A Not Too Compelling Portrait of Dorian Gray
Roderick Hill and Sean Dugan in "The Picture of Dorian Gray."
That's one of the problems surrounding this production. Though director Blake Robinson has assembled a fine supporting cast, the play's two leads don't measure up. Some fault here is with the script. Playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's Gray is all over the place: briefly angelic, suddenly caustic, occasional remorseful and cartoonishly devilish. But while Hill has some challenges to work with here, he also doesn't bring much sexual magnetism, sympathy or even chilliness to the part, and even seemed to break character in laughter at moments. As his love interest, Julia Proctor falls flat whether in seductive or innocent mode.
The pair, though, gets some help from a strong ensemble, including Clinton Brandhagen's tormented Basil, Sean Dugan's amoral Harry (who is particularly effective as Dorian's curse begins to spread to his friends' fortunes) and a flippant Kaytie Morris as Harry's social-climbing wife. Those performers help the strengths in Aguirre-Sacasa's script come through. The playwright does a good job bringing the story into the modern world, updating Gray's dalliances to make him even more offensive, and cleverly throwing some of the action into the world of Hollywood.
But it seems that for every strength of this production, there's a misstep. There's a heavy, literal hand here with the music selection, with in-your-face punctuation of key moments using songs like Alanis Morrisette's "Uninvited", Eminem's "Lose Yourself", and what I can't help thinking of as the theme song from Charmed. Tension builds appropriately for the big revelation of Gray's disfigured portrait, but what's underneath the curtain is almost goofily monstrous. Naturally, what the imagination can conjure up on is often scarier than what gets presented to us visually. Unfortunately, this also means that reading The Picture of Dorian Gray ends up being a much more satisfying exercise than watching Round House's version.
Dorian Gray runs through Oct. 4 at Round House Bethesda. Tickets are available online.