Salomé - National 2017

That is one way of "leaning heavily"! Really? In toto?

Previews start tonight, I'm going Friday. Back of the Olivier, but can never really complain for 15 quid. Anyone else going?

Same! I'm going tonight

Be careful with a Yael Farber preview, I'll never forget the horrified tweets of those coming out of the first few previews of The Crucible, realising just how close to midnight they now were.

It says that it's 1 hour and 50 minutes with no interval, so hopefully I'll be free before midnight

Oh my, Yaël Farber takes herself very seriously, doesn't she? Here there are my thoughts about the play, it contains spoilers, so read at your own risk.

For Pontius Pilate is the last night as prefect of Judaea and before going back to Rome he visits an old, nameless woman who has been in prison for many years: her crime is having ordered the execution of Iokanaan the Baptist. She won't speak to Pilate, but she tells the audience her story, the story of the so-called Salomé. Judaea is a Roman prefecture held, at least nominally, but the client king Herod, who has had his brother killed, married his wife and adopted his niece (it's all very hamletic). Judaea struggles in mantaining its traditions and spiritual indipendence under the Roman domination, as Salome struggles in keeping her lustful father-uncle away from her. Both fail.

One day, Iokanaan comes from the desert and starts preaching salvation and a freedom beyond the Roman conquest. The priests are worried but Pilate decides not to make this man a martyr, since killing such a beloved figure would fuel an uprising against the Roman conquerers. Thus, they have him imprisoned in the castle of the Tetrarch Herod, where Solamé visits him in his cells and where he baptises her. The young princess loves her people and wants to get rid of the Romans, so she understands that the only way to do that is to sacrife the Baptist. She dances the dance of the seven veils and, when Herod promises her half of his kingdom as a ricompense, she wants the head of Iokanaan. The prophet is killed, the people revolts and the Romans have to leave - at least temporarily - Judaea, not before having condamned Salomé to a fate worse than death.

Farber's retelling of the story is deeply political and it deals with colonialism, emperialism and the erasure of female figures from history. Iokanaan is not interested in spiritual salvation, but in converting his people to the cause of indipendence: he's the only character who does not speak in English, but in Hebrew (it might be Aramaic, sorry I don't know!), remarking his identity against the English-speaking collaborationists. Young Salomé, who stays silent for the first hour, speaks the same language of the prophet in their scene in the cell, again to highlight that despite her privileged position as the step-daughter of the tetrarch she despises the Romans and wants her land back.

Now, this is all very interesting, but it doesn't work as well as it should. The dialogues are clumsy and even worse when they try to be poetic. Having the old Salomé/Nameless woman on stage all time as a narrator that also speaks most of her younger version's lines is not a very good idea: narrators rarely work in plays and this is no exception. Farber's direction is very interesting, but far too obtrusive: it's suggestive and, occasionally, even beaituful, but surely isn't subtle. There is also this very long frontal nudity of Salomé in the cell with Iokanaan that felt totally unnecessary. Farber creates these beautufil tableaux (like at the beginning, when the men recreate the position of Leonard's Last Supper for no reason at all, or when Salomé leaves the prophet's cells) and many moments are more suggestive than graphich, which some time works very well (Salomé's rape) but other times is a bit of a let down (don't expect her to actually dance in the sevel veils scene! which makes absolutely sense in this production, but still). I don't know too describe it, but there's really too much Farber in this, the director is always there shouting "look at how stagey I am!". She should have let her actors and story breathe, but she's constantly sucking out the oxygen: she recurs to her bag of tricks that include women chanting all the way through the play and the random dude walking around the stage (see 'Les Blancs').

Olwen Fouéré is great as the Nameless Woman/Old Salomé/Narrator/Translator, she's the quintessence of dignity in chains and quite diaphanous in her ghostly whiteness. Isabella Nefar is good as Young Salomé, but with Fouéré constantly stealing her lines her performance is a bit unexplored. Ramzi Choukair is also very good (and unspeakably hot) as the Prophet, while Paul Chahidi is a very creepy Herod, but he's creepy in everything he does so I'm not sure if it's acting or what. Lloyd Hutchinson (Pilate) is far too old to be that bad, it's one of the worst performances I have ever seen. The rest of the cast is meh, with the exception of Lubana Al Quntar and Yasmin Levy, that sing beautifully for almost two hours.

Also, I was sitting near the center of the second row and the staging blocked my view of the surtitles of Iokanaan's speeches: I missed 3/4 of what he said and he talks quite a lot, so this really didn't help me enjoying the play. There is a long a catwalk from the stage to the central aisle and Old Salomé spends there most of the time: basically, she was almost always behind me and I suspect that she obstructed the view of the stage to a lot of people.

It's such an interesting concept and the last 10-15 minutes are powerful, I'm sure a lot of people will like it and that it will get positive reviews. But for me there were too many tricks and not enough substance.

Slightly under 2 hours, no interval

Thanks for that, couldi, tho I'm not sure it is my cuppa now I've read your summing up.

The opening scene of Oscar Wilde's play - soldiers outside the palace, commenting on how lovely Salome is tonight - finally arrives in this production 65 minutes in. Not the same scene but a version of it. A few other vaguely familiar scenes involving Herod (there is no Herodias) follow, otherwise Wilde is pretty much shut out - which is the reason why his name appears nowhere in the credits pages of the programme.

This is Yael Farber's play and she's not interested in depicting a sexy spoiled princess throwing a tantrum over this prophet fellow who rejects her advances. She wants to give Salome a place in history. And she has concocted an alternative version of the story to do just that. She has given it a political context, brutal colonizing Romans versus oppressed Jews. Jokanaan is less a religious zealot than a freedom fighter, rousing the people. And Salome... it's rather like the way Judas was depicted in Kazantzakis's novel The Last Temptation of Christ. Not a betrayer but a true friend of Jesus, the only disciple who could be trusted to Do What Had To Be Done. Similar here.

The story is told in flashback by Old Salome (yes, she has survived) and Pontius Pilate who frame things and raise the appropriate questions and if their scenes are a bit long winded and portentous they are clearly necessary. For the main part of the tale is performed as highly stylized ritual. Everyone moves in slow motion. The lines are loudly declaimed, chiefly to the audience. The mise-en-scene is a series of beautifully lit and wonderfully staged tableaus. It feels as if every movement, every step, has been choreographed. Ms Farber is, of course, brilliant at this sort of thing. She has a concept and she carries it through in total. We do not just watch this show, we experience it.

The cast is excellent, fully committed to the style of the piece. The standout, as he should be, is Jokanaan, played with wild desert fervour by Ramzi Choukair, a French Syrian actor who speaks his lines in (as couldileaveyou noted above) either Hebrew or Aramaic with a translation on the back wall. If it sounds pretentious it doesn't come off that way - it's extremely effective. Paul Chahidi is an appropriately seedy Herod, the one truly animated character. And young Salome herself, Isabella Nefar, is exactly what's required. She has a physical beauty and a quiet regal bearing - she is silent for the first half of the play - that comes from a place of genuine strength. She is not required to do the Dance of the Seven Veils but she does remove seven layers of clothing in a disrobing scene that has nothing to do with exploitation and everything to do with dignity and committment.

The show plays straight through, one hour and fifty minutes. I won't say it doesn't have its longeurs, it does. And Ms Farber's concept does not always convince. But this is a stunning piece of theatre, not just involving but enveloping. The story of Salome has never been told better.

I agree with you. Glad I saw it but really expected more. Wanted her to dance the dance. John the Baptist was very good.

Style over substance for me. Visually and sonically stunning, wafer thin plot and dialogue very thin on the ground marks it down for me. The dance is there, and possibly my favourite bit, but not traditionally staged. 45 minutes of show stretched to a plod. Sadly think she should stick to purely directing.