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Casting About - Kitchener
/ CASTING ABOUT CASTING ABOUT faceLIFT Series:Casting About… John Greyson, Helen Lee, Guy Maddin, Gail Singer January 28 - March 20, 2005 Organized by the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery CASTING / CASTING ABOUT / 1 ABOUT As part of the exhibition series faceLIFT , has commissioned 4 outstanding Canadian filmmakers to cast the faces of Kitchener-Waterloo area residents in an imaginary film based on Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Photographed by Kitchener artist Andrew Wright, over one hundred forty faces were compiled to create a casting pool, which was sent by CD to filmmakers John Greyson, Helen Lee, Guy Maddin and Gail Singer. From this inventory of faces these four developed their own individual cast of characters to fit their conception of the story. The exhibition includes the total inventory of faces, the filmmakers' casting decisions, character descriptions and their highly eccentric rewrite of the classic nineteenth century novel that utilizes a Faustian motif and portrait conceit to tell the story of human willingness to sell one’s soul for worldly vanity. This unconventional component of the faceLIFT Series complements the other portrait exhibitions and calls upon these terrific imaginative talents and their artist /filmmaking practice to introduce us to their peculiar narration on the face. "All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors." From Oscar Wilde's Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray Photo credits for photographs used in ‘Casting About’: Oscar Wilde, H. Montgomery Hyde, first published by Eyre Methuen Ltd., London, 1976 Copyright 1975 by Harford Productions Ltd., Magnum Paper Back Edition first 1977 Oscar Wilde, Richard Ellmann, first published by Hamish Hamilton 1987 Penguin Books 1988, Copyright Estate of Richard Ellmann Filmmakers: Greyson, Lee Maddin, Singer CASTING The Picture of Dorian Gray Summary / CASTING ABOUT / 2 ABOUT The Picture of Dorian Gray was arch-aesthete Oscar Wilde’s only novel, although he wrote a number of poems and children’s stories before it was published in 1890 in Lippincott’s Magazine. Like much of his work and life, the Gothic melodrama of Dorian Gray was controversial. In his preface to the book, Wilde famously wrote "There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all." The novel is a brilliant portrait of vanity and depravity tinged with sadness. The title is derived from a splendid work painted by Basil Hallward of the orphaned boy Dorian Gray who is heir to a great fortune. Lord Henry and Hallward discuss the boy and the remarkable painting. Dorian enters and declares that he would give his soul if he could remain young and the painting instead to grow old. As the story progresses, Dorian leaves his fiancée, the actress Sibyl Vane, because of a single bad performance he claims has ‘killed’ his love. As a result Sybil takes her own life; however, Dorian is unaffected. So begins the tale of the boy’s descent into London’s low society. Dorian’s decline is provoked by two things: the book Lord Henry sends him, which seems to predict his own life in dissecting every virtue and every sin from the past; and secondly the picture of himself that grows steadily older and more vicious looking compared to his own appearance, which remains youthful. Fanatical about the portrait, he is driven to murder and deception. As others are drawn into this web of evil, Dorian himself longs to return to innocence, but his method is horrific and tragic. Credit :The Picture of Dorian Gray: Summary: http://www.bibliomania.com Photo credits for photographs used in ‘Casting About’: Oscar Wilde, H. Montgomery Hyde, first published by Eyre Methuen Ltd., London, 1976 Copyright 1975 by Harford Productions Ltd., Magnum Paper Back Edition first 1977 Oscar Wilde, Richard Ellmann, first published by Hamish Hamilton 1987 Penguin Books 1988, Copyright Estate of Richard Ellmann / CASTING ABOUT / 3 CASTING About Casting Casting About by Robert Enright ABOUT aestheticism – sets his story on a Channel Island where a lighthouse panopticon, experiments on orphans, and motherly cannibalism don’t seem so out of the ordinary. It’s as if Dorian Gray’s own artistic DNA got mixed in with the sad tale of Tithonus and the nasty science from “The Island of Dr. Moreau ”. Each filmmaker accepts Wilde’s conviction in the Preface to the novel that “the artist can express everything”. These additions, transformations and violations are in keeping Portrait of Robert Enright by Allan Harding MacKay There is something appropriate in KWIAG’s invitation to four prominent Canadian filmmakers to pick their casts from citizens who offered themselves up as actors in films that would never get made. As Helen Lee observes in her “Casting Notes”, it’s “an exercise in vanity..., a metonym for the whole Dorian Gray enterprise.” It is also an exercise in freedom, to the extent that the would-be actors will never be actors (at least not in this film) and thus are spared the hard work and humiliations that might ensue, while the filmmakers are allowed a considerable degree of flexibility, not only in who they choose to cast, but in how they choose to tell the story. with his own attitude towards the characters he wrote into his most popular prose composition. In a letter to a friend, Wilde addressed the connections between his creations and his autobiographical associations: “Basil Hallward is what I think I am; Lord Henry what the world thinks me; Dorian what I would like to be...”, and then he adds, as if parenthetically, “in other ages, perhaps”. What Lee, Greyson, Singer and Maddin have done through the casting of their utopian films, is to add those “other ages.” They are imagining, in their directorial capacities, The Pictures of Dorian Gray; every one is different and, on the evidence of the conjuring power of their words, not one of them is ugly. To measure the degree of these freedoms, you need only Did I mention pictures that would never get made? It turns look at questions of number, gender and narrative tech- out that Guy Maddin has a film in the attic of his future. In nique. Gail Singer diarizes her refusal to choose (she lists January, 2005 he will go to Seattle to shoot a feature- between three and six choices for the characters in a length film that is an extension of the treatment he devel- telling of Wilde’s tale that could combine paint and DNA in oped for Casting About. For him, it’s now a matter of going a “kind of polemic on plastic surgery”); John Greyson slips to the lighthouse. The good citizens of Kitchener-Waterloo his operatic feature-film back and forth between Oscar’s and environs may be in wild straits after all. England and Berlin, Ontario (and is there a more delicious Wildean touch than having Basil Hallward paint a naked, Robert Enright is the Editor-at-Large for Border Crossings Mennonite farm boy?); Helen Lee changes the gender of magazine and the University Research Professor of Art two of the book’s major characters; and Guy Maddin – Criticism in the Department of Fine Art and Music at the who already knows something about filmy. University of Guelph. / CASTING ABOUT / 4 THE FILMMAKERS CASTING ABOUT FOR John Greyson John Greyson is a Toronto awardwinning filmmaker and videoartist. Since 1984, his experimental tapes, video installations and features have boldly explored socially relevant themes, especially those related to queer theory, gay rights and AIDS activism. Titles include "Urinal" (1989), "Zero Patience" (1993), "Lilies" (1996), "Un©ut" (1997), and "Fig Trees"(2004). His work has been awarded Genie, Gemini and Best Film Awards at festivals in Berlin, Montreal, CapeTown, San Francisco and Toronto, as well as receiving the Arts Toronto Film & Video Award for 2000. Helen Lee Helen Lee is a Toronto-based filmmaker whose films include "The Art of Woo", "Subrosa", "Prey”,"My Niagara" and "Sally's Beauty Spot." She attended the University of Western Ontario and is a graduate of the University of Toronto, New York University, Whitney Independent Study Program, and the Canadian Film Centre. Lee received a Chalmers Award for a series of videotapes about Korea, to be completed this fall. She is currently writing a road movie entitled "Ventura", and is also working on an adaptation of Kerri Sakamoto's awardwinning novel, "The Electrical Field", with the author. Guy Maddin Guy Maddin has been described as "the Canadian David Lynch" for his surreal, visceral films. His unique vision has gained both critical admiration and an impressive cult following for his many shorts and feature-length films including "The Saddest Music in the World" (2003), featured in Cannes and released in the Canadian and U.S. theatres, "Dracula, Tales From A Virgin's Diary" (2002) and "Tales From the Gimli Hospital" (1988). Gail Singer Gail Singer has produced, directed and written nearly two dozen films of various genres, feature length fiction and documentary, television and IMAX, on topics ranging from comedy to social issues, music and art. She has directed and lectured in Japan, Russia, Thailand, South Africa, Nepal, Israel, the U.K. and South America. Singer's most recent documentary "Watching Movies" was featured at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival. / CASTING ABOUT / 5 THE CAST OF ORIGINALS Row 1 Row 5 Row 9 Row 13 Row 17 Row 21 Alison Burkett Carole Lindsay Erin Schreiter Frances Tse Mary Voisin Podi Lawrence Andrea Witzel Chizuru Takahashi Fenella Laband Gary James Michael Ambedian Rick Vandermey April Tremblay Coralie Faucheux John Fear Hayley Backewich Mike Doughty Robert Denton Baldev Raj Desiree Ward Kate Holt Irene Sage Moulshree Opal Robert Shipley Barbara Campbell Don Druick Kathy Winter James MacCallum Oonagh Fitzpatrick Sara Kelly Bobbie Raj Doug Jones Kerr Banduk Jennifer Rudder Paul Eichhorn Sheila McMath Row 2 Row 6 Row 10 Row 14 Row 18 Row 22 Allan MacKay II Caroline Oliver Kevin Casey Gabriel Tse Matthew Carver Simon Chudley Andrew Wright Chuck Erion Kristine Schumacher Gaye Males Michael Duschenes Stuart Cybulskie Arnold Fleming David Brock Linda Perez Heidi Rees Mike McNulty Theresa Miloni Barb Reidl Devi Patel Lynnette Torok Isabella Stefanescu Nicholas Rees Tracy Rowan Bette DaRosa Don Voisin Marion Marr Janet Dawson Brock Pame Walia Trish McKegg Vandermey Brian Brown Doug Kirton Marlene Kennedy Jessica Talars Peter Hatch Will Kernohan Row 3 Row 7 Row 11 Row 15 Row 19 Row 23 Allan MacKay Ed Schleimer Kevin Strain Gary Dann Philip Bast Siobhan Fitzpatrick Ann Roberts Ernest Daetwyler Lesley Doughty Gerry Bissett Renata Rehor Sue Trotter Art Green Joan Coutou Linda Reinstein Ian Newton Rob Waldeck Thomas Bruggmann Barbara Bast Joy Roberts Maggie Fioravanti Jackie Strain Robert Fitzpatrick Tricia McLeod Bill Poole Katherine von Cardinal Marios Matsias Janice Matsias Robert Stix Vince Raznik Bryan Izzard Katrina Cove-Shannon Mary Ann Fleming Jim Tubb Shanta Gopal Yvonne Ip Row 4 Row 8 Row 12 Row 16 Row 20 Row 24 Carl Simpson Erika Tubb Kim Nadeau Jim Wilken Phyllis MacLeod Stephen Smart Cathy Pershonke Farouk Ahamed Linda Bruggmann Melissa Doherty Richard Folkerts Susan Cranston Cody James Joan Euler Lorne Looker Michelle Tessaro Robert Achtemichuk Thomas Mennill Dawn Ahamed Karen McRae Malcolm Lobban Mike Peng Robert Linsley Tricia Siemens Diane Jones Kathleen Bissett Mark Schumacher Norm Trotter Ryan McLeod Virginia Eichhorn Donnita Deen Kenneth Friesen Mary Longpre Patrick Winter Shehnaz Banduk Zhe Gu / CASTING ABOUT / 6 ROW 1 ROW 2 ROW 3 ROW 4 ROW 5 ROW 6 / CASTING ABOUT / 7 ROW 7 ROW 8 ROW 9 ROW 10 ROW 11 ROW 12 / CASTING ABOUT / 8 ROW 13 ROW 14 ROW 15 ROW 16 ROW 17 ROW 18 / CASTING ABOUT / 9 ROW 19 ROW 20 ROW 21 ROW 22 ROW 23 ROW 24 JOHN GREYSON continued / CASTING ABOUT / 10 CASTING JOHN GREYSON The Picture of Dorian Grey Outline for an Operatic Feature Film 1890, London: At a glittering society ball, the euphonious hostess Lady Foxmuff (Jennifer Rudder) duets fetchingly with the epicenious playwright Oscar Wilde (David Brock) and the excrementious gadabout Lord Alfred Douglas (Richard Folkerts). They note the arrival of the extraordinarily handsome Lord Kitchener (Ryan McLeod), fresh from his triumphs in Khartoum, attended by a sopranic bevy of besotted duchesses (Alison Burkett, Ann Roberts, Barb Reidl, Bobbie Raj, Chizuru Takahashi). Oscar comments on the freshness of his youthful good looks, blond of hair and blue of eye – but Foxmuff informs the astonished dandy that in fact the esteemed ‘K’ celebrated his fortieth birthday only the week before. At dinner, the conversation is as garrulous as the guest list: Virginia Woolf (Coralie Faucheux), Henry James (Chuck Erion), and a veritable cattle-call of society’s most loquacious lords and ladies (Desiree Ward, Erin Schreiter, Hayley Backewich, Jackie Strain, Jessica Talars, Karen McRae, Kathy Winter, Kim Nadeau, Linda Perez, Lynnette Torok, Mary Ann Fleming, Mary Voisin, Michelle Tessaro, Pame Walia, Phyllis MacLeod, Renata Rehor, Shanta Gopal, Siobhan Fitzpatrick, Susan Cranston, Tracy Rowan, Tricia McLeod, Virginia Eichhorn, Zhe Gu). Oscar finds himself seated opposite Kitchener, and asks him the secret of his miraculously youthful appearance. Kitchener tries to change the subject, but Oscar persists, declaring that it must be a blessing of heredity, and demands his mother’s maiden name. Kitchener allows that she is a Dorian, of the Dorians of Dorsetshire. “Do all Dorians then traffic in such defiance of Father Time?” Kitchener blushes deeply and excuses himself from the table. As Oscar watches the retreating figure, his eyes sparkle dangerously as he imagines a story… In the bucolic Mennonite town of Berlin, Ontario, the noted local artist Basil Hallward (Peter Hatch), is completing his masterpiece, a wondrous portrait of a local farm lad named Dorian (Kenneth Friesen). The pose is arresting, the naked youth pointing decisively at the viewer with a thrusting finger that seems to say "Your Culture Needs You!” Beer baron Lord Henry Wotton (Baldev Raj) drops by, and is entranced by the exquisite beauty and innocence of the youth. On the spot, Lord Henry offers Dorian the much-soughtafter position of Oktoberfest King, with attendant duties, and suggests that Dorian move into rooms above the brewery, the better to prepare for his new job. Overwhelmed and yet guileless, Dorian accepts charmingly. Despite the covert warnings of Basil, he becomes Lord Henry’s protégée and constant companion, hanging Basil’s portrait on his new bedroom’s north wall. At Oktoberfest, haloed by a crown of hops, he seems to glow with the aura of a saint, and is the talk of the town. Yet when he returns home late that night, he notices that the portrait seems to have changed slightly. Have his elegant painted brows acquired an arrogant tilt? Have his ruby lips twisted subtly into the commencement of a sneer? The painting comes to life: three tenors (Ian Newton, Michael Ambedian, Stuart Cybulskie) morph into successive reflections of the lad, singing to Dorian of the narcissistic dangers that can accompany easy fame… Reclining amidst velvet cushions in an infamous Soho boy-brothel, Oscar outlines his fanciful plot-in-progress to devoted confidant Robbie Ross (Robert Stix), and three Irish rent lads (Cody James, Vince Raznik and Simon Chudley, who somewhat naively plan to make their fortunes selling their fair tresses to a Mayfair wigmaker). Down the hall, a bedroom door opens, and a nude and inebriated Kitchener appears, riding the shoulders of three soldiers (Andrew Wright, Carl Simpson, Farouk Ahamed), in search of brandy. On seeing Oscar, K retreats in a panic down the back stairs and into the JOHN GREYSON continued clouds of steam and convention of befurred bodies (Ed Schleimer, Arnold Fleming, Brian Izzard, Gabriel Tse, Gary James, Gerry Bissett, Jim Tubb, Kerr Banduk, Marios Matsias, Mike Peng, Patrick Winter, Paul Eichhorn, Philip Bast, Rick Vandermey, Robert Fitzpatrick, Robert Shipley) that crowd the dim reaches. In a fit of pique, Oscar declares to this motley assembly of longshoremen, civil servants and Harley Street specialists, his intention to write a novel forthwith, concerning the illicit preservation of youth and the costs therein. “The name of my ill-fated hero? Dorian Grey!” A stifled gasp is heard from the dank shadows. Oscar sets to work in earnest, sketching out the risible rise of the eternally youthful Mr. Grey. His reign as Oktoberfest King is soon eclipsed by further triumphs: Harvest Prince at London’s Western Fair, Grand Vizier of Guelph’s Pumpkin Carnival, Parade Captain of Berlin’s Princess Ephigenia’s Marching Band. Basil tries to preserve their friendship, but finds that his one-time muse’s social calendar no longer allows for intimate dinners with mere portrait painters. In the throes of despair and fatal infatuation, he finally confronts Dorian, demanding an explanation for the cynical changes he has seen in the farm lad’s behaviour. Dorian denies all, and coldly asks Basil to leave. Alone, he fearfully studies his portrait. Again, it seems to have changed, and for the worse. Again it comes to life, and a series of increasingly debauched and aging Dorians, rendered in vivid oils (Ernest Daetwyler, Gary Dann, Kevin Casey, Kevin Strain, Malcolm Lobban, Mark Schumacher, Matthew Carver, Mike Doughty, Thomas Bruggman) sing of his true identity as a lager-addled, ruthless wastrel,reminding their pure-faced inspiration of the importance of maintaining a pure visage when betraying those closest to the heart Inspired by his success with the marching band (and perhaps tempted by the prospect of communal showers in the barracks), Dorian pursues a career in the military, and his rise in the ranks is impressive. Lord Henry advises him that bachelors rarely exceed the title of Field Marshall, and recommends a wife for advancement’s sake. He casts around town, and / CASTING ABOUT / 11 soon becomes enamoured of former Oktoberfest Queen Sybil Vane (Moulshree Opal). He woos her with roses and regional drinking songs, and she falls hard for him. Touched by her genuine devotion, he suffers a rare crisis of conscience, realizing he has no reciprocal attraction for her. He breaks off the engagment, only to learn the next day that she has drowned herself in the Grand River, unable to live without him. When he next looks at the painting, he is horrified by the sinister evil that now seems to lurk in the increasingly lined face, crooked fingers and malevolent eyes. He is serenaded by a procession of shifting, monstrous Dorians (Bill Poole, Don Voison, Doug Jones, Doug Kirton, James MacCallum, John Fear, Robert Achtemichuk, Robert Denton, Robert Linsley, Stephen Smart, Thomas Mennill, Will Kernohan). In a fit of terror, he hides the painting in the attic. A party at the Barbican celebrates the publication of Oscar’s much-anticipated novel, ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey.’ All of fashionable London is in attendance, including a flock of opium-inflected grandes dames (Andrea Witzel, April Tremblay, Barbara Bast, Barbara Campbell, Bette DaRosa, Carole Lindsay, Caroline Oliver, Cathy Pershonke, Dawn Ahamed, Devi Patel, Diane Jones, Donnita Dean, Erika Tubb, Fenella Laband, Frances Tse, Gaye Males, Heidi Rees, Irene Sage, Isabella Stefanescu, Janet Dawson Brock, Janice Matsias, Joan Coutou, Joan Euler, Joy Roberts, Kate Holt, Katherine von Cardinal, Kathleen Bissett, Katrina Cove-Shannon, Kristine Schumacher, Lesley Doughty, Linda Bruggman, Linda Reinstein, Maggie Fioravanti, Marion Marr, Marlene Kennedy, Mary Longpre, Melissa Doherty, Oonagh Fitzpatrick, Shenaz Banduk, Podi Lawrence, Sara Kelly, Sheila McMath, Sue Trotter, Theresa Miloni, Tricia Siemens, Trish McKegg-Vandermey, Yvonne Ip). As they raise their champagne flutes in a toast, the ever youthful Kitchener pushes his way through the crowd, his manservant and ‘constant companion’ Frank Maxwell (Mike McNulty) in tow. He pulls a sealed envelope from his breast pocket, and presents it to the bemused author, declaring: “Sir: I hereby serve you with notice of libel, for defamation of my person, character and likeness!” JOHN GREYSON continued Oscar laughs merrily in his face. “But my dear K, whatever can you mean? My novel is a fiction, like all portraits must inevitably be”. Kitchener hisses back: “I’ll be recognized! Ruined, discharged, driven from polite society!” Oscar rejoins: “It is perhaps true that you, like my Dorian, seem to maintain an eerie youthfulness. It is perhaps relevant that you and Dorian share the terror that certain secret desires might be revealed to all. Yet my portrait seems to be a veritable Proteus, shape-shifting in the imaginations of every reader. Some are convinced I’m sketching Burton or Swinburne – some detect shades of Beardsley! Others feel that Dorian is my tentative metaphor for Empire herself, the rot and carnage hidden within the soul of Englands ever-youthful visage. Yet do I anticipate a lawsuit from Number Ten? My dear Field Marshall, your secrets are eminently safe – that is, they were, until you chose to come here and deny their existence to all of London! The courts are treacherous places, my dear, and known to paint the most unflattering portraits of both accused and accuser.” Kitchener blushes brick-red, realizing the truth of Oscar’s words. Furious, he turns abruptly and marches back out through the astonished crowd – to be followed after a moment by the Marquis of Queensbury, who has been listening with great interest to the exchange… Over the decades, Dorian’s inexorable climb up the steep stairs of Berlin society seems unstoppable. Following a distinguished military career, he is elected Member of Parliament, plays the stock market, poses for a World War One recruitment poster,* and dabbles in soy bean cultivation. Through a series of backroom deals, he succeeds in bankrupting the nonplussed Lord Henry, gaining full control of the brewery and renaming ‘Loutish Lager’ by the new best-selling brand ‘Dorian’s Bitter’. However, his rise to absolute power is strewn with a mounting body count: his former Lieutenant-at-Arms (Brian Brown) commits suicide, his business partner (Michael Duschenes) is institutionalized in the London asylum, and his devoted former polo partner (Rob Waldeck) dies of addiction to Bright’s Baby Duck. / CASTING ABOUT / 12 Dorian becomes consumed by mounting guilt and self-loathing. Yet outwardly, his face remains unblemished, untroubled, his figure as trim as when he herded cows in Middlesex county as an innocent youth.Basil comes to see him at his mansion. Now sixty, the painter is still bitterly obsessed with the boy who inspired his masterpiece. He demands to see the portrait. Dorian refuses repeatedly, but Basil begs, and in a fit of drunken despair, Dorian finally accedes. “You think I ruined your life? Let me show you how you destroyed mine!” He takes Basil upstairs and shows him the painting. Basil recoils in utter horror – the painting depicts a monstrous Lucifer, an imbroglio of desiccation and pestilence. Basil declares that he will reveal Dorian’s secret to the good citizens of Berlin. In a fit of terror, Dorian strangles him. It takes him until dawn to dispose of the body. He returns to the attic, dreading what he will find. The portrait mercilessly taunts him, a chorus of ever-morphing depravity (Art Green, Don Druick, Jim Wilkin, Lorne Looker, Nicholas Rees, Norm Trotter). The desperate subject of the portrait can stand no more. Seizing a knife, he thrusts it into the heart of the canvas. Yet as the blade penetrates the paint,his own body contorts in a spasm of agony, and he emits a shriek that rings out into the cold dawn. The groundskeeper (Allan MacKay) is drawn to the open mansion door and up the stairs, worrying at what misfortune he might find. When he opens the attic door, he finds himself staring at a portrait of his master, as always captured in the first blush of his breathtaking manhood, indeed a seeming facsimile of the recruitment poster that graces every Berlin lamppost and hoarding. And on the floor? The body of a nameless beggar, a face so ruined by a life of wickedness as to be unrecognizable, twisted on the floor in a pool of his own blood. * This should replicate both the original portrait by Basil, and also, the famous recruitment poster that Lord Kitchener posed for in 1914, with the slogan “Your country needs you!” JOHN GREYSON continued / CASTING ABOUT / 13 Casting Notes All actors will sing their roles – classical training and sight reading a must. The London characters must utilize upper-class Mayfair accents (excepting the Irish Rent Lads), while the Berlin characters will use the laconic modulations and flattened vowels of South-Western Ontario. Lord Henry Wotton: Counter-tenor. Berlin’s most celebrated dandy, a raconteur of the first tier, owner of the Wotton's brewery (known for ‘Loutish Lager’ and ‘Arva Ale’). Capricious, alternately generous and spiteful in fits, with a carnivorous smile and frankly lecherous eyes. Lady Foxmuff: Mezzo. Buxom, ringletted, tri-lingual, and an avid practitioner of ouija, her ruthlessness of ambition is mediated somewhat by a charming stammer. Rent Lads: Three Irish basses, variously naïve and vengeful, rough-hewn and simpering, slothful and perspicacious, woefully lacking an eye for the main chance. Long blond hair a definite plus. Oscar Wilde: Baritone. Must capture the flamboyant affectations of this legendary society wit (in camp terms, there is no such thing as ‘too big’). A mellifluous voice that effortlessly dominates every parlour and snooker den. Beneath the bravado, allow us to see glimpses of a Labrador puppy’s sensitive soul. Sybil Vane: Soprano. Winsome, sloe-eyed, vivacious, this former Oktoberfest Queen has resigned herself to a career teaching home economics at the Waterloo Academy for Wayward Girls. That is, until she meets Dorian… (Note: suicide scene will involve real-time immersion in the Grand River) Lord Kitchener: Tenor. A breathtakingly handsome lifelong bachelor, of fixed opinions and imperial values, his rigid masculinity must be over-whelmed by the wonder of his delicate, ever-youthful features. Definitely not a ladies’ man, most comfortable playing whist with his favourite subalterns in the barracks. Horseback riding, some nudity. Frank ‘the brat’ Maxwell: Bass. Kitchener’s plucky and long-suffering manservant, prone to fits of jealousy whenever ‘K’ goes on overnight ‘foraging’ expeditions with new favourites. Truly the Patroclus to Kitchener’s Achilles, he will be awarded the VC and die a general on the Western Front. Basil Hallward: Bass. A tender-hearted romantic with obsessive tendencies, he lives for his easel. Yet the lack of a thriving Berlin portrait market means he must earn his rent painting market vegetables on the sides of local barns. Fluency in harpsichord a plus. Dorian Grey: Tenor. A nineteen-year-old Adonis of classical proportions and heart-stopping beauty, whose sensual innocence (this can include the slightest hint of imbecility) must transform over the course of the film into a brooding, paranoid melancholia with homicidal tendencies. Groundskeeper: Tenor. Adept at decorative borders, begonia propagation, and beekeeping. Both bemused and terrified by his moody master’s tantrums. Dorian’s Portrait: Played by thirty voices, ranging from counter-tenor to bass, and in age from nineteen to ninety. These actors will portray the successive stages of Dorian’s decay, from breathtaking Adonis to hideously decrepit, pus-encrusted, vermin-ridden demon. Should be open to hours of prosthetic make-up. JOHN GREYSON continued Lady Foxmuff Oscar Wilde Lord Kitchener / CASTING ABOUT / 14 The Three Tenors DORIAN’S PORTRAIT Aging Dorians Monstrous Dorians Basil Hallward Dorian Grey Lord Henry Wotton Rent Lad Rent Lad Rent Lad Frank “the brat” Maxwell Groundskeeper Sybil Vane Debauched Dorians / CASTING ABOUT / 15 JOHN GREYSON continued Besotted Duchesses Lord Alfred Douglas Three Soldiers Grandes Dames JOHN GREYSON continued / CASTING ABOUT / 16 Lieutenantat-Arms Befurred Bodies Robbie Ross Henry James Virginia Wolfe Polo Partner Loquacious Ladies Business Partner / CASTING ABOUT / 17 HELEN LEE CASTING CASTING NOTES There’s something about “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” that is rather nasty, I’m not sure why it’s recommend-ed reading for high school students (which is how I first encountered it). And there’s something about casting for a film that will never be made; aptly, an exercise in vanity, a metonym for the whole Dorian Gray enterprise perhaps. I wish to cast a film worth seeing, not solely as the British blue-blood society of Wilde’s fiction, but more as a movie of the mind, playing with our prejudices, preconceived notions and expectations of the story, alternately satire and morality tale. The casting of oddball choices was tempting. Working from a set list is like being handed a deck of cards and asked to play gin rummy when all you know is blackjack. Or you’d rather just throw dice. In any case, you can’t run away from the game. In the end, I opted for something that could make dramatic sense. Ultimately, the casting of Dorian acted as a pivot from where the rest of the characters would fall into place. In a sense, anyone could be Dorian and from there, a universe created around him (in this case, her) in which men, women and children (Sibyl is, indeed, child-like in Wilde’s rendering) are seduced and, after the useful juices are wrung out, unceremoniously discarded. Despite the social implications of a contemporary revisioning of the Dorian Gray story (imbrica-tions of gender, race and our rampant suppression of the unglamorous face in a celebrity-based culture), whoever said that if the eyes don’t sparkle they ain’t gonna light up the screen is absolutely right. But a window into the soul? I wouldn’t go that far. And neither, I dare venture, would Wilde. A DORIAN GRAY / Lynnette Torok “Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself.” Dorian’s selfdramatizing narcissism and ethos in a nutshell. I chose extreme beauty of the conventional sort (aquiline features, haughty demeanour – she does look rather mean), lacking any distinguishing character, but a clear signifier of cultural norms, where artifice and the art of showing – overly groomed eyebrows, perfectly streaked hair – can take precedence over notions of interiority or substance. A beautiful woman is always more interesting than a beautiful man, at least on the surface, and certainly on screen. She can be absorbing in her gorgeous monstrosity, but with it comes the knowledge that once her beauty fades, so will our interest. LORD HENRY WOTTON / Doug Kirton “It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty.” Oddly, the most difficult character to cast, possibly because of Lord Henry’s complete amorality. In the end, the “banality of evil” wins out and he outlasts all the characters partly through aristocratic privilege, free to indulge his endless appetite for amusement and distraction. Does he really never suspect Dorian’s ways? Or is he, like everyone else, in love with him and even more so because his illusions are never broken. Once again, the cocoon of class protects him. Here, our Lord sits perched on the corporate ladder, oblivious to ethics and anything awry of his interests, which is of course none other than himself. BASIL HALLWARD / Katherine von Cardinal “An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his [sic] own life into them.” Wilde’s notorious facetiousness is at work here, Basil’s jealousy, desire and thirst for transcendence coming into powerful play as a projectile of the author’s own ego. Basil simply adores Dorian. Here, the artist’s pathos can be read in the eyes, her introspection, but ultimate fallibility for her subject, which gives the artist her power, yet paradoxically is also her greatest weakness. Basil’s murder is, I believe, truly shocking, as is the way Dorian “disappears” the body. I was a sucker for her hunched pose, and a gaze that seems to look just beyond. HELEN LEE continued A / CASTING ABOUT / 18 SIBYL VANE / Chizuru Takahashi B Sibyl’s innocence and sweet nature, that which was evacuated from Dorian, become like a forbidden fruit. Because she is so sharply caricatured by Wilde, she is a cipher, not really a character at all. Someone slyer, more mischievous perhaps to counter the simpleton version of the fresh-faced starlet. This Sibyl wants for more than martyrdom, so a little sass won’t hurt. MRS. VANE / Janet Dawson Brock She is all stage mother, meaning wanting to be the star herself. A voluminous personality (can you hear the cackle?), the haze of self-enchantment and the oh-ain’t-life-just-fabulous quality – you want to run away from her at the same time as gawk.There is a faded disappointment, too, in all that life couldn’t deliver. B JAMES VANE / Michael Ambedian The fact that James becomes a wandering sailor with a monosyllabic slur seems apt. But he hasn’t given up. Too slow-witted for vengeance, his brutish anger is dulled by an essential aimlessness and hapless circumstance (getting shot and killed like a wild animal, much to Dorian’s joy). Plain bad luck haunts him. ALAN CAMPBELL / Chuck Erion Duped by Dorian to commit horrible deeds and later unable to live with the fact, Alan is more victim than perpetrator. With a hand at chemistry, he is brainy, to be sure. But his will is weak. Already once corrupted, his lack of a moral compass is Dorian’s salvation. Alan wants for redemption but it’s far too late. ADRIAN SINGLETON / Ian Newton Something of the nave but also a survivor,because he cruises the same plane of hedonism as Dorian (albeit without a core, even an evil one), dispensing with such trifles as responsibility and human caring. A touch of English arrogance, too, in the high forehead and shock of hair. A gentleman and a dog. LADY MARGARET DEVEREAUX (Dorian’s Mother) / Shehnaz Banduk I prefer a version of the story where Dorian’s mother lives on and he has to answer to her, more interesting than the abandoned poor little rich boy scenario of Wilde’s novel. He’ll be reminded of the decency that accompanies true beauty. Lady Margaret’s demise is tragic because she also dies for a romantic ideal, for love. Truth and everyday life soil her dreams. LORD KELSO (Dorian’s Grandfather) / Don Druick To complicate the notion of evil empire, this Lord Kelso conjoins stereotypical English eccentricity with the potential for hi-jinks and individual lunacy. He drove his daughter crazy and punished his grandson, blessed with the physical gifts that he himself did not possess. Bad seed, indeed. / CASTING ABOUT / 19 GUY MADDIN CASTING THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY Twelve-year-old Dorian Gray lives on a Channel Island with his seventeen-year-old sister Janet, and his parents, Dr. Augustus and Odetta Gray, who operate an orphanage out of the lighthouse in which they live. Dorian plays with the orphan boys and girls, but his best friend is the island itself, and all its friendly stones, mosses and wavelets, for he is ill at ease with children his own age, except for twelveyear-old beauty Wendy, whom he loves from afar. Mother Odetta has the appearance of a seventeen-year-old, which none of the little orphans finds odd, since she is simply one of that amorphous demographic of grown-ups. She is kept young with the help of a serum created by, and for the pleasure of, her scientist husband, an elderly man who works up near the top of the lighthouse and extracts, during regular visits from his young charges, a nectar essential to his potion from their still-growing skulls. Two famous teenaged boy detectives, Zack and Chance Hale, better known as the Light Bulb Kids, visit the island in the guise of lighthouse inspectors, in order to investigate complaints from adoptive parents of faulty children recently acquired at this remote refuge. Dorian idolizes the handsome sleuths. Chance, for his part, falls in love with young Janet, and commences a regime of ardent trysting with the island girl, secreting her and her compliance from both the jealous gaze of his brother and the wrathful vigilance of disapproving Odetta, who surveys the atoll constantly from atop the lighthouse, swiveling in a marlin-fishing chair while training the beam of the edifice’s searchlight into all the known hiding places of the water-girt grounds, determined to enforce the virginities of her two children. But young Dorian sees what Zack and Odetta don’t – his feral sister squalling beneath the bestial Chance. A quickly sobered Janet kisses Dorian on the mouth to seal an oath of secrecy on the matter, then metamorphoses back into the condition necessary for her sudorific endeavors. Dazed Dorian is left with no handy romantic outlet for all the outraged and electrified feelings derived from this sibling smooch, so he is left with no choice but to eroticize his beloved island by completely disrobing and revisiting in this original state all of his beloved turfy nooks and crannies. This is not easily done with Odetta at her all-seeing watchpost, and the young nudist must negotiate a difficult path between the sweeping lightspots cast down by his angry goddess of a mother. Just as Zack tracks down his fellow investigator brother in the latter’s lovenest – a cubbyhole of teeming teen nudity too much for the envious sibling to bear – little Dorian wanders ever more deeply and deliriously, for he has been in bed with a fever recently, into the night landscape, half hoping for and half fearing an encounter with the lovely Wendy. Instead, he discovers – and did he really see it or was this an artifact of his fever ? – his mother Odetta, bent over a prostrate orphan, a young boy it seems, whom his mother is devouring, actually tearing away flesh from his body with her teeth in order to chew and swallow, and bearing upon her nearly unrecognizable face the crazed grimaces of a starving hyena! Dorian faints away. Thirty years later, when Dorian revisits this island of his youth, long after he has been orphaned himself, he encounters a young girl named Wendy. It is the same Wendy he once loved; she has been kept young all these decades by Dr. Gray’s serum, which was seized by the orphans in a bloody revolt. Now, Dorian beholds his own portrait – wretched, asexual and old. It is the young face of this girl he once loved, and could easily love again, rippling in her horrified features and reflected back to him in the clarity of her wide, wide eyes. GUY MADDIN continued Subject: RE: cast odetta: jessica: Ur-beauty, fearsome, loving and hungry. dr. gray: art green; When Art stoops over into position, he conquers; he gives great absence! young dorian: kim nadeau: Kim has the greatest face in the world for the reflection of memory; it is a screen that remains virginal,unmarked by thoughts that continually buffet its lineaments, orby thoughts that write upon her visage their tempestuous histories, or by thoughts which move her, nay, catapult her into raptures! old dorian: kevin strain: With the aid of make-up, Kevin will be positively tumescent with stale-dated urges, a fetid film of distilled frustration poisoning his mug. janet: hayley: Hayley has a sweetness quivering on the thinnest membrane of resistance. wendy: chizuru: Chizuru is both Peter Pan and his Wendy; and Pandora and her box! zack: kenneth friesen and chance: brian brown: Sometimes one just casts with his crotch! / CASTING ABOUT / 20 / CASTING ABOUT / 21 C ASTING GAIL SINGER October 1, 2004 I am really troubled by this production, partly because I can muster no sympathy for ANY of the characters. It must be something wrong with me and I wonder if I shouldn't have a quick go-around with my ex-psychiatrist before I plunge in ... or maybe a dose of Prozac ... still I have read and reread and at some veiled level, I am fascinated by a kind of elusive seductiveness ... I am dealing with a scenario based on “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. Here we have a prime example of a novel/script in which the parts are greater than the sum of the parts; some of those parts being the decaying Victorian atmosphere into which this novel was thrust, the homosexuality of the author, the author's Irish immigrant status in a homophobic English society, the ambiguity of the novel, the philosophical preface with regard to the author's own aestheticism, the Faustian rather than demonic portrayal of Dorian, and some transparent (Sybil Vane's name) and some cryptic (Allan Campbell's misdeeds?) references. I have been struggling for weeks to choose, if I had unlimited opportunity to decide, who shall play the lead, the secondary roles, the minor roles and how I want this film played; it would seem foolish to reconstruct the1940s production in black and white and occasional colour. And yet it almost begs for murky, black and white sets ... if we shoot in 35mm we could achieve a remarkable richness, if we shoot digitally, I think we should proceed in colour ... October 18, 2004 Oh God, the time is passing and I still don't have the images. I will need to spend time with the photos. October 24, 2004 Ahhhh. At last. I did receive the CD a few days ago, but I was too frightened to look at it, in case there was NO ONE suitable for any of the roles. I remember the first time I cast a little drama, and sifted through dozens of (real life) individuals (couldn't afford actors) over and over again and began to wonder if I would have to modify my criteria, or NEVER find anyone suitable. When I was a girl my mother warned me that I would never get married if I didn't lower my expectations. She was right. Is that what is going to happen to "Dorian"? I'll never cast it in order not to make a mistake ...? November 1 Hurray! I allowed myself a glimpse. Not a full examination, but a look-over, and I think there are possibilities! It is strange to see nary a familiar face, but, anyway, I am philosophically against the Hollywood "star" system, since the way it usually plays out in Canada, is we get a "B" player who has no "box office" anyway, in order to get a US distribution deal, and the role is compromised by this imposition on us. So let's be Mike Leigh and play with people with great faces, let us improvise our way into this film. November 7 I just wish there were someone in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" whom I liked. Then I could go to this character for inspiration, and take off from there to the other characters. But no, I really don't like anyone. (I do have a fantastic idea for the ending of the film though ... we have the technology to create a truly monstrous transformation of the painting from the aging Dorian, to the grotesque Dorian.) November 8 If I were to treat the film as a kind of polemic on plastic surgery, it would certainly bring it up to date. Any chance there is a Michael Jackson or Joan Rivers living in the Kitchener-Waterloo area? November 8 It's very late but I've had an idea for the plot, after looking at the Kitchener-Waterloo cast options. A plot point: When Basil Hallward is painting Dorian Gray, Dorian has a nosebleed and some of his blood, i.e., his DNA gets mixed into Basil Hallward's paint palette. It is through this accidental alchemy that the painting of Dorian Gray ages. As for Dorian himself, GAIL SINGER continued some clever minimal plastic surgery, some makeup, some Botox, (why would you inject something into your body that has "tox" as part of the word?) and secret meetings with a stage makeup artist render his face forever, well, almost forever, youthful. November 9 And now to cast. November 10 And now! November 15 I think this is the deadline. As usual, I will be just a little bit late. November 16 Yup. I'm a little bit late. November 23 I HAVE to send this off today, even if I am still unsettled about my choices. I can always change my mind. I see Dorian as very good looking, with a non-gender specific sexuality, sort of like Trudeau (different character in all other respects). / CASTING ABOUT / 22 November 24 I am definitely late. November 30 Back from California. This is how late I am. At least now that I am so late I will go with gut instinct. No more vacillating. So why am I overwhelmed by the feeling of betrayal by my "casting director", the person who has presented me with all these options? Is it because he has sent me some fraudulent photos, i.e.,the same person, with wigs and props to disguise them? What treachery. December I My choices… I'd better get some sleep before I make this final decision… I'll deal with the casting director another time. December 9 Short list: GAIL SINGER continued / CASTING ABOUT / 23 Lord Henry Wotton Rob Waldeck Patrick Winter Andrew Wright (but NOT Vince Raznik) Kevin Casey Mike Doughty Ian Newton Basil Hallward Cody James Robert Stix Brian Brown Paul Eichhorn Dorian Gray Stuart Cybulskie Katherine von Cardinal (change the hair) Richard Folkerts Duchess of Harley April Tremblay Theresa Miloni Virginia Eichhorn Janet Dawson Brock (Geoffrey James's sibling!?) Joan Euler Kathleen Bissett Lady Agatha Alison Burkett Barbara Campbell Diane Jones Tricia Siemens Gaye Males (does she have a stage name?) Mary Voisin Sybil Vane Hayley Backewich Kim Nadeau Jessica Talars (a young Catherine O'Hara?) Lynnette Torok Siobhan Fitzpatrick Sheila McMath James Vane Michael Ambedian Mother of Sybil Vane Barb Reidl Betty da Rosa Heidi Rees Isabella Stefanescu Kristine Schumacher I'll just stop now. / CASTING ABOUT / 24 CASTING ABOUT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS faceLIFT Series: Casting About… John Greyson, Helen Lee, Guy Maddin, Gail Singer January 28 - March 20, 2005 Organized by the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery Portraits photographed by Andrew Wright Exhibition design by Susan Coolen Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery 101 Queen Street North, Kitchener, Ontario Canada N2H 6P7 T > 519.579.5860 F > 519.578.0740 E > mail@kwag.on.ca W > www.kwag.on.ca KW|AG is pleased to acknowledge the financial support of the City of Kitchener, the City of Waterloo, the Ontario Arts Council, and Season Sponsor Sun Life Financial.
