June 2, 2010
I entered the Playhouse to see a bare stage, lit by ranks of floodlights. Dirty, dangerous-looking men, half-clad in camouflage gear and carrying AK-47s, strut about like posturing child soldiers in an warlord's camp. If any of the audience had come along expecting a gentle society satire (the Importance of Being Salome?) it was pretty clear they weren't going to find it here.
No taboo was left unviolated as we dived headfirst into the desperate debauchery of Herod's court; simulated buggery, masturbation, paedophilia and brutal dismemberment were all on show, with a dash of necrophilia to spice things up. The original play's blasphemy and stripping (which led to it being banned from the London stage until after Wilde's death) are now so uncontroversial as to be practically expected. It was refreshing to know that even a 21st century audience could be shocked, and all credit to Headlong theatre for recapturing a little of the risqué element of Salome. Even more impressive, it never felt gratuitous, but a natural extension of the astonishing performance.
In a word, Salome was spectacular. Whether it was Seun Shote's Iokanaan- all sculpted muscles and booming apocrypha- getting dragged from his underground cistern-cell by his chains, or Salome dancing like a mixture of Britney Spears and Spearmint Rhino's finest, this production never failed to astonish, to shock, or to entertain. A stark, almost brutal staging and some very clever (but not showy) use of lighting and sound set the scene- first-century Judea, with the grandeur of fin de siècle Paris peeling away to reveal the corruption and brutality of a third-world dictatorship.
Every actor displayed a brilliant physicality- at times it felt more like dance than theatre- but not one failed to deliver a cracking performance. Wilde’s play has been called unstageable, and not just because of its fraught production history. Although rich with the poetic style that runs through his short stories, Wilde’s text is at worst turgid, awkward and more or less ignores the requirements of drama- like believable characters or pacing that doesn’t threaten the onset of narcolepsy. But in the skilful hands of Jamie Lloyd and his cast, these weaknesses were transformed into triumphs.
Wilde's purple prose was rendered- after a slightly clunky start- into gripping dialogue. The actors struck a perfect balance: realistic depictions of people caught in desperate situations, overwhelmed with lust, fear, madness and religious awe were mixed with a sense of the epic and the tragic. The result was a faintly dreamlike atmosphere, with the corruption of the tetrarch’s court dripping from every poetic syllable. It reminded me of the very best productions of Shakespeare, with beautiful language brought alive by brilliant performances.
The mood could turn in a skipped heartbeat from black comedy to brutal classical tragedy, with plenty of blood to grease the transaction. Con O'Neil's Herod played his role with the verve of a brutal warlord, tempered with the fear of a guilty murderer. His desperate proclamation “I forbid this messiah to raise the dead!” was followed by the despairing whisper of “It would be terrible if the dead came back to life.” As his eyes flick guiltily to the cistern where he had his elder brother strangled, we get a real glimpse of a tortured soul. Jaye Griffiths as Herodias, Herod’s wife, gave an equally powerful performance, continually teetering on the edge of her husband’s fading interest in her and impotently raging at Iokanaan’s pronouncements.
There wasn’t a single weak link in this entire production. Particularly impressive were Richard Cant as the page and Vyvelle Croom as Naaman, but every actor brought a personal touch to roles that can be little more than ciphers delivering exposition. Even Zawe Ashton's petulant, cruel Salome, very literally a little princess, became tragically pathetic, even endearing as the play progressed. She portrayed a young woman overcome with obsession, twisting the men around her with an emerging sexuality she didn’t yet understand, out of her depth and fatally naïve.
Headlong theatre have succeeded in staging a famously “unstagable” play, and they've done it with a mix of spectacle and theatrical power rare anywhere.
No taboo was left unviolated as we dived headfirst into the desperate debauchery of Herod's court; simulated buggery, masturbation, paedophilia and brutal dismemberment were all on show, with a dash of necrophilia to spice things up. The original play's blasphemy and stripping (which led to it being banned from the London stage until after Wilde's death) are now so uncontroversial as to be practically expected. It was refreshing to know that even a 21st century audience could be shocked, and all credit to Headlong theatre for recapturing a little of the risqué element of Salome. Even more impressive, it never felt gratuitous, but a natural extension of the astonishing performance.
In a word, Salome was spectacular. Whether it was Seun Shote's Iokanaan- all sculpted muscles and booming apocrypha- getting dragged from his underground cistern-cell by his chains, or Salome dancing like a mixture of Britney Spears and Spearmint Rhino's finest, this production never failed to astonish, to shock, or to entertain. A stark, almost brutal staging and some very clever (but not showy) use of lighting and sound set the scene- first-century Judea, with the grandeur of fin de siècle Paris peeling away to reveal the corruption and brutality of a third-world dictatorship.
Every actor displayed a brilliant physicality- at times it felt more like dance than theatre- but not one failed to deliver a cracking performance. Wilde’s play has been called unstageable, and not just because of its fraught production history. Although rich with the poetic style that runs through his short stories, Wilde’s text is at worst turgid, awkward and more or less ignores the requirements of drama- like believable characters or pacing that doesn’t threaten the onset of narcolepsy. But in the skilful hands of Jamie Lloyd and his cast, these weaknesses were transformed into triumphs.
Wilde's purple prose was rendered- after a slightly clunky start- into gripping dialogue. The actors struck a perfect balance: realistic depictions of people caught in desperate situations, overwhelmed with lust, fear, madness and religious awe were mixed with a sense of the epic and the tragic. The result was a faintly dreamlike atmosphere, with the corruption of the tetrarch’s court dripping from every poetic syllable. It reminded me of the very best productions of Shakespeare, with beautiful language brought alive by brilliant performances.
The mood could turn in a skipped heartbeat from black comedy to brutal classical tragedy, with plenty of blood to grease the transaction. Con O'Neil's Herod played his role with the verve of a brutal warlord, tempered with the fear of a guilty murderer. His desperate proclamation “I forbid this messiah to raise the dead!” was followed by the despairing whisper of “It would be terrible if the dead came back to life.” As his eyes flick guiltily to the cistern where he had his elder brother strangled, we get a real glimpse of a tortured soul. Jaye Griffiths as Herodias, Herod’s wife, gave an equally powerful performance, continually teetering on the edge of her husband’s fading interest in her and impotently raging at Iokanaan’s pronouncements.
There wasn’t a single weak link in this entire production. Particularly impressive were Richard Cant as the page and Vyvelle Croom as Naaman, but every actor brought a personal touch to roles that can be little more than ciphers delivering exposition. Even Zawe Ashton's petulant, cruel Salome, very literally a little princess, became tragically pathetic, even endearing as the play progressed. She portrayed a young woman overcome with obsession, twisting the men around her with an emerging sexuality she didn’t yet understand, out of her depth and fatally naïve.
Headlong theatre have succeeded in staging a famously “unstagable” play, and they've done it with a mix of spectacle and theatrical power rare anywhere.