Sarah Snook’s Wilde Adventure

For astir 15 minutes, we beryllium looking astatine a vertical surface connected a seemingly bare stage. In the projection, the Australian histrion Sarah Snook, successful choky closeup, speaks the rapid, bantering prose of Oscar Wilde’s 1890 masterpiece “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” adapted with gait and invention by the Australian manager Kip Williams. Snook makes earnest oculus interaction with the camera arsenic she tells the communicative of a Victorian representation painter, Basil, who is, himself, telling his viperish person Lord Henry astir his latest subject, an exquisitely guiltless young antheral named Dorian Gray. In the people of the play, Snook flies done a dizzying profusion of wig changes and progressively slippery clip jumps to go twenty-six characters from Wilde’s proto-horror novel, successful which a young man’s representation ages and shows the imprint of his sins, portion his ain beauteous look stays youthful forever. How does creation stamp a soul, and tin a psyche stamp itself connected art? Perhaps 4 seasons of playing the morally deteriorating Shiv Roy connected “Succession” person made questions similar that consciousness peculiarly urgent to Snook.

As she plays each the parts, Snook makes introductions wrong introductions, reflections wrong reflections, frankincense creating the Wildean consciousness of a densely layered mille-feuille. Stage managers and camera-folk hover astir her; we spot their black-clad forms moving successful the margins. Onscreen, dressers are fitting Snook with a golden, candyfloss wig and a billowy achromatic garment to play Dorian. After those archetypal 15 minutes, erstwhile she comes astir the borderline of the surface and into afloat presumption of the audience, the actor’s comparative tininess is simply a shock: the billboard-size image—vertical arsenic a cellphone—has made her look truthful immense and wide and close.

Williams premièred this multimedia “Dorian Gray” successful Australia, successful 2020, with different actor, Eryn Jean Norvill, but erstwhile it went to London, Snook took implicit the role. Her show astatine the West End’s Haymarket Theatre was a splashy success, winning an Olivier Award, and she present brings “Gray” to Broadway. The amusement is an diversion feat: Snook executes an elaborate, exacting dance, timed to the 2nd truthful she tin interact with her prerecorded selves, and she speaks for 2 hours, without a break—there are lone 3 moments erstwhile she tin sneak a sip of water.

Throughout “Dorian Gray,” what we tin comprehend and what we cognize to beryllium existent are successful changeless tension. The signifier seems heavy with phantoms, and so, successful a way, does Snook’s career, which has taken her from play schoolhouse successful Sydney to a movie vocation (she appeared successful some “Steve Jobs” and “The Glass Castle”) to the London signifier (she played the temptress Hilde Wangel other Ralph Fiennes successful Ibsen’s “Master Builder” astatine the Old Vic), and past to her astir celebrated part, her Emmy Award–winning tally arsenic Shiv successful “Succession.” I met Snook astatine the Algonquin Hotel—we sat successful an empty, somewhat desolate lawsuit abstraction called the Oak Room, the onetime tract of the much-missed supper nine wherever the vocalist Sylvia Syms collapsed and died close astatine Cy Coleman’s feet. Snook spoke to maine astir her different signifier work, and astir the assorted forces that brought her to Wilde. (This interrogation has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

Your projects person a interaction for the Zeitgeist. It tin surely consciousness similar the Presidential campaigner Mencken from “Succession” is our existent President! This portion comes arsenic we are reasoning peculiarly intensely astir image. “The Substance” feels precise overmuch similar a effect to the assemblage fearfulness of Dorian Gray, for instance.

When [Kip and I] archetypal spoke connected Zoom, helium spoke of the Victorian epoch arsenic being the archetypal clip that the connection “individual” truly gained prominence. Kip views this heightened narcissism, this heightened consciousness of the individual, the image-based dandies, each this worldly going connected successful the Victorian epoch arsenic a bookend to what’s happening now. Kip work an interrogation with Oscar, who mentioned that the 3 main characters of the book—Dorian, Basil, and Lord Henry—are each aspects of himself, that Lord Henry is who nine believes helium is; Dorian is who helium wants to be; and Basil is who helium astir apt truly is. Now, we bash that people with ourselves: we person a mentation of ourselves connected Instagram; a mentation of ourselves with our family; a mentation of ourselves with friends successful public; a mentation of ourselves astatine work. It’s easier to support those [versions] abstracted present successful a mode that it hasn’t been before.

You walk truthful overmuch clip astatine the opening of the amusement unseen, wherever you’re down the screen, concealed “behind the curtain” successful a benignant of “Wizard of Oz” way. Do you consciousness an vigor from an assemblage erstwhile they tin spot you onscreen, but you yourself are inactive hidden?

In my archetypal show [in London], I came retired and I sat down, and I was, like, ‘Oh no, the assemblage can’t spot me. I can’t link to the audience.’ I wanted to peek retired from the curtain to reassure them. And past I mislaid the lines. So the acquisition is, don’t apologize for the format of the show. There’s ever a transportation to maine arsenic a performer unrecorded onstage, but determination are besides dramaturgical decisions made to person thing betwixt us, to beryllium sometimes inaccessible oregon roundabout.

In the play, you’re showing america twenty-six characters, and also a gradation of masculinity successful the men who marque Dorian Gray into Dorian Gray, similar Lord Henry. How method is it, creating the differences betwixt the characters?

Vocal transportation is conscious and different—there’s a antithetic placement successful my mouth, truthful for Basil, it’s precise guardant connected the teeth and down to the close of my mouth; Lord Henry is the little bass, with much pharynx resonance, and there’s a languidness to the mode helium speaks. The narrator is my ain voice, and past Dorian is up successful a higher caput range.

Dorian changes from seeming precise young to . . . not. What’s happening there?

That’s the narrator and Dorian coming together, arsenic good arsenic Lord Henry coming into Dorian. It’s besides the absorbing of the narrator, arsenic she is being seduced by looking into the reflector and having eternal youth, and past perchance realizing the mistake of her ways.

So the narrator is . . . you?

She is Oscar. She is the book. She is the audience. She’s me. She is simply a quality having an opinion, having feelings astir what is happening.

And you’re moving against recorded versions of yourself.

Those are from the extremity of 2023 erstwhile we rehearsed the amusement successful Melbourne.

You’re performing against your younger self?

Yes, but I was besides close successful the depths of pumping and breastfeeding. I don’t look astatine that and think, “Oh, you’re my younger self.” Instead, I go, “Whoa. That’s a bushed woman dressed arsenic a antheral with a mustache.”

Onstage, there’s a infinitesimal erstwhile your live-videoed look goes successful and retired of distortion, and successful and retired of a beautification filter. What’s going connected successful your caput successful those moments?

The precise unusual happening is that erstwhile it is beautified, my encephalon precise easy gets utilized to that and attached to that. And erstwhile it goes off, it’s really, “Oh, my God, that’s what I look like?” That edited representation is what my encephalon holds connected to. How almighty those technologies are to person ourselves that we look amended similar that, oregon we could beryllium happier similar that!

The choreography for what you’re doing onstage is truthful analyzable and deliberate. Your process successful “Succession” included a batch of improvisation—is determination country for that here?

No, but if you enactment a container oregon a cage astir something, you find a antithetic mode to creation wrong it. There are 3 tiny characters, each with lone 1 line, that I tin alteration each nighttime if I privation to. There’s a quality successful the nine scene, who lone exists for that moment, and I inquire myself, How precocious is helium tonight? What’s helium had? So you person to support wrong the box. But, successful bid to support yourself excited wrong that box, you person to find caller ways to stretch.

That consciousness of state wrong ceremonial precision reminds maine of kabuki theatre. Also, successful kabuki, determination are radical onstage with the histrion who are benignant of “invisible.” For you, are the camerapeople and dressers . . . there?

Yes and no. I noticed successful the rehearsal play that if idiosyncratic asked, “Who changes your shoes?” I couldn’t archer you, I conscionable cognize that I person them connected successful the adjacent scene. Lord Henry has a large code arsenic his costume is being changed, and that feels close for Lord Henry, the entitlement of idiosyncratic changing him arsenic helium continues to person a speech and is wholly unaware that idiosyncratic has conscionable enactment connected his waistcoat, his jacket, his shoes.