In Victorian London, a beautiful young aristocrat, Dorian Gray, is given a portrait of himself by celebrated artist, Basil Hallward.
When Dorian Gray meets Sir Harry Wotton and, under his influence, is introduced to London's decadent social circles and a world of infinite pleasures, he starts sinking into a cruel, hedonistic existence.
This cruelty will lead Sibyl Vane, the young and innocent actress he is madly in love with, to commit suicide. After that, Dorian notices that his picture has changed and portraits a meaner version of himself.
As his physical appearance remains youthful, Dorian banks on the fact that it is his portrait that ages and takes on all the hideous features reflecting his sinful ways. Ultimately, Dorian realizes that he has lost possession of his immortal soul and must redeem himself.
After four hundred performances of this play in four successive Parisian theatres whose differing architectural and scenic dimensions led us to continually re-invent our stage-craft, we hope to share with you the enjoyment we still feel as our Paris experience comes to an end. Next year we will be embarking on a world tour leading us all the way to Tahiti.
Why now this adaptation in English ? Is this a personal whim ? Fabrice Scott, whose friendship goes back almost a quarter of a century, and who is at present playing the part of Basil in the French version, is, like Oscar Wilde, of Irish origin. Together we produced Dorian Gray twenty years ago with Anglo-phone actors. Suddenly realizing that Arnaud Denis, Maxime de Toledo and Solenn Mariani are also perfectly bilingual, I saw how I could make an old dream come true by having the same actors act the play in both French and English. But above all, here we have the extraordinary pleasure of allowing you to hear Wilde's sublime text in his mother tongue.
