Though it goes haywire about halfway through, Driving Wilde, Jacqueline Wright’s trippy contemporary Americanized take on The Portrait Of Dorian Gray, is far from dull.

The Bart DeLorenzo-directed Theatre Of NOTE World Premiere is also extremely funny early on, particularly in scenes that introduce us to the angelic-faced, devilishly sexy Dorian (Michael Kodi Farrow making a captivating, seductive NOTE debut), freshly recovered from a crash-induced coma, and the pair of older men he holds in his spell.

First to fall is painter Basil (a bravura Carl J. Johnson, earning the lion’s share of laughs from the moment he steps on stage in a 1970s wig), who takes one look at the delicious Dorian and determines that the boy’s beauty must be enshrined on canvas.

Next up is rich and powerful Henry (David Wilcox, suitably serpentine), who takes his own gander at the dishy lad and wants him for his own, wife at home be damned.

Before long, pure-hearted Dorian has allowed himself to be corrupted both by the men who desire him and by a degenerate lifestyle he can’t resist.

Meanwhile, The Picture Of Dorian Gray has begun to show signs of its subject’s age and corruption even as the real thing continues to remain as young and beautiful as ever.

Scenes between Dorian, Basil, and Henry are Driving Wilde’s best, as much as anything because of Farrow’s lean and hungry sex appeal (and the actor’s own seductive London accent), Johnson’s deliciously eccentric take on Basil, and the decadence and danger Wilcox brings to Henry, and who can resist a man in drag, especially when it’s Johnson’s Hooters Waitress looking like Marjorie Main’s Ma Kettle in a tank top. (Imdb her if you don’t get the 1950s movie reference.)

Driving Wilde starts going off track when Dorian’s rejected junior high school bestie (Wilcox’s brutish Chuck) takes his long-awaited revenge, upon which our young hero meets a surfer girl named Moon (Raven Moran, quite good) with a propensity for reciting Shakespearean sonnets into a headset microphone (say what?) while riding the waves over the protestations of a foul-mouthed mother who looks suspiciously like a Hooter’s Waitress we’ve seen before, albeit less revealingly dressed.

Moran later returns as Henry’s whip-wielding, strap-on-sporting bleach-blonde wife Rose to help Dorian continue his descent into depravity, Michael Sturgis’s lusciously loopy Young Man shows up in dance club scenes spotlighting just how far Dorian has fallen, and if Driving Wilde hasn’t gone completely daffy yet, it goes off the deep end when Dorian masturbates to entries from Henry’s velvet-covered diary (including such pearls as “Miss Beverly Max tried to kiss Marla Permore at Emily Pruitt’s annual Christmas party in the rest-room.”)

Once again, say what?

Oh, and if up until now actor Stephen Simon has been kept offstage as Dorian’s manservant Jeffrey or reciting lines from Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray and De Profundis, he finally gets to make an appearance as Oscar in the flesh in a scene featuring a full-frontal Farrow so dimly lit, it scarcely merits a “Contains Nudity” warning.

Song Yi Park’s deliberately spare scenic design showcases Ben Rock’s gorgeous backdrop projections (Basil’s studio, a verdant landscape) and stunning videos (crashing night waves and a moonlit sky).

Brandon Baruch’s dramatic lighting and Martín Carillo’s mood-setting sound design earn top marks as well, especially in the play’s flashy, sex-and-drug-fueled dance club sequences.

Ann Closs-Farley’s character-defining costumes and Vanessa Donley’s assortment of props, strap-on dildo among them, are top-notch too.

Last but not least, Ahmed Best fight-choreographs some realistic tussles.

Driving Wilde is produced for Theatre Of NOTE by Lisa Clifton. Donley and Moran are associate producers. Lauren Campedelli is associate director. Kelly Egan is stage manager and Sam Squeri is assistant stage manager. Donley, Joseph Klink, Sarah Lilly, and Travis York are understudies.

In addition to its two-dozen or so movie/TV adaptations, Oscar Wilde’s most notorious novel has inspired a couple of L.A. theater offerings, Michael Michetti’s brilliant A Picture Of Dorian Gray and the musical travesty that was Dorian’s Descent. Jacqueline Wright’s never-boring Driving Wilde falls somewhere between the two.

Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga, Hollywood.
www.theatreofnote.com

–Steven Stanley
August 22, 2019
Photos: Darrett Sanders

Tags: Jacqueline Wright, Los Angeles Theater Review, Theatre Of NOTE