, 2024 14:30:08 GMT Fleance said:

I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think the pricing approach of the TR Haymarket group should be supported, no matter how prices may decrease nearer to showtime. The theater has fallen into ownership by a greedy group.

Yes. Please please PLEASE don’t choose to pay less for your ticket. Because then the greedy group will get less money than if it is unsold at a higher price. And please don’t forget that this is a competitive business and rising prices and other factors are driving up prices to the consumer and many are willing to pay the prices.

[harry]

I can’t bear dynamic pricing. It makes it so hard to

A - know the optimum time to book
B - get any sense of how good the view is based on the price/band.

When this went onsale, I took a deep breath, cracked open the beans on toast and bought two mid row-F stalls seats for just under £100 each (still crazy but at least that’s £100 to be in a top seat). Those exact same seats are now priced at £289, and £100 gets you back row side of the dress circle or restricted view from the upper circle. £100 for restricted view should be criminal!

It seems that sometime in the past 25 years we’ve gone from transparent price structures announced at the time of going onsale (and Band A meaning just that - best seats, not tier 4 after three separate “premium” price bands) to theatres trying to outplay the scalpers at their own game.

Excited to see the show though…

[Fleance]

Feb 8, 2024 14:45:34 GMT theatrelover123 said:

Feb 8, 2024 14:30:08 GMT Fleance said:

I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think the pricing approach of the TR Haymarket group should be supported, no matter how prices may decrease nearer to showtime. The theater has fallen into ownership by a greedy group.

Yes. Please please PLEASE don’t choose to pay less for your ticket. Because then the greedy group will get less money than if it is unsold at a higher price. And please don’t forget that this is a competitive business and rising prices and other factors are driving up prices to the consumer and many are willing to pay the prices.

I'm well aware of the issues related to rising prices in the theater. Normally, I would just go with the flow, but I think this group is going above and beyond. 

[Rory]

Feb 8, 2024 14:54:58 GMT harry said:

I can’t bear dynamic pricing. It makes it so hard to

A - know the optimum time to book
B - get any sense of how good the view is based on the price/band.

When this went onsale, I took a deep breath, cracked open the beans on toast and bought two mid row-F stalls seats for just under £100 each (still crazy but at least that’s £100 to be in a top seat). Those exact same seats are now priced at £289, and £100 gets you back row side of the dress circle or restricted view from the upper circle. £100 for restricted view should be criminal!

It seems that sometime in the past 25 years we’ve gone from transparent price structures announced at the time of going onsale (and Band A meaning just that - best seats, not tier 4 after three separate “premium” price bands) to theatres trying to outplay the scalpers at their own game.

Excited to see the show though…

Well said!

[mattnyc]

I just looked and the £149 Dress Circle seat I booked is now £249.

[harry]

Well my goodness this is quite the thing. Leave any preconceptions of “one-person show” at the door. This is a west end stage filler and somewhat justifies west end prices (I mean regular west end prices not the ridiculous £150+ that they are charging)

Sarah Snook gives the expected tour de force and will no doubt be in the awards race and her supporting cast of stage managers rightfully share the curtain call.

But the star is the production itself. I hadn’t expected it to be nearly this fun, funny and downright entertaining. The time flies by. Every time you think you have a handle on how they’re “doing it”, a new idea comes along so by the end you really feel like you’ve come so far in a short time. I loved thinking back to Sarah making her first entrance in what could have been her own clothes and hair on a basically bare stage and imagining the thought running through her mind “they have no idea what they’re in for…” I did not expect to be mentally comparing it to two recent enormous productions - Stranger Things and Sunset Boulevard - but they are weirdly the closest analogues that came to mind.

It’s not subtle, but it’s got hit written all over it and I think word of mouth is likely to be great. I’d certainly be encouraging people to go for the experience and Sarah’s performance.

Finally a word on where to sit. Row F stalls felt as far forward as I’d want to be - certainly 3 or 4 rows back would have involved less looking up. The dress circle would be ideal, the front few rows of the stalls much less so.

[Steve]

Unfortunately, the prices are indeed crazy, but reassuringly, the Gods seats are MUCH better than you would expect from a typical show.

This exceeded my expectations by a country mile!

Given the integration of live recording by cameras, with prerecorded material, it hit me like the best episode of Jackanory I've ever seen, an episode that could have been directed by Katie Mitchell at her best.

It works on multiple levels, and is as much performance art and art installation as it is a theatrical narrative.

Some spoilers follow. . .

I formed a view of what this might be like before I booked, and I thought it'll be good but not great, certainly not worth the price of the Stalls or the Dress, so I went for Row E of the Upper Circle at £39.25 (evil dynamic pricing might have raised these tickets to £79.25 by now).

Anyway, I was proven wrong on two counts:

(1) This is truly GREAT storytelling, where not only do the acting and technology fuse to tell Oscar Wilde's gothic monstrous period story in the wittiest and most exciting way possible, but also, for me, it was clear that the storytelling works equally well from the inside out, where a parallel story, about our modern fusion with technology, is also being told, and Oscar Wilde's story has been chosen precisely because it is the perfect tool with which to tell that parallel story about where we are now.

With an absolutely bravura performance by Sarah Snook at the centre of both stories, I felt that overall, this was an utterly dazzling piece;

(2) My assumption that I had bought a crap seat was also proven wrong.

For me, the measure of a crap seat is that you can't see the expressions of the actors. When we see an expression on someone else's face, our own faces mirror those expressions subconsciously, and we feel the feelings they feel. Therefore, if you can't see a (good) actor's expressions, you miss out on a great deal of the emotional rollercoaster ride of a show.

Not so here, where the cameras are like "Sunset Boulevard" on steroids. Where Jamie Lloyd doled out his projections judiciously, this show ladles them on like the multiple big screens at Glastonbury, and then some!

That is the point of the meta-narrative, I would argue, in that we are watching one woman create a metaverse movie reality in which she can be anyone and anything. Since the movie, and creating it, are the point of the show, it's not a bug that most of the time you are watching the movie, rather than Snook herself, but a feature.

Snook appears as all the characters at once, all prerecorded but one, in which she flits between the characters. She is like David Bowie at play, creating versions of herself, in such a way, that like in Bowie's Lazarus, the work could survive without her if she was to disappear completely.

The iPhone motif, with it's image apps, which one poster above didn't like, is , for me, a paramount illustration of how powerful the technology we have at our fingertips is, how close we all are to being Dorian Gray, narcissistically curating versions of ourselves on screens that don't match reality: how playfully fun it can be, as well as how dangerously destabilising it can be.

From the Gods, we can see the whites of Snook's eyes, in multiple characters. We feel the whole game of the evanescent reality that she is creating, it's gleeful camp dress-up playfulness, but also we feel the mystery of where she herself lies hidden amongst all her selves: which one is she now, what is real, what is fake, how much is play, how much out-of-control narcissism?

We see the history of art leading to where we are now, with Picasso style cubist shots of Snook's face, as Dorian Gray, simultaneously, from all angles, the fragmentation of one identity, even as she appears as other identities simultaneously.

And, my goodness, the narcissism with the iPhone is such a moment of now, as well as a brilliant illustration of Wilde, that I was overcome by how wonderful this show is, and how fine the view from the Gods, where the audience get to vicariously live in the deepfake future, along with Snook, for a couple of hours, in the dark, out of sight, out of harm's way.

Anyway, at it's core, this is the best, and most witty, and most gripping Jackanory version of Oscar Wilde imaginable. Soon, we will all be Dorian Gray.

5 stars from me.

[NeilVHughes]

Damn, two glowing reviews, was not on my radar as a must see, may have to bite the bullet and give the credit card a hammering or more likely finally going through the rigmarole of cashing in my theatre tokens.

[theatre2023]

Sarah Snook gives a good performance - but honestly I was bored.

The video comes across a little gimmicky ( and losing a bit of sheen in the wake of Sunset Blvd )

Perhaps it’s the plot line / underlying story to blame but certainly wouldn’t recommend anyone rush out and see it.

[lynette]

Feb 10, 2024 19:25:10 GMT NeilVHughes said:

Damn, two glowing reviews, was not on my radar as a must see, may have to bite the bullet and give the credit card a hammering or more likely finally going through the rigmarole of cashing in my theatre tokens.

Neil, the prices! Have you looked today? Ridiculous. And ridiculous even more so as it is a huge theatre and it is selling well. How much are they having to pay the star? Mind boggles. Where will this end? 


Ps let us know.. 

[mrbarnaby]

Feb 14, 2024 18:05:54 GMT lynette said:

Feb 10, 2024 19:25:10 GMT NeilVHughes said:

Damn, two glowing reviews, was not on my radar as a must see, may have to bite the bullet and give the credit card a hammering or more likely finally going through the rigmarole of cashing in my theatre tokens.

Neil, the prices! Have you looked today? Ridiculous. And ridiculous even more so as it is a huge theatre and it is selling well. How much are they having to pay the star? Mind boggles. Where will this end? 


Ps let us know.. 

The Haymarket is not a huge theatre.

[mrbarnaby]

Saw this tonight on opening night and WOW. This is an incredible production starring a (surely future award winning) Sarah Snook.

She is quite simply out of this world. Effortlessly switching between characters and dealing with the endless tech that the production involves.

All of the pre-filmed footage is cinema worthy in its quality of hair, make up and costume. Dazzling,
I was sat there thinking Cate Blanchett would also kill in this role- and there she was watching the opening night a few rows away from me.

5 stars. Unmissable.

This will surely transfer to Broadway. It must.

Can we have a poll please?

[happysooz2]

Very pro-Aussie perspective here, but I’d love to know how Sarah Snoek’s performance differs from the actress who originated the role at the STC(Eryn Jean Norville). And if anyone was going to extend or take over, I’d love it to be her, rather than Cate.

Also, I’m not sure I have yet forgiven Cate for ‘When We Have Sufficiently Tortured The Audience.’

[mrbarnaby]

Feb 15, 2024 22:32:11 GMT happysooz2 said:

Very pro-Aussie perspective here, but I’d love to know how Sarah Snoek’s performance differs from the actress who originated the role at the STC(Eryn Jean Norville). And if anyone was going to extend or take over, I’d love it to be her, rather than Cate.

Also, I’m not sure I have yet forgiven Cate for ‘When We Have Sufficiently Tortured The Audience.’

I don’t imagine Cate Blanchett will be taking over from anyone 🤣

[happysooz2]

Feb 15, 2024 22:43:54 GMT mrbarnaby said:

Feb 15, 2024 22:32:11 GMT happysooz2 said:

Very pro-Aussie perspective here, but I’d love to know how Sarah Snoek’s performance differs from the actress who originated the role at the STC(Eryn Jean Norville). And if anyone was going to extend or take over, I’d love it to be her, rather than Cate.

Also, I’m not sure I have yet forgiven Cate for ‘When We Have Sufficiently Tortured The Audience.’

I don’t imagine Cate Blanchett will be taking over from anyone 🤣

She is famously recycling her fashion (but you are right.)

[couldileaveyou]

Some strong reviews, with 5* from Guardian, Financial Times and Telegraph

[drmaplewood]

Feb 16, 2024 7:23:56 GMT couldileaveyou said:

Some strong reviews, with 5* from Guardian, Financial Times and Telegraph

And there is now a queueing system in place on the website.