Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...Though Wilde’s personal story and that of arguably his most famous creation remain tragic, Dorian also reminds us of the defiant wit the artist used as a cudgel against hypocrisy and mediocrity. Stylish, gritty, funny, and bold, Dorian reminds us, as Wilde did, that “the truth is rarely pure, and never simple.”"
Windy City Times
- Highly Recommended
"...The creative resilience of the LGBTQ+ circle is at the delicious heart of Open Space Arts’s current, very inventive production of Dorian. Indeed, Phoebe Eclair-Powell and Owen Horsley’s play, which energetically retells Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray along with the story of Wilde and his manipulative real-life soulmate, is full of exuberant wit and infectious joy, among our community’s prime weapons against life’s travails."
Chicago Theatre Review
- Highly Recommended
"...This exciting, eclectic and electrifying new work, having its Chicago Premiere at Open Space Arts, is a clever mashup of the fictional novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray and the real life of novelist, playwright and poet, Oscar Wilde. As English writers Phoebe Eclair-Powell and Owen Horsley have shown through their play, the parallels between the two are uncanny. Director Aaron Holland’s dynamic production fuses Victorian attitudes with 21st century sensitivity, style and music. The result is a contemporary-feeling remix, a presentation of Oscar Wilde’s timeless tale of unlimited vanity, living for pleasure and extreme excess. The focus is on an obsession with beauty and self image. This play may, or may not, be the pure and simple truth about the controversial, Irish-born playwright. But then, as Wilde often said, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”"
Buzz Center Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...Chicago is well-known for its hidden gems: speakeasies hidden behind working laundromats, restaurants located down darkened alleyways, and even theatres located in basements and converted houses. One such innocuous playhouse resides in a small, transitioned home studio, just west of the Uptown neighbourhood. Like any hidden gem in Chicago, looks can be deceiving, and the hyper-intimate 25-seat theatre that is Open Space Arts is playing anything but small as they put on the Chicago Premiere of DORIAN."
Chicago On Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...David Zak's tiny Open Space Arts is home to Dorian, a genre-defying, manic, and incredibly creative three-person show that brings new biographical clarity to playwright Oscar Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray by blending it with well-known characteristics and events of Wilde's life. Dorian, written by Phoebe Eclair-Powell and Owen Horsley, is a complete triumph in every way."
Werner's Theatre Reviews
- Highly Recommended
"...Dorian, by Open Space Arts, is more than a clever retelling of a literary classic; it is a defiant act of queer remembrance. By placing Oscar Wilde’s brilliance and persecution side by side, the production refuses to separate art from the cost of queerness in a hostile world."
