Written in 1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a timelessly inspiring Gothic novel by Oscar Wilde, a work that never ceases to provoke readers’ thoughts and emotions, owing to its eternally challenging themes: from the conflict between good and evil in human beings, and between innocence and sinfulness, through the relationship between spirit and body, beauty and ugliness, to love and friendship, as well as the meaning of artistic creation. Wilde’s incisive reflections on false social morality, its moribund conventions, and its dreadful hypocrisy perhaps have an even more piercing effect today, in a contemporary society where the boundaries between lies and truths have become still more fragile and porous, and where the obsession with bodily beauty and youth is far more tragic.

The notion that happiness in life is short-lived and transient, in accordance with the perishability of physical beauty—problematic as it is—has become a burning issue in our savagely consumerist society (one provocatively explored, for example, in the globally successful film The Substance). In this sense, the decision to stage this work on the “Studio” stage of the Yugoslav Drama Theatre is highly stimulating and, for good reason, has attracted particular attention from our audience. It is therefore all the more regrettable that the artistic achievements of this production are not higher.

An actor of outstanding abilities, Joakim Tasić here creates, to a certain extent appropriately, the character of Dorian as a spoiled and selfish dandy who flaunts the beauty of his body. However, in this stage adaptation the character lacks greater depth and introspection, as well as a more genuine diabolical quality present in his literary incarnation—qualities that would have generated a broader range of meanings and emotions. This can be said to result from the dramaturgical and directorial approach of Nataša Radulović, which operates primarily on an external level, through the insistence on a striking scenic expression, while largely neglecting the deeper psychological insights of the characters that are fundamentally present in the novel’s expansive and multilayered narration.

Promotional photo: Jovo Marjanović / JDP

In the stage text, the figures of the narrators (chorus members) are singled out, interpreted by Vesna Čipčić and Teodor Vinčić, shaped through external seductiveness—especially Vinčić, who appears as a transvestite, very theatrical, eccentric, at times even hysterical, with not entirely clear inner justification. Srđan Timarov plays Dorian’s lustful and ostentatious friend Henry, of Mephistophelean connotations, also emphasized through external means: a booming voice, rigid posture, conspicuous makeup and costume, whose meaning is quickly exhausted in such a simplified mode of performance. Stefan Jevtović portrays the painter Basil, the author of Dorian’s portrait, with greater restraint and psychological tangibility, while Jana Nenadović builds the character of Dorian’s love, the actress Sibyl Vane, who meets a tragic end as a victim of his insensitivity. Her deliberately clumsy, unconvincing performance of fragments from Romeo and Juliet in a theatre appropriately conveys the lack of talent of the actress Sibyl. In invoking Shakespeare’s works, the thought of a “face without a heart” from Hamlet becomes particularly significant in the production, while Hamlet is also used as a point of departure for considering the nature of acting within acting within the context of the discussion of Sibyl’s performance.

The direction is built on pronounced stylization and formal attractiveness, as already noted, which do not arise naturally or authentically from the action but are instead largely forced, leading to the conclusion that they are mostly ends in themselves. Elements of acrobatics and musical theatre are thus introduced as demonstrations of the performers’ dexterity. The stage design is mildly kitsch, as are the costumes, largely fashioned from sequins and glamorous elegance (set design by Jasmina Holbus, costumes by Biljana Grgur). They are indeed seductive in themselves, but they are, of course, unable to fill the palpable gaps in the overall meaning of the production, nor can the other self-sufficient sensations do so.

Politika, Thursday, 22 January 2026