Dorian Gray goes Wilde: from painted to living “picture”

“Performative reading” is a strategy that encourages students to engage in physical modes of sensing, feeling, and understanding. It is an embodied approach to textual interpretation that allows the reader-performer not just to “read aloud” printed pages but also to use the classroom as a virtual space where fictive situations may be recreated, narrative angles explored, and situations enacted, using postural shifts and vocal-gestural actions. In 2024, a group of 36 students from the Master's program in English Studies (Université Bordeaux Montaigne) were asked to perform scenes from Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, using a combination of expressive modes: declamatory, theatrical, and choreographic. The story was abridged and adapted for the stage. The general tone and lexical repertoire of the novel were preserved despite the substantial syntactic reduction and reworking of the story that had to be operated. During the seminars, special moments were set aside for “physical reading” exercises. Special attention was paid to articulation and projection. Gestural forms were chosen that were consistent with verbal meanings. Work was also done on attitude, bodily alignment and gaze orientation, in accordance with locutionary action, illocutionary intentions and perlocutionary effects. The students were eventually invited to attend two workshop sessions led by Melissa Blanc, a professional dancer and choreographer, at the University Arts Center (Maison des Arts). Five of them teamed up with seven drama students to produce a stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel for the twentieth edition of TiLLiT–an international theater festival hosted by Università del Piemonte Orientale. The public performance of Dorian Gray goes Wilde was given on June 5, 2024 in the beautiful heritage buildings of the Teatro Civico in Vercelli. It was a remarkable moment in every way, which will be remembered for its dramatic intensity and the powerful pictorial aesthetics of its living images.