Framing the picture on the stage : props, stillness and the artist

• Main Author: Lui, Karen Jia Yi
• Other Authors: Kevin Andrew Riordan
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/74027
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The rising trend of paintings taking the centre stage in theatre is not new as it has precursors steeped in modernist plays including Jean Cocteau’s The Supernatural Portrait of Dorian Gray and earlier plays that date back to the nineteenth century. This trend has been noticed by Martin Meisel whose book, Realisations: Narrative Theatrical Arts in the Nineteenth-Century England, explores some of the connections between various art forms such as fiction, painting, and drama in Britain during that period. Cocteau’s careful manipulation of the painting on stage as well as the detailed composition of the tableaux illuminates the impact of visibility and stillness on interpretations of paintings, which makes Dorian Gray a pivot to juxtapose the representation of pictures on a modern stage and those on a contemporary stage. In addition to examining some of the connections between Paul Rae's National Language Class that was first staged in 2006 and Dorian Gray, my essay also examines its connections with other contemporary Western plays about paintings that premiered the late twentieth century such as Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George, Yasmina Reza’s ‘Art’.