DORIAN

"Holland’s bold direction spills out all over the tiny basement room at  Open Space Arts as the narrative splits and fragments into a  kaleidoscope of observations—not just on Wilde’s life and art, but also  on queer culture through the ages. At points, Kulaga’s Ross, with his  pleas to Oscar to be more careful about how he conducts his sex life,  resembles a less abrasive Larry Kramer, the gay author and activist  whose calls for gay men to abstain from casual sex in the early days of  AIDS made him a hated figure to many. Music, dance, puppetry (the judge  in Wilde’s trial for “gross indecency” looks like a repressed Muppet),  and more take the stage to highlight the fast-moving story. At points,  the cast recites the “Victorian Homosexual Quiz,” containing such  questions as “Is your wrist flat or round?” and “Do you whistle well,  and naturally like to do so?” giving us a snapshot of the arbitrary  standards of masculinity haunting the Victorian age (and our own).  - Kerry Reid                                                                                                 

"...This  exciting, eclectic and electrifying new work, having its Chicago  Premiere at Open Space Arts, is a clever mashup of the fictional novel,  The Picture of Dorian Gray and the real life of novelist, playwright and  poet, Oscar Wilde. As English writers Phoebe Eclair-Powell and Owen  Horsley have shown through their play, the parallels between the two are  uncanny. Director Aaron Holland’s dynamic production fuses Victorian  attitudes with 21st century sensitivity, style and music. The result is a  contemporary-feeling remix, a presentation of Oscar Wilde’s timeless  tale of unlimited vanity, living for pleasure and extreme excess. The  focus is on an obsession with beauty and self image. This play may, or  may not, be the pure and simple truth about the controversial,  Irish-born playwright. But then, as Wilde often said, “The truth is  rarely pure and never simple.” - Colin  Douglas

"One of the most remarkable plays of the year in Chicago is flying  under the radar despite critics (including this one) singing its  praises. 

David Zak’s tiny Open Space Arts is home to Dorian, a  genre-defying, manic, and incredibly creative three-person show that  brings new biographical clarity to playwright Oscar Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray by blending it with well-known characteristics and events of Wilde’s life. Dorian, written by Phoebe Eclair-Powell and Owen Horsley, is a complete triumph in every way."   - Karen Topham

"...Thankfully, this universe is incredibly funny as well. Enacting multiple  characters, the cast here deftly embraces that comic energy. As both  Dorian and Bosie, Luke Gerdes is the perfect amount of petulance and  confused anti-hero. Anthony Kayer, meanwhile, brings both broad emphasis  and an incisive drollness to Wilde and Gray‘s epic Basil  Hallward. Rounding them out is Brian Kulaga, whose courtroom  puppeteering, during the reenactment of Wilde’s infamous trial, should  go down in Chicago theater history."  - Brian Kirst