SALOME ☆☆☆☆
Lazarus Theatre Company
Greenwich Theatre, London
From the opening scene of the prophet, Jokanaan, walking through a sandstorm to the final image of a semi-naked Salomé straddling Jokanaan while slick with his blood, this is an arresting production of Wilde’s notorious banned play. The bold move to cast a boy to play the title role is the first of many bold moves, not all of which, in my opinion, paid off.
Salomé (Bailey Pilbeam) is the visual and erotic centre of Wilde’s version of the famous Biblical tale. His beauty is commented upon in the very first sentence and to make Wilde’s play so homoerotically charged works exceptionally well. With that simple gender reversal, Wilde’s play turns out to be very, very queer.
The bold move to cast black actors in roles that amplify and complicate the subtle racial politics of Wilde’s text saves it from being an antiquated piece of Victorian Orientalism. It is still that, but in this production it is that knowingly. I don’t think it needed the updating to 2019, with the references to Fake News and the liberal use of swearing. For me these marred rather than aided the connections being made to contemporary politics. It’s enough, I think, that this play is set in the Middle East.
Annemarie Anang as Herodias and Jamal Renaldo as Jokanaan both gave exceptional performances, although the use of a microphone for some of the latter’s speeches made it difficult to hear his words sometimes. The staging and sound worked very well on the whole, but some of the directional choices didn’t work for me.
During the scene where Herod (in a commendable performance by my new crush, Jamie O’Neill) is trying to coax Salomé to approach him, with Herodias at the opposite end of the banqueting table doing her best to protect her son from his lecherous stepfather, my view of the eminently watchable Anang was blocked by Salomé, who I would have placed in the middle of the table, making all three actors visible.
The use of 10cc’s ‘Pina Colada’ added unnecessary comedy, though using Strauss for Salomé’s dance worked really well. The dance itself was more of a striptease, and this is where the full potency of the gender swap really comes into its own, bringing to mind Wilde’s Dorian Gray in its centring on male beauty and another man’s obsession with it.
To have Herod masturbate frantically whilst watching the object of his erotic obsession disrobe, in the presence of his wife and members of his court, was an entirely unnecessary addition, especially when he then flicks his cum over the audience.
I loved the high drama of Herodias’ entrance with the corpse of Jokanaan, dragging it on plastic sheeting, covered in blood. Visually it was arresting and powerful, but Salomé specifically requested his head on a platter and to depart from this important detail felt wrong somehow, although without it we wouldn’t have the extremely disturbing necrophilia of that closing image of a hot blond twink astride the muscled corpse of the man he’s obsessed with, so I remain undecided about it.
Overall, a compelling but flawed reworking of Wilde’s play that is certainly well worth seeing. I will definitely look out for more productions from Lazarus.
Written by Oscar Wilde
Directed and Designed by Ricky Dukes
https://www.lazarustheatre.com/salome-2019 until 25th May 2019
Review by Jonathan KempQueerguru London Correspondent Jonathan Kemp writes fiction and non-fiction and teaches creative writing at Middlesex University. He is the author of two novels – London Triptych (2010), which won the 2011 Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and Ghosting (2015) – and the short-story collection Twentysix. (2011, all published by Myriad Editions). Non-fiction works include The Penetrated Male (2012) and Homotopia?: Gay Identity, Sameness and the Politics of Desire (2015, both Punctum Books).
Labels: 2019, Jonathan Kemp, London, theatre review
