\n<\/p>\n
None of this is new in entertainment. Entranced by the possibilities that camera trickery allows, double (or more) performances have been part of film and TV<\/a> almost since the dawn of movies. A number are now classics, from Peter Sellers in \u201cDr. Strangelove\u201d and Hayley Mills (and later Lindsay Lohan) in \u201cThe Parent Trap\u201d to most of the main cast of \u201cBack to the Future Part II.\u201d There\u2019s Jeremy Irons in \u201cDead Ringers\u201d and Christian Bale in \u201cThe Prestige,\u201d Tatiana Maslany in \u201cOrphan Black\u201d and James McAvoy in \u201cSplit.\u201d Nicolas Cage<\/a> received an Oscar nomination for playing twins in \u201cAdaptation,\u201d and also sort of did it in \u201cFace\/Off,\u201d alongside John Travolta. (Technically Kim Novak didn\u2019t play two roles in \u201cVertigo,\u201d but you\u2019d be forgiven for remembering it that way.)<\/p>\n The multicharacter format also persists because, in practical terms, it\u2019s a good way to garner critical acclaim, if you do it right. The performer gets a built-in showcase, a way to demonstrate versatility and range.<\/p>\n Such is the case with both Andrew Scott, who takes on all eight characters in his Off Broadway one-man \u201cVanya,\u201d<\/a> and Sarah Snook, who plays a staggering 26 roles in the Broadway production of \u201cThe Picture of Dorian Gray.\u201d<\/a> Snook\u2019s performance, which was nominated for a Tony on Thursday, has been particularly buzzy; watching it prompts a feeling not wholly unlike the astonishment that comes from watching a virtuosic Olympic gymnast. She\u2019s working at full throttle, switching accents and attitudes, talking nonstop, running around, changing costumes for two hours, no intermission. To many audiences, who know her primarily as the competitive but damaged Shiv Roy from \u201cSuccession,\u201d it\u2019s a revelation. I was exhausted for her by the end \u2014 and I saw the second<\/em> performance of the day.<\/p>\n \u201cDorian Gray\u201d makes ample use of screens hanging from the ceiling, oriented in a phone-like portrait mode, onto which pretaped performances are projected. Sometimes several Snooks appear onscreen; sometimes the onstage Snook plays off them, creating a spectacle that resembles, slightly and not entirely accidentally, the kind of multicharacter tableau that Lander and other creators make use of on TikTok. Midway through the show, Snook\u2019s Dorian Gray becomes obsessed with his phone, and with applying filters to change his appearance, zazzing it up, transforming himself into a being that\u2019s more what might be called yassified<\/a>. He has, in essence, created a digital doppelg\u00e4nger of himself. If you know the story, you know it is not unrelated to his own death. Perhaps, the play suggests, the vanity of the internet has turned us all into multicharacter performers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n