A friend recently returned from his first trip to Paris. Among the many sites he visited was the grave of Oscar Wilde. I need to ask him if the gravesite looked very disturbed. I would think it would be nearly uprooted with all the spinning in his grave Mr. Wilde surely has done over the past decades as one horrific adaptation after another of his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray has been foisted on the public. It all started off well with the 1945 film adaptation that starred Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders and Angela Lansbury. The less said about 1970s The Secret of Dorian Gray starring Helmut Berger the better. The 2009 Ben Barnes led version added no luster. There have been over 15 adaptations for television including a French version and a telenovela as well as episodes of Get Smart and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The latest adaptation is by playwright/director Steven Vlasak and entitled Beautiful Monsterz, premiering at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Mr. Wilde should sue over this 60-minute travesty. The time is the present and the Dorian character is female. That had already been done in the 1983 TV film The Sins of Dorian Gray. Belinda Bauer played the female Dorian while Anthony Perkins played the decadent Henry Lord. There at least was some plausibility in the fact that Dorian was an actress and model whose audition tape ages for her. Vlasak doesn’t even scratch the surface of the original story though he deliberately clues you in to the source material by quoting Wilde and giving the leading lady a door stopper of a book containing the complete works of Oscar Wilde for her to read.
Lori Green (Roz Stanley) is a recent graduate with a master’s in psychology. Photographer Allen (Richard Lucas) finds her crying in a diner in Colton, takes some photos on his phone and bam, she’s in Hollywood, the new face of Ever Young cosmetics. Decadent ad exec Henry (Bruno Oliver) doesn’t even think she is that attractive, but he still makes her his star and dares her to try everything and get away with it. The entire action of the play covers only a year and there is nothing that ages in place of the pleasure-seeking Lori. At one point, Lori eats some of the cosmetic cream and you think—oh maybe The Wasp Woman. But no, nothing that innovative. The best lines of the night are from Christine Vlasak’s ridiculously high-fashion ensembles as stated on the show’s Fringe page. Also on the Fringe page is the following credit—written, directed and produced by Steven Vlasak’s ego. The truest words of the entire endeavor.
https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/5070