UJ Arts & Culture to stage The Picture of Dorian Gray
In collaboration with the Kwasha! Theatre Company, UJ Arts & Culture's production of The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fresh, contemporary version of the timeless classic.
University of Johannesburg (UJ) Arts & Culture, a division of the Faculty of Art, Design, and Architecture (FADA), is thrilled to present The Picture of Dorian Gray, a fresh adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s timeless classic by Neil Bartlett.
Directed by UJ’s resident director Jade Bowers, this captivating production will immerse audiences in a world where reality collides with morality. The performances will run from March 4 to 16 at the Keorapetse William Kgositsile Theatre at the UJ Arts Centre in Auckland Park.
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Emerging from FADA’s innovative interdisciplinary theatre programme – conceived by the dean, Professor Federico Freschi, in 2017– the staging of this production represents a unique collaborative endeavour. Second-year students across FADA have collectively crafted the production’s visual landscape, designing sets, props, and costumes that will transform Wilde’s dark narrative.
The story follows a young man blessed with eternal youth, whose increasingly reckless pursuit of pleasure reveals the corrosive nature of unchecked desire. Neil Bartlett’s adaptation excavates the original text’s provocative core, lively dialogue, and bold exploration of sexual and moral freedoms, reimagining Dorian Gray’s descent into moral dissolution through a contemporary lens.
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“This adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray explores the boundaries of both the original text and our own perceptions of beauty, desire, and morality. By collaborating with FADA’s talented students, we’ve created a visually striking and thought-provoking experience that brings Wilde’s dark parable into a contemporary context,” says Bowers.
Featuring Jaques De Silva, Andreas Damm, Sanelisiwe Yekani, and Liezl De Kock, the ensemble will feature students from the UJ Arts Academy and members of UJ Arts & Culture collaborator, The Market Theatre Foundation’s Kwasha! Theatre Company.
The production is also making inclusivity a priority, as part of UJ’s efforts to provide meaningful societal changes within the art space. As such two performances have been set aside to include a sign language interpreter for hearing impaired audiences. These performances will feature the integration of South African Sign Language (SASL) interpretation, ensuring accessibility and fostering agency for audiences that might otherwise be excluded from the experience. Trained South African Sign Language interpreters, from Yellow Owl, will collaborate to deliver these performances.
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