London: Some issues are extra treasured as a result of they don’t final lengthy, wrote Oscar Wilde in his haunting masterpiece about Dorian Grey, a good-looking younger gentleman corrupted by hedonistic values.
Maybe the Victorian playwright had an inkling of what Sarah Snook would possibly at some point convey to a one-woman adaptation of his novel, which debuted on Tuesday night time (Wednesday AEDT) for a restricted 14-week season at London’s 900-seat Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Sarah Snook within the manufacturing of Dorian Grey.Credit score: x.com/@DorianGrayPlay
If the Australian actor, elevated to a family identify by way of her award-winning portrayal of Shiv Roy in HBO’s Succession, was already on the high of her recreation, this efficiency will doubtless assist catapult her into international theatre stardom.
On a wet winter’s night, Snook drew in her West Finish viewers from the opening scene and held them captive for 2 hours. They laughed and gasped, cheered and applauded. They stood for 5 or so minutes on the finish as Snook, who appeared mentally drained and bodily exhausted, waved to an adoring viewers.
“Superb, simply superb,” they yelled. It was, as a number of of these in attendance later remarked out loud, like nothing they’d ever seen earlier than. Tickets are already among the many hottest on the town.
There have been, as anticipated when endeavor such an enormous process for the primary time in a preview efficiency, the occasional misstep alongside the best way. The odd fumbled line and stumble, together with lacking a chair completely whereas trying to sit down down. However Snook’s comedian brilliance, seen in her infectious chuckle and smile, helped her recuperate with ease. Over the course of the present, she gave the viewers a lot that they had been solely too keen to provide again.
That is Snook’s first look on the West Finish in eight years.Credit score: x.com/@DorianGrayPlay
After conquering audiences and dazzling critics in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, Kip Williams’ adaptation of The Image of Dorian Grey is now poised to get the worldwide acclaim it so completely deserves.
Produced in London by theatre juggernaut Michael Cassel Group, it’ll nearly definitely even be the most important business success within the Sydney Theatre Firm’s 45-year historical past. It has chosen the proper UK dwelling. On the partitions of the third-oldest London playhouse nonetheless in use is a plaque honouring Wilde, who premiered his comedy A Girl of No Significance on the exact same stage in April 1893.