An engaging conversation and interview with Arvind Ethan David about his new project “Gray”. “Gray” is a rework of Oscar Wildes’s novel with a modern twist, and charged plot. The project is an audio drama that touches on heavy issues such as sexual assault and systematic racism all while following the main character, Femme Fatale Dorian Gray. The project is laced with a star-studded cast including Neil Brown, Jr., Lauren Plattan, and many more. David chatted with us about making and writing the project, the political importance, and fun behind-the-scenes moments.
Jadeen Mercado: What inspired this project, and how did it come to life?
Arvind Ethan David: I’m someone who has been lucky to spend his career adapting, reinventing, and expanding the work of my heroes – from Douglas Adams to Neil Gaiman to Alanis Morissette. But my original hero, the writer who first inspired me as a teenager, the most subversive, radical, and brilliant human of his age, Oscar Wilde, I’ve never dared touch.
Until now. About two years ago I had a moment of revelation, that Wilde’s morality tale about a life lived without consequence was uniquely relevant for this moment in American history. For this moment where consequences have finally come to people who have avoided them for too long.
JM: Why was being political important for this project, and why does it work? How is it different from Wilde’s story?
AED: Wilde’s genius was to wrap dangerous ideas about society’s hypocrisy in jokes so funny, and surfaces so shiny, that it took most people almost a generation to notice he was writing radical social critique. So he was always political. His stories are about the dangerous games the powerful and privileged play and how everyone else risks getting casually destroyed.
JM: The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s only novel and one of the classics of gothic literature, is the tale of the most beautiful man of his age, who sells his soul and his conscience in exchange for eternal youth, beauty, and power — and who spends his life murdering, raping and corrupting. All the time in his attic, his picture degrades and rots.
AED: Our “Gray” flips the original’s moral framework and gender archetypes: our Dorian Gray is a social media princess who drifts through the coolest cliques of NYC, living the most debauched of lives, breaking hearts and turning heads wherever she goes. But Dorian has secrets. For one thing, she’s a violent criminal. For another, she’s an immortal creature of magic, hell set on a mission of revenge against some of America’s most powerful men.
JM: Can you talk about Dorian Gray as a Femme Fatale, does she follow a traditional “FF” arc or is this character a more new wave? Also, why is Dorian Gray such a great protagonist?
AED: Dorian is both the femme fatale and the antagonist of our story. She’s both a hero and a villain, a revolutionary and a messiah: someone willing to burn the world down, but also to die to make it a better place.
She’s enormous fun to write, because, like Wilde’s original, she is incredibly, unapologetically, completely herself. Dorian always lives exactly as she likes, does precisely what she wants, doesn’t stop to think about consequences. Because she has never had any. Not for 40 years, since the night that changed everything.
She’s also funny. Because she gets all of Wilde’s best lines, and Wilde’s best lines make the Devil look dumb.
JM: What has been most exciting about seeing the characters come to life through the voices of your star-studded cast?
AED: Hearing amazing actors do amazing dialogue is one of the things that makes me happiest as a storyteller. I can say that the dialogue is amazing, cause whilst some of it is mine, many lines come straight from Wilde, and to hear Richard Schiff deliver a zinger written for Lady Bracknell makes my heart sing.
It’s also been a particular joy to be reunited with my “Dirk Gently” cast after several years. Schiff, Neil Brown Jr, and of course the incomparable Samuel Barnett all developed such amazing chemistry whilst we were making that show together, it’s some kind of wonderful to be together again.
It’s also a thrill to be working with the star of “Jagged Little Pill”, Lauren Patten, who is both one of the best human beings I know, as well as a powerhouse performer, even, it turns out, when doing an English accent and playing a demon of vengeance.
JM: What is special about having this story as an Audio Drama rather than a traditional camera drama?
AED: Our show is told as a “true”-crime podcast, from 20 years in the future, after Gray’s terrible crimes are done, as a brave investigative journalist, Speranza tries to find out the truth of what really happened. What’s so great about that format is it allows us to push the envelope with how “real” everything is, I think if you just tuned in mid-way, you’d be convinced you were listening to something about a real crime, and that opens up some very subversive games to play with our audience.
JM: What are you most excited about when it comes to fan reception?
AED: How we subvert their expectations. We’re trying to do something insanely ambitious here – which is to make something as entertaining and as funny and fast and witty as the original — but also as subversive and thought-provoking. We’re bound to fail because Wilde was a one-in-a-generation genius, and well, I’m not, but our hope is that by standing on his shoulders we can at least leap at the stars.
JM: Can you speak on some of the actor choices, and why they were a good fit for the character, and what they brought to their role?
AED: What was crucial for all of them is a very fine-tuned facility with the rhythm and musicality of a Wildean dialogue. They all have that in spades. In terms of the specific choices, reuniting Richard Schiff and Neil Brown Jr. as detectives once again was just too tempting; and allowing Sam Barnett to be the villain this time, playing a kind of Hannibal Lecter version of the Baron Arnheim was something I wanted to hear.
Dorian took a minute to cast because I kept wondering which English actor should play her, and then stupid me realized that an actor as extraordinary as Lauren Patten could probably do accents. And it turns out, she can.
There is one great role we haven’t yet cast, that of our investigative journalist who narrates the whole story, the mysterious Speranza, and I can’t wait till we meet her.
JM: With “Gray” being quite heavy, what is a humorous tidbit about the project you could share with us? (either writing it, putting it together, actor related, etc)
AED: Reject the premise! We certainly deal with some serious subject matter — Sexual Assault, Racism, the failure of America’s moral culture – but, like Wilde himself, we do so, hopefully, with a lightness of touch. There are giant dildos, and a Camel called Larry; a teleporting monster, evil sex magic, and a thrilling cat and mouse game between an immortal she-demon and a straight-laced cop. What’s funnier than that?
You can find the information for the Kickstarter here. Check out “Gray” on their socials and stay tuned for more information on the audio drama.
Written by Jadeen Mercado
Hi, I’m Lynn, and I Make.
Props, Cosplay, Scale Models, Home Projects, and just about anything else that involves me Making.
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