Casting About Master - Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery

CASTING ABOUT 

CASTING 

ABOUT 

faceLIFT Series:Casting About… 

John Greyson, Helen Lee, Guy Maddin, Gail Singer 

January 28 - March 20, 2005 

Organized by the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery

CASTING 

/ CASTING ABOUT / 1 

ABOUT 

As part of the exhibition series faceLIFT, has commissioned 4 outstanding Canadian filmmakers to cast 

the faces of Kitchener-Waterloo area residents in an imaginary film based on Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of 

Dorian Gray". Photographed by Kitchener artist Andrew Wright, over one hundred forty faces were compiled to 

create a casting pool, which was sent by CD to filmmakers John Greyson, Helen Lee, Guy Maddin and Gail Singer. 

From this inventory of faces these four developed their own individual cast of characters to fit their conception 

of the story. The exhibition includes the total inventory of faces, the filmmakers' casting decisions, character 

descriptions and their highly eccentric rewrite of the classic nineteenth century novel that utilizes a Faustian motif 

and portrait conceit to tell the story of human willingness to sell one’s soul for worldly vanity. This unconventional 

component of the faceLIFT Series complements the other portrait exhibitions and calls upon these terrific imaginative 

talents and their artist /filmmaking practice to introduce us to their peculiar narration on the face. 

"All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface 

do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the 

spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors." 

From Oscar Wilde's Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray 

Photo credits for photographs used in ‘Casting About’: 

Oscar Wilde, H. Montgomery Hyde, first published by Eyre Methuen Ltd., 

London, 1976 Copyright 1975 by Harford Productions Ltd., Magnum Paper Back Edition 

first 1977 

Oscar Wilde, Richard Ellmann, first published by Hamish Hamilton 1987 

Penguin Books 1988, Copyright Estate of Richard Ellmann 

Filmmakers: 

Greyson, Lee 

Maddin, Singer

CASTING ABOUT / 2 

CASTING 

ABOUT 

The Picture of Dorian Gray 

Summary 

The Picture of Dorian Gray was arch-aesthete 

Oscar Wilde’s only novel, although he wrote a 

number of poems and children’s stories before 

it was published in 1890 in Lippincott’s Magazine. 

Like much of his work and life, the Gothic melodrama 

of Dorian Gray was controversial. In his 

preface to the book, Wilde famously wrote "There 

is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. 

Books are well written or badly written. That is 

all." 

The novel is a brilliant portrait of vanity and 

depravity tinged with sadness. The title is 

derived from a splendid work painted by Basil 

Hallward of the orphaned boy Dorian Gray 

who is heir to a great fortune. Lord Henry and 

Hallward discuss the boy and the remarkable 

painting. Dorian enters and declares that he 

would give his soul if he could remain young 

and the painting instead to grow old. As the 

story progresses, Dorian leaves his fiancée, 

the actress Sibyl Vane, because of a single bad 

performance he claims has ‘killed’ his love. 

As a result Sybil takes her own life; however, 

Dorian is unaffected. So begins the tale of the 

boy’s descent into London’s low society. 

Dorian’s decline is provoked by two things: 

the book Lord Henry sends him, which seems 

to predict his own life in dissecting every virtue 

and every sin from the past; and secondly the 

picture of himself that grows steadily older and 

more vicious looking compared to his own 

appearance, which remains youthful. Fanatical 

about the portrait, he is driven to murder and 

deception. As others are drawn into this web 

of evil, Dorian himself longs to return to 

innocence, but his method is horrific and tragic. 

Credit :The Picture of Dorian Gray: Summary: http://www.bibliomania.com 

Photo credits for photographs used in ‘Casting About’: 

Oscar Wilde, H. Montgomery Hyde, first published by Eyre Methuen Ltd., 

London, 1976 Copyright 1975 by Harford Productions Ltd., Magnum Paper Back 

Edition first 1977 

Oscar Wilde, Richard Ellmann, first published by Hamish Hamilton 1987 

Penguin Books 1988, Copyright Estate of Richard Ellmann


About Casting 

Casting About 

by Robert Enright 

CASTING 

ABOUT 

aestheticism – sets his story on a Channel Island where a 

lighthouse panopticon, experiments on orphans, and 

motherly cannibalism don’t seem so out of the ordinary. 

It’s as if Dorian Gray’s own artistic DNA got mixed in with 

the sad tale of Tithonus and the nasty science from “The 

Island of Dr. Moreau ”. 

Portrait of Robert Enright by Allan Harding MacKay 

There is something appropriate in KWIAG’s invitation to 

four prominent Canadian filmmakers to pick their casts 

from citizens who offered themselves up as actors in films 

that would never get made. As Helen Lee observes in her 

“Casting Notes”, it’s “an exercise in vanity..., a metonym 

for the whole Dorian Gray enterprise.” It is also an exercise 

in freedom, to the extent that the would-be actors will 

never be actors (at least not in this film) and thus are 

spared the hard work and humiliations that might ensue, 

while the filmmakers are allowed a considerable degree of 

flexibility, not only in who they choose to cast, but in how 

they choose to tell the story. 

Each filmmaker accepts Wilde’s conviction in the Preface 

to the novel that “the artist can express everything”. These 

additions, transformations and violations are in keeping 

with his own attitude towards the characters he wrote into 

his most popular prose composition. In a letter to a friend, 

Wilde addressed the connections between his creations 

and his autobiographical associations: “Basil Hallward is 

what I think I am; Lord Henry what the world thinks me; 

Dorian what I would like to be...”, and then he adds, as if 

parenthetically, “in other ages, perhaps”. What Lee, 

Greyson, Singer and Maddin have done through the casting 

of their utopian films, is to add those “other ages.” 

They are imagining, in their directorial capacities, The 

Pictures of Dorian Gray; every one is different and, on the 

evidence of the conjuring power of their words, not one of 

them is ugly. 

To measure the degree of these freedoms, you need only 

look at questions of number, gender and narrative technique. 

Gail Singer diarizes her refusal to choose (she lists 

between three and six choices for the characters in a 

telling of Wilde’s tale that could combine paint and DNA in 

a “kind of polemic on plastic surgery”); John Greyson slips 

his operatic feature-film back and forth between Oscar’s 

England and Berlin, Ontario (and is there a more delicious 

Wildean touch than having Basil Hallward paint a naked, 

Mennonite farm boy); Helen Lee changes the gender of 

two of the book’s major characters; and Guy Maddin – 

who already knows something about filmy. 

Did I mention pictures that would never get made It turns 

out that Guy Maddin has a film in the attic of his future. In 

January, 2005 he will go to Seattle to shoot a featurelength 

film that is an extension of the treatment he developed 

for Casting About. For him, it’s now a matter of going 

to the lighthouse. The good citizens of Kitchener-Waterloo 

and environs may be in wild straits after all. 

Robert Enright is the Editor-at-Large for Border Crossings 

magazine and the University Research Professor of Art 

Criticism in the Department of Fine Art and Music at the 

University of Guelph.


THE 

FILMMAKERS 

FOR 

John Greyson 

John Greyson is a Toronto awardwinning 

filmmaker and videoartist. 

Since 1984, his experimental tapes, 

video installations and features have 

boldly explored socially relevant 

themes, especially those related to 

queer theory, gay rights and AIDS 

activism. Titles include "Urinal" (1989), 

"Zero Patience" (1993), "Lilies" (1996), 

"Un©ut" (1997), and "Fig Trees"(2004). 

His work has been awarded Genie, 

Gemini and Best Film Awards at 

festivals in Berlin, Montreal, CapeTown, 

San Francisco and Toronto, as well as 

receiving the Arts Toronto Film & Video 

Award for 2000. 

CASTING 

ABOUT 

Helen Lee 

Helen Lee is a Toronto-based filmmaker 

whose films include "The Art of Woo", 

"Subrosa", "Prey”,"My Niagara" and 

"Sally's Beauty Spot." She attended the 

University of Western Ontario and is a 

graduate of the University of Toronto, 

New York University, Whitney Independent 

Study Program, and the Canadian 

Film Centre. Lee received a Chalmers 

Award for a series of videotapes about 

Korea, to be completed this fall. She 

is currently writing a road movie entitled 

"Ventura", and is also working on an 

adaptation of Kerri Sakamoto's awardwinning 

novel, "The Electrical Field", 

with the author. 

Guy Maddin 

Guy Maddin has been described as "the Canadian David Lynch" for 

his surreal, visceral films. His unique vision has gained both critical 

admiration and an impressive cult following for his many shorts and 

feature-length films including "The Saddest Music in the World" (2003), 

featured in Cannes and released in the Canadian and U.S. theatres, 

"Dracula, Tales From A Virgin's Diary" (2002) and "Tales From the 

Gimli Hospital" (1988). 

Gail Singer 

Gail Singer has produced, directed and written nearly two dozen films of various genres, 

feature length fiction and documentary, television and IMAX, on topics ranging from comedy 

to social issues, music and art. She has directed and lectured in Japan, Russia, Thailand, 

South Africa, Nepal, Israel, the U.K. and South America. Singer's most recent documentary 

"Watching Movies" was featured at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival.


THE 

CAST 

OF 

ORIGINALS 

Row 1 

Row 5 

Row 9 

Row 13 

Row 17 

Row 21 

Alison Burkett 

Carole Lindsay 

Erin Schreiter 

Frances Tse 

Mary Voisin 

Podi Lawrence 

Andrea Witzel 

Chizuru Takahashi 

Fenella Laband 

Gary James 

Michael Ambedian 

Rick Vandermey 

April Tremblay 

Coralie Faucheux 

John Fear 

Hayley Backewich 

Mike Doughty 

Robert Denton 

Baldev Raj 

Desiree Ward 

Kate Holt 

Irene Sage 

Moulshree Opal 

Robert Shipley 

Barbara Campbell 

Don Druick 

Kathy Winter 

James MacCallum 

Oonagh Fitzpatrick 

Sara Kelly 

Bobbie Raj 

Doug Jones 

Kerr Banduk 

Jennifer Rudder 

Paul Eichhorn 

Sheila McMath 

Row 2 

Row 6 

Row 10 

Row 14 

Row 18 

Row 22 

Allan MacKay II 

Caroline Oliver 

Kevin Casey 

Gabriel Tse 

Matthew Carver 

Simon Chudley 

Andrew Wright 

Chuck Erion 

Kristine Schumacher 

Gaye Males 

Michael Duschenes 

Stuart Cybulskie 

Arnold Fleming 

David Brock 

Linda Perez 

Heidi Rees 

Mike McNulty 

Theresa Miloni 

Barb Reidl 

Devi Patel 

Lynnette Torok 

Isabella Stefanescu 

Nicholas Rees 

Tracy Rowan 

Bette DaRosa 

Don Voisin 

Marion Marr 

Janet Dawson Brock 

Pame Walia 

Trish McKegg Vandermey 

Brian Brown 

Doug Kirton 

Marlene Kennedy 

Jessica Talars 

Peter Hatch 

Will Kernohan 

Row 3 

Row 7 

Row 11 

Row 15 

Row 19 

Row 23 

Allan MacKay 

Ed Schleimer 

Kevin Strain 

Gary Dann 

Philip Bast 

Siobhan Fitzpatrick 

Ann Roberts 

Ernest Daetwyler 

Lesley Doughty 

Gerry Bissett 

Renata Rehor 

Sue Trotter 

Art Green 

Joan Coutou 

Linda Reinstein 

Ian Newton 

Rob Waldeck 

Thomas Bruggmann 

Barbara Bast 

Joy Roberts 

Maggie Fioravanti 

Jackie Strain 

Robert Fitzpatrick 

Tricia McLeod 

Bill Poole 

Katherine von Cardinal 

Marios Matsias 

Janice Matsias 

Robert Stix 

Vince Raznik 

Bryan Izzard 

Katrina Cove-Shannon 

Mary Ann Fleming 

Jim Tubb 

Shanta Gopal 

Yvonne Ip 

Row 4 

Row 8 

Row 12 

Row 16 

Row 20 

Row 24 

Carl Simpson 

Erika Tubb 

Kim Nadeau 

Jim Wilken 

Phyllis MacLeod 

Stephen Smart 

Cathy Pershonke 

Farouk Ahamed 

Linda Bruggmann 

Melissa Doherty 

Richard Folkerts 

Susan Cranston 

Cody James 

Joan Euler 

Lorne Looker 

Michelle Tessaro 

Robert Achtemichuk 

Thomas Mennill 

Dawn Ahamed 

Karen McRae 

Malcolm Lobban 

Mike Peng 

Robert Linsley 

Tricia Siemens 

Diane Jones 

Kathleen Bissett 

Mark Schumacher 

Norm Trotter 

Ryan McLeod 

Virginia Eichhorn 

Donnita Deen 

Kenneth Friesen 

Mary Longpre 

Patrick Winter 

Shehnaz Banduk 

Zhe Gu


ROW 1 ROW 2 ROW 3 ROW 4 ROW 5 ROW 6







JOHN 

GREYSON 

The Picture of Dorian Grey 

Outline for an Operatic Feature Film 

1890, London: At a glittering society ball, the euphonious 

hostess Lady Foxmuff (Jennifer Rudder) duets 

fetchingly with the epicenious playwright Oscar Wilde 

(David Brock) and the excrementious gadabout Lord 

Alfred Douglas (Richard Folkerts). They note the 

arrival of the extraordinarily handsome Lord Kitchener 

(Ryan McLeod), fresh from his triumphs in Khartoum, 

attended by a sopranic bevy of besotted duchesses 

(Alison Burkett, Ann Roberts, Barb Reidl, Bobbie Raj, 

Chizuru Takahashi). Oscar comments on the freshness 

of his youthful good looks, blond of hair and 

blue of eye – but Foxmuff informs the astonished 

dandy that in fact the esteemed ‘K’ celebrated his 

fortieth birthday only the week before. 

At dinner, the conversation is as garrulous as the 

guest list: Virginia Woolf (Coralie Faucheux), Henry 

James (Chuck Erion), and a veritable cattle-call of 

society’s most loquacious lords and ladies (Desiree 

Ward, Erin Schreiter, Hayley Backewich, Jackie 

Strain, Jessica Talars, Karen McRae, Kathy Winter, 

Kim Nadeau, Linda Perez, Lynnette Torok, Mary Ann 

Fleming, Mary Voisin, Michelle Tessaro, Pame Walia, 

Phyllis MacLeod, Renata Rehor, Shanta Gopal, 

Siobhan Fitzpatrick, Susan Cranston, Tracy Rowan, 

Tricia McLeod, Virginia Eichhorn, Zhe Gu). Oscar 

finds himself seated opposite Kitchener, and asks him 

the secret of his miraculously youthful appearance. 

Kitchener tries to change the subject, but Oscar persists, 

declaring that it must be a blessing of heredity, 

and demands his mother’s maiden name. Kitchener 

allows that she is a Dorian, of the Dorians of 

Dorsetshire. “Do all Dorians then traffic in such defiance 

of Father Time” Kitchener blushes deeply and 

excuses himself from the table. As Oscar watches the 

retreating figure, his eyes sparkle dangerously as he 

imagines a story… 

JOHN GREYSON continued / CASTING ABOUT / 10 

CASTING 

In the bucolic Mennonite town of Berlin, Ontario, the 

noted local artist Basil Hallward (Peter Hatch), is 

completing his masterpiece, a wondrous portrait of a 

local farm lad named Dorian (Kenneth Friesen). The 

pose is arresting, the naked youth pointing decisively 

at the viewer with a thrusting finger that seems to say 

"Your Culture Needs You!” Beer baron Lord Henry 

Wotton (Baldev Raj) drops by, and is entranced by 

the exquisite beauty and innocence of the youth. On 

the spot, Lord Henry offers Dorian the much-soughtafter 

position of Oktoberfest King, with attendant 

duties, and suggests that Dorian move into rooms 

above the brewery, the better to prepare for his new 

job. Overwhelmed and yet guileless, Dorian accepts 

charmingly. Despite the covert warnings of Basil, 

he becomes Lord Henry’s protégée and constant 

companion, hanging Basil’s portrait on his new bedroom’s 

north wall. At Oktoberfest, haloed by a crown 

of hops, he seems to glow with the aura of a saint, 

and is the talk of the town. Yet when he returns home 

late that night, he notices that the portrait seems to 

have changed slightly. Have his elegant painted 

brows acquired an arrogant tilt Have his ruby lips 

twisted subtly into the commencement of a sneer 

The painting comes to life: three tenors (Ian Newton, 

Michael Ambedian, Stuart Cybulskie) morph into 

successive reflections of the lad, singing to Dorian of 

the narcissistic dangers that can accompany easy 

fame… Reclining amidst velvet cushions in an 

infamous Soho boy-brothel, Oscar outlines his 

fanciful plot-in-progress to devoted confidant Robbie 

Ross (Robert Stix), and three Irish rent lads (Cody 

James, Vince Raznik and Simon Chudley, who 

somewhat naively plan to make their fortunes selling 

their fair tresses to a Mayfair wigmaker). Down the 

hall, a bedroom door opens, and a nude and inebriated 

Kitchener appears, riding the shoulders of three 

soldiers (Andrew Wright, Carl Simpson, Farouk 

Ahamed), in search of brandy. On seeing Oscar, K 

retreats in a panic down the back stairs and into the

clouds of steam and convention of befurred bodies 

(Ed Schleimer, Arnold Fleming, Brian Izzard, Gabriel 

Tse, Gary James, Gerry Bissett, Jim Tubb, Kerr 

Banduk, Marios Matsias, Mike Peng, Patrick Winter, 

Paul Eichhorn, Philip Bast, Rick Vandermey, Robert 

Fitzpatrick, Robert Shipley) that crowd the dim 

reaches. In a fit of pique, Oscar declares to this motley 

assembly of longshoremen, civil servants and Harley 

Street specialists, his intention to write a novel forthwith, 

concerning the illicit preservation of youth and 

the costs therein. “The name of my ill-fated hero 

Dorian Grey!” A stifled gasp is heard from the dank 

shadows. 

Oscar sets to work in earnest, sketching out the risible 

rise of the eternally youthful Mr. Grey. His reign as 

Oktoberfest King is soon eclipsed by further triumphs: 

Harvest Prince at London’s Western Fair, Grand 

Vizier of Guelph’s Pumpkin Carnival, Parade Captain 

of Berlin’s Princess Ephigenia’s Marching Band. 

Basil tries to preserve their friendship, but finds that 

his one-time muse’s social calendar no longer allows 

for intimate dinners with mere portrait painters. In the 

throes of despair and fatal infatuation, he finally 

confronts Dorian, demanding an explanation for the 

cynical changes he has seen in the farm lad’s behaviour. 

Dorian denies all, and coldly asks Basil to leave. 

Alone, he fearfully studies his portrait. Again, it seems 

to have changed, and for the worse. Again it comes 

to life, and a series of increasingly debauched and 

aging Dorians, rendered in vivid oils (Ernest 

Daetwyler, Gary Dann, Kevin Casey, Kevin Strain, 

Malcolm Lobban, Mark Schumacher, Matthew Carver, 

Mike Doughty, Thomas Bruggman) sing of his true 

identity as a lager-addled, ruthless wastrel,reminding 

their pure-faced inspiration of the importance of maintaining 

a pure visage when betraying those closest to 

the heart 

Inspired by his success with the marching band (and 

perhaps tempted by the prospect of communal 

showers in the barracks), Dorian pursues a career in 

the military, and his rise in the ranks is impressive. 

Lord Henry advises him that bachelors rarely exceed 

the title of Field Marshall, and recommends a wife for 

advancement’s sake. He casts around town, and 


soon becomes enamoured of former Oktoberfest 

Queen Sybil Vane (Moulshree Opal). He woos her 

with roses and regional drinking songs, and she falls 

hard for him. Touched by her genuine devotion, he 

suffers a rare crisis of conscience, realizing he has no 

reciprocal attraction for her. He breaks off the engagment, 

only to learn the next day that she has drowned 

herself in the Grand River, unable to live without him. 

When he next looks at the painting, he is horrified by 

the sinister evil that now seems to lurk in the increasingly 

lined face, crooked fingers and malevolent eyes. 

He is serenaded by a procession of shifting, monstrous 

Dorians (Bill Poole, Don Voison, Doug Jones, 

Doug Kirton, James MacCallum, John Fear, Robert 

Achtemichuk, Robert Denton, Robert Linsley, 

Stephen Smart, Thomas Mennill, Will Kernohan). In a 

fit of terror, he hides the painting in the attic. 

A party at the Barbican celebrates the publication of 

Oscar’s much-anticipated novel, ‘The Picture of 

Dorian Grey.’ All of fashionable London is in attendance, 

including a flock of opium-inflected grandes 

dames (Andrea Witzel, April Tremblay, Barbara Bast, 

Barbara Campbell, Bette DaRosa, Carole Lindsay, 

Caroline Oliver, Cathy Pershonke, Dawn Ahamed, 

Devi Patel, Diane Jones, Donnita Dean, Erika Tubb, 

Fenella Laband, Frances Tse, Gaye Males, Heidi 

Rees, Irene Sage, Isabella Stefanescu, Janet 

Dawson Brock, Janice Matsias, Joan Coutou, Joan 

Euler, Joy Roberts, Kate Holt, Katherine von 

Cardinal, Kathleen Bissett, Katrina Cove-Shannon, 

Kristine Schumacher, Lesley Doughty, Linda 

Bruggman, Linda Reinstein, Maggie Fioravanti, 

Marion Marr, Marlene Kennedy, Mary Longpre, 

Melissa Doherty, Oonagh Fitzpatrick, Shenaz 

Banduk, Podi Lawrence, Sara Kelly, Sheila McMath, 

Sue Trotter, Theresa Miloni, Tricia Siemens, Trish 

McKegg-Vandermey, Yvonne Ip). As they raise their 

champagne flutes in a toast, the ever youthful 

Kitchener pushes his way through the crowd, his 

manservant and ‘constant companion’ Frank Maxwell 

(Mike McNulty) in tow. He pulls a sealed envelope 

from his breast pocket, and presents it to the 

bemused author, declaring: “Sir: I hereby serve you 

with notice of libel, for defamation of my person, 

character and likeness!”


Oscar laughs merrily in his face. “But my dear K, 

whatever can you mean My novel is a fiction, like all 

portraits must inevitably be”. Kitchener hisses back: 

“I’ll be recognized! Ruined, discharged, driven from 

polite society!” Oscar rejoins: “It is perhaps true that 

you, like my Dorian, seem to maintain an eerie youthfulness. 

It is perhaps relevant that you and Dorian 

share the terror that certain secret desires might be 

revealed to all. Yet my portrait seems to be a veritable 

Proteus, shape-shifting in the imaginations of every 

reader. Some are convinced I’m sketching Burton or 

Swinburne – some detect shades of Beardsley! 

Others feel that Dorian is my tentative metaphor for 

Empire herself, the rot and carnage hidden within the 

soul of Englands ever-youthful visage. Yet do I anticipate 

a lawsuit from Number Ten My dear Field 

Marshall, your secrets are eminently safe – that is, 

they were, until you chose to come here and deny 

their existence to all of London! The courts are 

treacherous places, my dear, and known to paint the 

most unflattering portraits of both accused and accuser.” 

Kitchener blushes brick-red, realizing the truth of 

Oscar’s words. Furious, he turns abruptly and marches 

back out through the astonished crowd – to be followed 

after a moment by the Marquis of Queensbury, 

who has been listening with great interest to the 

exchange… 

Over the decades, Dorian’s inexorable climb up the 

steep stairs of Berlin society seems unstoppable. 

Following a distinguished military career, he is elected 

Member of Parliament, plays the stock market, 

poses for a World War One recruitment poster,* and 

dabbles in soy bean cultivation. Through a series of 

backroom deals, he succeeds in bankrupting the nonplussed 

Lord Henry, gaining full control of the brewery 

and renaming ‘Loutish Lager’ by the new 

best-selling brand ‘Dorian’s Bitter’. However, his rise 

to absolute power is strewn with a mounting body 

count: his former Lieutenant-at-Arms (Brian Brown) 

commits suicide, his business partner (Michael 

Duschenes) is institutionalized in the London asylum, 

and his devoted former polo partner (Rob Waldeck) 

dies of addiction to Bright’s Baby Duck. 

Dorian becomes consumed by mounting guilt and 

self-loathing. Yet outwardly, his face remains unblemished, 

untroubled, his figure as trim as when he herded 

cows in Middlesex county as an innocent 

youth.Basil comes to see him at his mansion. Now 

sixty, the painter is still bitterly obsessed with the boy 

who inspired his masterpiece. He demands to see 

the portrait. Dorian refuses repeatedly, but Basil 

begs, and in a fit of drunken despair, Dorian finally 

accedes. “You think I ruined your life Let me show 

you how you destroyed mine!” He takes Basil upstairs 

and shows him the painting. Basil recoils in utter 

horror – the painting depicts a monstrous Lucifer, an 

imbroglio of desiccation and pestilence. Basil 

declares that he will reveal Dorian’s secret to the 

good citizens of Berlin. In a fit of terror, Dorian strangles 

him. It takes him until dawn to dispose of the 

body. He returns to the attic, dreading what he will 

find. The portrait mercilessly taunts him, a chorus of 

ever-morphing depravity (Art Green, Don Druick, Jim 

Wilkin, Lorne Looker, Nicholas Rees, Norm Trotter). 

The desperate subject of the portrait can stand no 

more. Seizing a knife, he thrusts it into the heart of 

the canvas. Yet as the blade penetrates the paint,his 

own body contorts in a spasm of agony, and he emits 

a shriek that rings out into the cold dawn. The 

groundskeeper (Allan MacKay) is drawn to the open 

mansion door and up the stairs, worrying at what 

misfortune he might find. When he opens the attic 

door, he finds himself staring at a portrait of his 

master, as always captured in the first blush of his 

breathtaking manhood, indeed a seeming facsimile 

of the recruitment poster that graces every Berlin 

lamppost and hoarding. And on the floor The body 

of a nameless beggar, a face so ruined by a life of 

wickedness as to be unrecognizable, twisted on the 

floor in a pool of his own blood. 

* This should replicate both the original portrait by 

Basil, and also, the famous recruitment poster that 

Lord Kitchener posed for in 1914, with the slogan 

“Your country needs you!”


Casting Notes 

All actors will sing their roles – classical training 

and sight reading a must. The London characters 

must utilize upper-class Mayfair accents (excepting 

the Irish Rent Lads), while the Berlin characters will 

use the laconic modulations and flattened vowels of 

South-Western Ontario. 

Lady Foxmuff: Mezzo. Buxom, ringletted, tri-lingual, 

and an avid practitioner of ouija, her ruthlessness of 

ambition is mediated somewhat by a charming 

stammer. 

Oscar Wilde: Baritone. Must capture the flamboyant 

affectations of this legendary society wit (in camp 

terms, there is no such thing as ‘too big’). A mellifluous 

voice that effortlessly dominates every parlour 

and snooker den. Beneath the bravado, allow us to 

see glimpses of a Labrador puppy’s sensitive soul. 

Lord Kitchener: Tenor. A breathtakingly handsome 

lifelong bachelor, of fixed opinions and imperial 

values, his rigid masculinity must be over-whelmed 

by the wonder of his delicate, ever-youthful features. 

Definitely not a ladies’ man, most comfortable playing 

whist with his favourite subalterns in the barracks. 

Horseback riding, some nudity. 

Basil Hallward: Bass. A tender-hearted romantic 

with obsessive tendencies, he lives for his easel. 

Yet the lack of a thriving Berlin portrait market means 

he must earn his rent painting market vegetables on 

the sides of local barns. Fluency in harpsichord a 

plus. 

Dorian Grey: Tenor. A nineteen-year-old Adonis of 

classical proportions and heart-stopping beauty, 

whose sensual innocence (this can include the 

slightest hint of imbecility) must transform over the 

course of the film into a brooding, paranoid 

melancholia with homicidal tendencies. 

Lord Henry Wotton: Counter-tenor. Berlin’s most 

celebrated dandy, a raconteur of the first tier, owner 

of the Wotton's brewery (known for ‘Loutish Lager’ 

and ‘Arva Ale’). Capricious, alternately generous and 

spiteful in fits, with a carnivorous smile and frankly 

lecherous eyes. 

Rent Lads: Three Irish basses, variously naïve and 

vengeful, rough-hewn and simpering, slothful and 

perspicacious, woefully lacking an eye for the main 

chance. Long blond hair a definite plus. 

Sybil Vane: Soprano. Winsome, sloe-eyed, vivacious, 

this former Oktoberfest Queen has resigned herself 

to a career teaching home economics at the Waterloo 

Academy for Wayward Girls. That is, until she meets 

Dorian… (Note: suicide scene will involve real-time 

immersion in the Grand River) 

Frank ‘the brat’ Maxwell: Bass. Kitchener’s plucky 

and long-suffering manservant, prone to fits of 

jealousy whenever ‘K’ goes on overnight ‘foraging’ 

expeditions with new favourites. Truly the Patroclus 

to Kitchener’s Achilles, he will be awarded the VC 

and die a general on the Western Front. 

Groundskeeper: Tenor. Adept at decorative borders, 

begonia propagation, and beekeeping. Both bemused 

and terrified by his moody master’s tantrums. 

Dorian’s Portrait: Played by thirty voices, ranging 

from counter-tenor to bass, and in age from nineteen 

to ninety. These actors will portray the successive 

stages of Dorian’s decay, from breathtaking Adonis to 

hideously decrepit, pus-encrusted, vermin-ridden 

demon. Should be open to hours of prosthetic make-up.


Lady Foxmuff Oscar Wilde Lord Kitchener 

The 

Three 

Tenors 

DORIAN’S 

PORTRAIT 

Aging Dorians 

Monstrous 

Dorians 

Basil Hallward 

Dorian Grey 

Lord Henry Wotton 

Rent Lad 

Rent Lad 

Rent Lad 

Sybil Vane 

Frank “the brat” 

Maxwell 

Groundskeeper 

Debauched Dorians


Besotted 

Duchesses 

Lord Alfred 

Douglas 

Three 

Soldiers 

Grandes Dames


Lieutenantat-Arms 

Befurred Bodies 

Robbie Ross 

Henry James 

Virginia Wolfe 

Polo 

Partner 

Business 

Partner 

Loquacious Ladies

HELEN 

CASTING NOTES 

LEE 

CASTING 

There’s something about “The Portrait of Dorian 

Gray” that is rather nasty, I’m not sure why it’s recommend-ed 

reading for high school students (which is 

how I first encountered it). And there’s something 

about casting for a film that will never be made; aptly, 

an exercise in vanity, a metonym for the whole Dorian 

Gray enterprise perhaps. 

I wish to cast a film worth seeing, not solely as the 

British blue-blood society of Wilde’s fiction, but more 

as a movie of the mind, playing with our prejudices, 

preconceived notions and expectations of the story, 

alternately satire and morality tale. The casting of 

oddball choices was tempting. Working from a set list 

is like being handed a deck of cards and asked to 

play gin rummy when all you know is blackjack. Or 

you’d rather just throw dice. In any case, you can’t 

run away from the game. In the end, I opted for 

something that could make dramatic sense. 

Ultimately, the casting of Dorian acted as a pivot from 

where the rest of the characters would fall into place. 

In a sense, anyone could be Dorian and from there, 

a universe created around him (in this case, her) in 

which men, women and children (Sibyl is, indeed, 

child-like in Wilde’s rendering) are seduced and, after 

the useful juices are wrung out, unceremoniously 

discarded. Despite the social implications of a contemporary 

revisioning of the Dorian Gray story (imbrica-tions 

of gender, race and our rampant suppression 

of the unglamorous face in a celebrity-based culture), 

whoever said that if the eyes don’t sparkle they ain’t 

gonna light up the screen is absolutely right. But a 

window into the soul I wouldn’t go that far. And 

neither, I dare venture, would Wilde. 

A 


DORIAN GRAY / Lynnette Torok 

“Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that 

I am growing old, I shall kill myself.” Dorian’s selfdramatizing 

narcissism and ethos in a nutshell. I chose 

extreme beauty of the conventional sort (aquiline 

features, haughty demeanour – she does look rather 

mean), lacking any distinguishing character, but a clear 

signifier of cultural norms, where artifice and the art of 

showing – overly groomed eyebrows, perfectly 

streaked hair – can take precedence over notions of 

interiority or substance. A beautiful woman is always 

more interesting than a beautiful man, at least on the 

surface, and certainly on screen. She can be absorbing 

in her gorgeous monstrosity, but with it comes the 

knowledge that once her beauty fades, so will our 

interest. 

LORD HENRY WOTTON / Doug Kirton 

“It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that 

genius lasts longer than beauty.” Oddly, the most 

difficult character to cast, possibly because of Lord 

Henry’s complete amorality. In the end, the “banality 

of evil” wins out and he outlasts all the characters 

partly through aristocratic privilege, free to indulge his 

endless appetite for amusement and distraction. Does 

he really never suspect Dorian’s ways Or is he, like 

everyone else, in love with him and even more so 

because his illusions are never broken. Once again, 

the cocoon of class protects him. Here, our Lord sits 

perched on the corporate ladder, oblivious to ethics 

and anything awry of his interests, which is of course 

none other than himself. 

BASIL HALLWARD / Katherine von Cardinal 

“An artist should create beautiful things, but should 

put nothing of his [sic] own life into them.” Wilde’s 

notorious facetiousness is at work here, Basil’s 

jealousy, desire and thirst for transcendence coming 

into powerful play as a projectile of the author’s own 

ego. Basil simply adores Dorian. Here, the artist’s 

pathos can be read in the eyes, her introspection, but 

ultimate fallibility for her subject, which gives the artist 

her power, yet paradoxically is also her greatest weakness. 

Basil’s murder is, I believe, truly shocking, as is 

the way Dorian “disappears” the body. I was a sucker 

for her hunched pose, and a gaze that seems to look 

just beyond.

A 

B 

HELEN LEE continued / CASTING ABOUT / 18 

SIBYL VANE / Chizuru Takahashi 

Sibyl’s innocence and sweet nature, that which was evacuated 

from Dorian, become like a forbidden fruit. Because she is so 

sharply caricatured by Wilde, she is a cipher, not really a character 

at all. Someone slyer, more mischievous perhaps to counter 

the simpleton version of the fresh-faced starlet. This Sibyl wants 

for more than martyrdom, so a little sass won’t hurt. 

MRS. VANE / Janet Dawson Brock 

She is all stage mother, meaning wanting to be the star herself. A 

voluminous personality (can you hear the cackle), the haze of 

self-enchantment and the oh-ain’t-life-just-fabulous quality – you 

want to run away from her at the same time as gawk.There is a 

faded disappointment, too, in all that life couldn’t deliver. 

B 

JAMES VANE / Michael Ambedian 

The fact that James becomes a wandering sailor with a monosyllabic 

slur seems apt. But he hasn’t given up. Too slow-witted for 

vengeance, his brutish anger is dulled by an essential aimlessness 

and hapless circumstance (getting shot and killed like a wild 

animal, much to Dorian’s joy). Plain bad luck haunts him. 

ALAN CAMPBELL / Chuck Erion 

Duped by Dorian to commit horrible deeds and later unable to live 

with the fact, Alan is more victim than perpetrator. With a hand at 

chemistry, he is brainy, to be sure. But his will is weak. Already 

once corrupted, his lack of a moral compass is Dorian’s salvation. 

Alan wants for redemption but it’s far too late. 

ADRIAN SINGLETON / Ian Newton 

Something of the nave but also a survivor,because he cruises the 

same plane of hedonism as Dorian (albeit without a core, even an 

evil one), dispensing with such trifles as responsibility and human 

caring. A touch of English arrogance, too, in the high forehead 

and shock of hair. A gentleman and a dog. 

LADY MARGARET DEVEREAUX (Dorian’s Mother) / Shehnaz Banduk 

I prefer a version of the story where Dorian’s mother lives on and 

he has to answer to her, more interesting than the abandoned 

poor little rich boy scenario of Wilde’s novel. He’ll be reminded of 

the decency that accompanies true beauty. Lady Margaret’s 

demise is tragic because she also dies for a romantic ideal, for 

love. Truth and everyday life soil her dreams. 

LORD KELSO (Dorian’s Grandfather) / Don Druick 

To complicate the notion of evil empire, this Lord Kelso conjoins 

stereotypical English eccentricity with the potential for hi-jinks and 

individual lunacy. He drove his daughter crazy and punished his 

grandson, blessed with the physical gifts that he himself did not 

possess. Bad seed, indeed.

GUY 

MADDIN 

CASTING 

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY 

Twelve-year-old Dorian Gray lives on a Channel 

Island with his seventeen-year-old sister Janet, and 

his parents, Dr. Augustus and Odetta Gray, who operate 

an orphanage out of the lighthouse 

in which they live. Dorian plays with the orphan boys 

and girls, but his best friend is the island itself, and all 

its friendly stones, mosses and wavelets, for he is ill 

at ease with children his own age, except for twelveyear-old 

beauty Wendy, whom he loves from 

afar. Mother Odetta has the appearance of a seventeen-year-old, 

which none of the little orphans finds 

odd, since she is simply one of that amorphous 

demographic of grown-ups. She is kept young 

with the help of a serum created by, and for the 

pleasure of, her scientist husband, an elderly man 

who works up near the top of the lighthouse and 

extracts, during regular visits from his young charges, 

a nectar essential to his potion from their still-growing 

skulls. 

Two famous teenaged boy detectives, Zack and 

Chance Hale, better known as the Light Bulb Kids, 

visit the island in the guise of lighthouse inspectors, in 

order to investigate complaints from adoptive parents 

of faulty children recently acquired at this remote 

refuge. Dorian idolizes the handsome sleuths. 

Chance, for his part, falls in love with young Janet, 

and commences a regime of ardent trysting with the 

island girl, secreting her and her compliance from 

both the jealous gaze of his brother and the wrathful 

vigilance of disapproving Odetta, who surveys the 

atoll constantly from atop the lighthouse, swiveling in 

a marlin-fishing chair while training the beam of the 

edifice’s searchlight into all the known hiding places 

of the water-girt grounds, determined to enforce the 

virginities of her two children. 


But young Dorian sees what Zack and Odetta don’t – 

his feral sister squalling beneath the bestial Chance. 

A quickly sobered Janet kisses Dorian on the mouth 

to seal an oath of secrecy on the matter, then metamorphoses 

back into the condition necessary for her 

sudorific endeavors. Dazed Dorian is left with no 

handy romantic outlet for all the outraged and electrified 

feelings derived from this sibling smooch, so he 

is left with no choice but to eroticize his beloved 

island by completely disrobing and revisiting in this 

original state all of his beloved turfy nooks and 

crannies. This is not easily done with Odetta at her 

all-seeing watchpost, and the young nudist must 

negotiate a difficult path between the sweeping lightspots 

cast down by his angry goddess of a mother. 

Just as Zack tracks down his fellow investigator 

brother in the latter’s lovenest – a cubbyhole of 

teeming teen nudity too much for the envious sibling 

to bear – little Dorian wanders ever more deeply and 

deliriously, for he has been in bed with a fever recently, 

into the night landscape, half hoping for and half 

fearing an encounter with the lovely Wendy. Instead, 

he discovers – and did he really see it or was this an 

artifact of his fever – his mother Odetta, bent over 

a prostrate orphan, a young boy it seems, whom his 

mother is devouring, actually tearing away flesh from 

his body with her teeth in order to chew and swallow, 

and bearing upon her nearly unrecognizable face the 

crazed grimaces of a starving hyena! Dorian faints 

away. 

Thirty years later, when Dorian revisits this island of 

his youth, long after he has been orphaned himself, 

he encounters a young girl named Wendy. It is the 

same Wendy he once loved; she has been kept 

young all these decades by Dr. Gray’s serum, which 

was seized by the orphans in a bloody revolt. Now, 

Dorian beholds his own portrait – wretched, asexual 

and old. It is the young face of this girl he once loved, 

and could easily love again, rippling in her horrified 

features and reflected back to him in the clarity of her 

wide, wide eyes.

Subject: RE: cast 

GUY MADDIN continued / CASTING ABOUT / 20 

odetta: jessica: 

Ur-beauty, fearsome, 

loving and hungry. 

dr. gray: art green; When Art stoops over into position, 

he conquers; he gives great absence! 

young dorian: kim nadeau: Kim has the greatest face in 

the world for the reflection of memory; it is a screen that 

remains virginal,unmarked by thoughts that continually 

buffet its lineaments, orby thoughts that write upon her 

visage their tempestuous histories, or by thoughts which 

move her, nay, catapult her into raptures! 

old dorian: kevin strain: With the aid of make-up, 

Kevin will be positively tumescent with stale-dated 

urges, a fetid film of distilled frustration poisoning 

his mug. 

janet: hayley: Hayley has a 

sweetness quivering 

on the thinnest 

membrane of resistance. 

wendy: chizuru: Chizuru is both Peter Pan 

and his Wendy; and Pandora and 

her box! 

zack: kenneth friesen and 

chance: brian brown: 

Sometimes one just casts 

with his crotch!

CASTING 

GAIL 

SINGER 

October 1, 2004 

I am really troubled by this production, partly because I 

can muster no sympathy for ANY of the characters. 

It must be something wrong with me and I wonder if I 

shouldn't have a quick go-around with my ex-psychiatrist 

before I plunge in ... or maybe a dose of Prozac ... 

still I have read and reread and at some veiled level, I 

am fascinated by a kind of elusive seductiveness ... 

I am dealing with a scenario based on “The Picture of 

Dorian Gray”. Here we have a prime example of a 

novel/script in which the parts are greater than the sum 

of the parts; some of those parts being the decaying 

Victorian atmosphere into which this novel was thrust, 

the homosexuality of the author, the author's Irish 

immigrant status in a homophobic English society, the 

ambiguity of the novel, the philosophical preface with 

regard to the author's own aestheticism, the Faustian 

rather than demonic portrayal of Dorian, and some 

transparent (Sybil Vane's name) and some cryptic 

(Allan Campbell's misdeeds) references. 

I have been struggling for weeks to choose, if I had 

unlimited opportunity to decide, who shall play the 

lead, the secondary roles, the minor roles and how I 

want this film played; it would seem foolish to reconstruct 

the1940s production in black and white and 

occasional colour. And yet it almost begs for murky, 

black and white sets ... if we shoot in 35mm we could 

achieve a remarkable richness, if we shoot digitally, I 

think we should proceed in colour ... 


Oh God, the time is passing and I still don't have the 

images. I will need to spend time with the photos. 


Ahhhh. At last. I did receive the CD a few days ago, 

but I was too frightened to look at it, in case there was 

NO ONE suitable for any of the roles. I remember the 

first time I cast a little drama, and sifted through 

dozens of (real life) individuals (couldn't afford actors) 


over and over again and began to wonder if I would 

have to modify my criteria, or NEVER find anyone 

suitable. 

When I was a girl my mother warned me that I would 

never get married if I didn't lower my expectations. 

She was right. 

Is that what is going to happen to "Dorian" I'll never 

cast it in order not to make a mistake ... 

November 1 

Hurray! I allowed myself a glimpse. Not a full examination, 

but a look-over, and I think there are possibilities! 

It is strange to see nary a familiar face, but, 

anyway, I am philosophically against the Hollywood 

"star" system, since the way it usually plays out in 

Canada, is we get a "B" player who has no "box 

office" anyway, in order to get a US distribution deal, 

and the role is compromised by this imposition on us. 

So let's be Mike Leigh and play with people with 

great faces, let us improvise our way into this film. 

November 7 

I just wish there were someone in "The Picture of 

Dorian Gray" whom I liked. Then I could go to this 

character for inspiration, and take off from there to 

the other characters. But no, I really don't like anyone. 

(I do have a fantastic idea for the ending of the 

film though ... we have the technology to create a 

truly monstrous transformation of the painting from 

the aging Dorian, to the grotesque Dorian.) 

November 8 

If I were to treat the film as a kind of polemic on 

plastic surgery, it would certainly bring it up to date. 

Any chance there is a Michael Jackson or Joan 

Rivers 

living in the Kitchener-Waterloo area 

November 8 

It's very late but I've had an idea for the plot, after 

looking at the Kitchener-Waterloo cast options. A plot 

point: When Basil Hallward is painting Dorian Gray, 

Dorian has a nosebleed and some of his blood, i.e., 

his DNA gets mixed into Basil Hallward's paint 

palette. It is through this accidental alchemy that the 

painting of Dorian Gray ages. As for Dorian himself,

GAIL SINGER continued / CASTING ABOUT / 22 

some clever minimal plastic surgery, some makeup, 

some Botox, (why would you inject something into your 

body that has "tox" as part of the word) and secret meetings 

with a stage makeup artist render his face forever, 

well, almost forever, youthful. 

November 9 

And now to cast. 

November 10 

And now! 

November 15 

I think this is the deadline. As usual, I will be just a 

little bit late. 

November 16 

Yup. I'm a little bit late. 

November 24 

I am definitely late. 

November 30 

Back from California. This is how late I am. At least now 

that I am so late I will go with gut instinct. No more 

vacillating. So why am I overwhelmed by the feeling of 

betrayal by my "casting director", the person who 

has presented me with all these options Is it because 

he has sent me some fraudulent photos, i.e.,the same 

person, with wigs and props to disguise them What 

treachery. 

December I 

My choices… I'd better get some sleep before I make this 

final decision… I'll deal with the casting director 

another time. 

November 23 

I HAVE to send this off today, even if I am still unsettled 

about my choices. I can always change my mind. 

I see Dorian as very good looking, with a non-gender 

specific sexuality, sort of like Trudeau (different 

character in all other respects).

December 9 Short list: 

GAIL SINGER continued / CASTING ABOUT / 23 

Lord Henry Wotton 

Rob Waldeck 

Patrick Winter 

Andrew Wright (but NOT Vince Raznik) 

Kevin Casey 

Mike Doughty 

Ian Newton 

Basil Hallward 

Cody James 

Robert Stix 

Brian Brown 

Paul Eichhorn 

Dorian Gray 

Stuart Cybulskie 

Katherine von Cardinal (change the hair) 

Richard Folkerts 

Duchess of Harley 

April Tremblay 

Theresa Miloni 

Virginia Eichhorn 

Janet Dawson Brock 

(Geoffrey James's sibling!) Joan Euler 

Kathleen Bissett 

Lady Agatha 

Alison Burkett 

Barbara Campbell 

Diane Jones 

Tricia Siemens 

Gaye Males (does she have a stage name) 

Mary Voisin 

Sybil Vane 

Hayley Backewich 

Kim Nadeau 

Jessica Talars (a young Catherine O'Hara) 

Lynnette Torok 

Siobhan Fitzpatrick 

Sheila McMath 

James Vane 

Michael Ambedian 

Mother of Sybil Vane 

Barb Reidl 

Betty da Rosa 

Heidi Rees 

Isabella Stefanescu 

Kristine Schumacher 

I'll just stop now.


CASTING 

ABOUT 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

faceLIFT Series: Casting About… 

John Greyson, Helen Lee, Guy Maddin, Gail Singer 

January 28 - March 20, 2005 

Organized by the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery 

Portraits photographed by Andrew Wright 

Exhibition design by Susan Coolen 

Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery 

101 Queen Street North, Kitchener, Ontario Canada N2H 6P7 

T> 519.579.5860 F > 519.578.0740 

E > mail@kwag.on.ca W > www.kwag.on.ca 

KW|AG is pleased to acknowledge the financial support of 

the City of Kitchener, the City of Waterloo, the Ontario Arts Council, 

and Season Sponsor Sun Life Financial.

Casting About Master - Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery

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