By Ernest Kearney — Steve Vlasak’s shows are nothing if not ambitious. This was as apparent in his earlier Hollywood Fringe production of Nights at the Algonquin Round Table (HFF’17), as it is in his latest effort Beautiful Monsterz (HFF’22).
Loosely based on Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, Monsterz is set in the world of cosmetic rejuvenation where eternal beauty is found in a jar of cream and not a mystically enhanced portrait, a product that promises a youth “that lasts forever.”
The Dorian here is a troubled young woman (Roz Stanley) who is discovered at a bar by Allen (Richard Lucas), the photographer for the corporation behind the beauty elixir, who feels she is the perfect model for the advertising campaign about to be launched.
To Lucas’ faux Basil Hallward and Stanley’s Dorian we now add Bruno Oliver as Henry, Vlasak’s corporate doppelganger to Wilde’s hedonistic Lord Henry Wotton.
Betrayal, seduction and murder follows but this trail in Vlasak’s rendering does not lead to an acceptance of guilt and redemption, rather to a confrontation with the audience by Henry, basically saying that guilt is meaningless when measured against the power of celebrityhood.
Vlasak has mounted a full-scale production, with sound and video segments by Oliver, and costumes designed by Christina Vlasak aided by Josephine E. Vlasak and Lauren Simon.
Vlasak’s direction is sure handed and tight. The performances by Stanley, Lucas and Oliver all topnotch.
The difficulty with the piece is in Vlasak’s ambition and the time frame within which he has contained that ambition. Can the nature of evil be addressed within an hour? Wilde couldn’t do it in 288 pages. Melville couldn’t do it in the 427 pages of Moby Dick. Should Vlasak be expected to succeed in doing so in a mere 3600 seconds?
Still, what Vlasak does succeed in doing is staging a tight drama that is both intriguing and entertaining.
For that a GOLD MEDAL.
Beautiful Monsterz
Played During Hollywood Fringe Festival 2022
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