by Jeremy Reed
DORIAN
Dorian
Scene One
A repurposed artist’s loft in a warehouse: three sumptuous red velvet armchairs are positioned round a Persian rug thrown on the stone floor. A large display of red roses arranged in a pot occupies central space on a table littered with bottles, books, photos, and an iPad. There’s a single portrait of Dorian Gray hanging on the otherwise bare walls, slashed by random trial paint marks. Basil Hallward is fixing two martini cocktails, while Lord Henry Wotton sits affectedly smoking a cigarette with his left hand, in an armchair, singularly focused on the portrait.
Henry Wotton: I’ve never seen anything so powerful. It’s like a Francis Bacon portrait made beautiful, muscle converted into camp, but the line’s so masculine. Who is he?
Basil Hallward: I can’t tell you the model’s name, as I’m sworn to secrecy, but you’re the first person to see the painting, and, if I have it my way, the last. I’ve promised it to my sitter.
Henry: But seriously, who is this person, Basil? I’ve seen him somewhere; I know it, in a club, or out partying.
Basil: I met him, Henry, at Boy George’s gothic stack in Hampstead, and got stuck immediately on his look. It works on you, as you can see, like voodoo.
Henry: It’s presumptuous of me, I know, but I suspect from the painting that, despite his good looks, he’s cold, and, like me, totally self-regarding.
Basil: Don’t bitch, Henry, you’ve never met Dorian, he’s my secret.
Henry: So you’ve let slip the name Dorian: it sounds a bit affected, like a faux-Greek escort from Dagenham.
Basil: Dorian’s not class like you, Henry, but he’s from a good family, and socially networks. You’re always too vicious with your character assassinations.
Henry: You know very well my distinctions. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances because they can drive, and save me taxis, and my enemies for verbal target practice.
Basil: If I’m honest, this is the first time I’ve actually turned against one of my paintings. I can’t bear to look at it, at least not while I’m seeing Dorian, as it suggests things in his character I hope aren’t really there.
Henry: Francis Bacon was the same when he was with George Dyer. He used to call his portraits of him autopsies. If George saw them he thought Francis was guilty of murder by skinning him alive. You’ve probably exaggerated those characteristics of Dorian that you fear in yourself.
Basil: If you really must know, his name’s Dorian Gray, and I’d like you to meet him, purely for selfish reasons, as your insights are always forensic. I’m too close up, too emotionally involved with my subject, and I know I’m going to get hurt.
Henry: Nobody stands up to my scrutiny without being changed. If Dorian has the look, it will alter after meeting me.
Basil: I’m quite sure, but please don’t take him over. I know what you’re like; you monopolise everyone’s friends but your own.
Henry: What does he do, incidentally, or does he have money?
Basil: I don’t know, and I don’t like to ask; but I’ll let you in on a secret. Dorian’s actually upstairs in the studio, a bit hung over and the worse for wear.
Henry: You don’t surprise me, Basil. The advantage with being an artist is that you can call rent models.
Basil: He was here earlier, and when I told him you were coming over he started acting weird. I don’t know why, but, from his defensiveness, I had the impression that the two of you had met. Have you?
Henry: If we had, I wouldn’t tell you, as we all like to think we’re the first. Nobody tells the truth, Basil, because lies are more interesting, and produce stories that in turn are more lies.
Basil: My problem is that I can’t move on from this painting. It’s blocked my creative energies.
Henry: Are you afraid of the painting? I think I would be, as fascinated as I am by the look.
Basil: I am. I feel compelled to give it away. Somehow, I don’t want to be held responsible for creating it. I’m not even going to sign the picture, for reasons I can’t tell you.
Henry: Don’t be too quick to disown it. You’re too close to the work, and I’m too far from it to agree immediately. But anyhow, see if Dorian’s in the mood to meet me.
Basil: Help yourself to drinks. I’ll just go up to the studio and see what he’s doing.
(Basil goes upstairs, while Henry pours out another drink and looks long and hard at the portrait from every angle, still fixated by its look. When Basil returns down the metal stairs, looking shaken, he stands staring over Henry’s shoulder at the painting.)
Basil: Come on up, but be prepared, Dorian’s still not himself and acting mean.
Henry: Nothing shocks me, Basil, other than myself, and the fact that I can’t be shocked.
Basil: Follow me; the studio’s up on the next floor, and I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mess.
(Henry follows Basil up a spiral metal staircase into a studio full of artist’s materials and paintings in various stages of completion, a red drape pulled over the north-facing window. Dorian is sprawled on a couch drinking.)
Dorian: Basil, where’s the cash you promised me for sitting?
Basil: We’ll talk about that later. Henry’s here; and you’re probably drunk.
Dorian: Not yet, but I’m on the way. I get so tired sitting for hours.
Henry: I sympathise. The problem with portraits is they don’t change character.
Dorian: I didn’t mind at first, but now I find the process invasive.
Henry: I’d grow bored with looking at the artist. I’m sure you do.
Dorian: Thanks for saying that, it’s exactly how I feel.
Henry: Believe me, I understand. Any degree of normality bores me instantly.
Dorian: Me too. I started out like that, and I’ve never changed.
Henry: But how far are you prepared to go? Being different is a committed lifestyle, like inventing a colour that only you can wear.
Dorian: You’ll have to teach me, as Basil is frightened to come out.
Basil: You’re hard on me, Dorian. My individuality goes into my art, and that’s how I express my difference.
Henry: If we are truly individual, then we don’t care for the consequences, but clearly you do.
Basil: Henry, don’t start down that road. I feel like doing some sketches of Dorian, as the painting still isn’t complete.
Dorian: Of course it is. You’ve given it to me as a finished work. What it lacks is the real me, but you can’t paint personality, so it will always be incomplete.
Henry: It’s the real deal though, and I’d say the best since Bacon. Anyway, all portraiture is self-limiting, because it can’t predict changes in a person: it can only situate them in the present.
Dorian: And that’s where I want to stay, permanently young.
Henry: Don’t we all? But I’m a great believer that what you imagine, if it carries sufficient conviction, can become a reality.
Dorian: Then I want to stay as young as my portrait.
Basil: Don’t worry, I’ll see to it that you do.
Henry: It’s my theory that guilt ages us, and if you’re prepared to put excess before caution, and gratification before the consequences, then you don’t age in the same way.
Basil: What are you saying?
Henry: I’m saying that if we accept our capacity for evil, then we eliminate the anxiety that comes of committing it.
Dorian: That sounds fascinating. But how do I put it into action?
Henry: You can rely on me to show you.
Basil: These ideas are dangerous except in theory—to a theoretical mind like yours.
Dorian: I disagree. I think Henry’s onto something that could be true.
Henry: We’re mostly stressed because we think there’s a right way of doing things. If you go for the wrong you do yourself a big favour.
Basil: Don’t listen to him, Dorian, his ideas aren’t mine.
Dorian: But he’s right, most of us
are too frightened to live.
Henry: Exactly, and only by being totally individual can we live life to the full.
Basil: Have another drink, Dorian. I don’t believe there are answers to anything, only questions.
Henry: I’ll have to go soon, as I’m meeting someone in Soho at six.
Dorian: Don’t go just yet, as I want to hear more. I’m fascinated by what you’re saying.
Henry: Don’t worry; the friend I’m meeting always accepts that if I come up with something better, I cancel. He says it’s an easier way of learning humility than his Buddhist classes.
Basil: Henry, you’re impossible. All your friends, including me, become masochists to give you the pleasure of hurting us.
Henry: I’ll stay for another drink, unless anyone wants to come with me.
Basil: I’ve got work to do. I can’t get wasted.
Dorian: I’ll come, so we can continue this conversation. You don’t mind do you, Basil?
Basil: I’d rather you stayed here, there’s work to do, if I’m to get the portrait right.
Dorian: I told you I’m not in the mood to sit today. You’ve got quite enough photos and drawings of me.
Basil: All right then, if you want to go off, do. I’ll finish the work and give it to you tomorrow.
Henry: Why don’t you join us later and we’ll do a club.
Basil: I’m not in the mood tonight. I want you to collect the painting tomorrow, Dorian, or I’ll destroy it, and I mean that.
Dorian: You’re not angry with me are you, for going off with your friend? I like his ideas; that’s all.
Basil: Of course not, it’s just me; I always put my work before pleasure.
Henry: But it’s only obsession that makes things happen, and that’s why you’re so creative.
Basil: It brings me no reward though, other than loneliness.
Henry: We’re all lonely, because we’re stuck with ourselves.
Basil: But that’s what makes you different—your loneliness attracts. Mine puts people off.
Henry: If I knew what you meant by that, I’d have to be you, rather than me.
Dorian: Let’s go then. I’ll text you later, Basil.
Basil: And, Dorian, I mean it. If you don’t come for the painting tomorrow, then I’ll destroy it with a knife. I’ll slash it.
Henry: We’re off. Don’t touch the painting, it’s the best thing you’ve ever done.
Basil: We’ll see about that.
Henry: And I’ll see you as usual on Monday at the Criterion for lunch. And don’t be late, or I too might grow to like it.
Scene Two
The interior of a club, a spacious room with heavy burgundy leather chairs, lamps drizzling subdued light, and a solitary middle-aged man sitting buried in a red leather chair reading The Times. Lord Henry is conducted by an oriental waiter to the room’s single occupant, who looks up on his arrival.
Lord Fermor: I can’t believe you’re on time, Henry; you must have come straight from a club.
Henry: George, you know very well that when I’m early, it usually means I haven’t been to bed.
Lord Fermor: Is it money brings you here? The bank should have wired your monthly payment.
Henry: No, it’s information I want, on someone I think you know, called Dorian Gray.
Lord Fermor: The name means nothing to me.
Henry: My resources tell me you knew his mother, Maggie Deveraux, a bit of a slut.
Lord Fermor: I remember now. Maggie was a rich vamp involved in a scandal. As I recall she ran off with a squaddy who got knifed in a brawl. He was dead by the time Dorian was born, and I believe she took an overdose soon after.
Henry: George, you already knew what I had to ask, so why pretend otherwise?
Lord Fermor: It’s a long time ago, and tainted. Dorian was brought up by Maggie’s father, who was gay. It was generally rumoured that he paid to have the squaddy bumped off.
Henry: Your underworld knowledge, George, is like a chocolate coated with dirt. I’ve been told by reliable sources that you went with Dorian when he was chancing his luck as rent.
Lord Fermor: Sometimes it’s better not to know these things, because it alters your personality for the worse. But if Dorian inherited, he’s got to be rich.
Henry: And he’s going to be mine without question.
Lord Fermor: That means, of course, you’ll ruin him by your example. Don’t you ever get tired of encouraging others to go further than you’d ever dare?
Henry: No, I don’t, as that’s my art. I very carefully assess the individual’s potential for corruption before I inject my little hit of poison.
Lord Fermor: And I experience it each month, when I have the bank wire you money.
Henry: It’s called homeopathy, George. Exploiting you is simply my way of teaching you to be more generous.
Lord Fermor: So when do you see Dorian next?
Henry: I’m going on to my aunt’s—you know, the one who wears push-up D-cups and acts thirty at fifty, where he’s expected for lunch, with other friends.
Lord Fermor: Your ability to socially network shocks even me. I don’t know how you do it.
Henry: Simply by working in a profession that makes me always available to mix with similar types.
Lord Fermor: And of course, I’m one of your patrons.
Henry: You forget the benefits of being a hedge funder. Half the people I meet I’m doing over. They try to normalise me in their lives by introducing me unnecessarily to their friends and families. Naturally, the numbers grow.
Lord Fermor: OK, Henry, that’s enough. Please go off and leave me alone. Talking to you is like having someone invade my head.
Henry: I need to be off anyway, as I want to surprise Dorian. I don’t think he knows I’m expected for lunch, so the advantage is mine.
Lord Fermor: Just go. I’ve got work to do now at the office, and you always stitch me up.
Scene Three
Henry stands outside his aunt’s front door and, on depressing the buzzer on the videophone, is told to come in. He walks into the dining room, where Dorian and the other guests have already started eating. Henry full on, and Dorian shyly from his corner, exchange looks across the table.
Agatha: We knew you’d be late, so we’ve started already. Come and sit next to me and give me all the latest gossip, starting with what I don’t know about myself.
Henry: It’s the B-sides of people’s lives that tell you who they really are; like aspects of the dark net, I can give you the C.
Agatha: You’re terrible, Henry. I don’t know if you’ve met Dorian Gray; he’s on my Facebook.
Henry: Yes, we met last week at Basil Hallward’s studio. Basil’s come up with the crazy notion that Dorian can’t age, providing he keeps the portrait he’s painted of him concealed.
Agatha: I wish you could tell me how to be young again. Botox is one thing, but youth another.
Henry: The only way to retrieve youth is to relive its pleasures, only more fully.
Dorian: So you’re saying that immersion in pleasure is what delays age?
Henry: Yes, when you go too far in anything you shock yourself into the realisation you can do it. That in turn produces all the feel good chemicals the brain needs to think young.
Agatha: Just get wilder, so that’s the cure?
Henry: I cultivate hourly growing dose-sensitive to pleasure; I’ve already recommended the same to Dorian.
David Erskine (a guest): I don’t agree with what you’re saying at all. It’s fundamentally corrupt.
Agatha: David, it’s lack of imagination that makes you a top civil servant. That you dust our septums is why you’re here.
Henry: So you see, David, you too are into the pleasure principle, only being establishment you keep it in a re-sewn interior.
David: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Henry: You call me dangerous for advocating pleasure, while I blame you for not openly cutting a line right now.
/> Dorian: Henry’s right. I want to learn everything I don’t know about pleasure.
David: I don’t think I, or my wife, want to hear any of this. It’s outrageous to suggest I’m a dealer.
Henry: A money-sniffer is what we call it, David. Almost all paper money in London is coated with coke. Always ask to be paid in cash and you’ll be rewarded.
David: We’re off, Agatha. I’m not here to be insulted.
Henry: Don’t go, as I’ve no intention of staying. I just dropped in to see you, Agatha, and because I’d heard Dorian was coming and wanted to see him again.
Agatha: You should speak to Henry about your inheritance, Dorian. He can probably recommend the right solicitor.
Henry: Yes, Lord Fermor’s lot in Aldgate. They’ll get you the best tax deal. I believe you already know George.
Dorian: George? I’d like to speak to you about it in private first, as it’s confidential.
Henry: Why don’t you join me now? I’m going to walk across Green Park to my appointment, and we can talk on the way.
Agatha: Henry, you’re stealing my guest, baby.
Henry: Theft’s permissible with a full house. It’s like stealing from Harrods: nobody’s going to miss it. We’ve all picked from the Gucci and Louis Vuittons, haven’t we, Agatha?
Agatha: And why not, darling? Dorian’s suggested you come with me to his friend Alan Campbell’s on Friday, so I hope I’ll see you there.
Henry: I’ll call you about it, if I don’t get arrested in Harrods first.
Scene Four
Dorian sits in the book-lined library of Lord Henry Wotton’s Mayfair house, nipping from a silver hip flask, and surrounded by photos of himself, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, assorted beefcake, David Bowie and Morrissey. He’s reading a first edition of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, with the doctored scarlet-eyed Ian Sommerville photo of Burroughs on the jacket front, when Henry’s wife looks in.
Jane: I see you’ve got your own key. I didn’t hear you come in. Henry said he’d only be ten minutes, but when he goes to auction rooms it could be hours. As he has seventeen photos of you in the room, you’re in good company.
