This new play had received some pretty poor reviews and the Olivier theatre was half empty. As it was, I found the time did not drag though I could see that somehow the play as it is misses the mark.
First of all, what's it all about and do we care? Basically, we have the Romans under Pilate in charge of the Jews - led by Herod who seems to have an incestuous obsession with his daughter, Salome. The question to be answered is why she goes on to demand the head of John the Baptist, thereby provoking civil unrest. The answer seems to be that it is her answer to her father's offer of what she wants if she will dance (provocatively) for him and his men. The problem is it is a very simple storyline but one that is perversely hard to follow. There is the older and younger Salome on stage - that is fair enough and easy to assimilate. Then we have the Romans and Jews. Again, reasonably clear. But then we have John the Baptist, who in the programme is called the zealot, unhelpfully speaking in Hebrew but replied to in English. To make it more difficult and odd, the subtitles of his lines are always party obscured by other actors because they are projected so low down on the back of the stage. All this accompanied by a couple of wailing women who got on my nerves after a while. Surely they didn't wail the whole time in those days.
So the story was not so great and we are left with the language and spectacle - an abstract rather than figurative event. As I said, the time passed and not so slowly. The language certainly wasn't beautiful - like Beckett, say. And the spectacle on stage only really got going towards the end.
What about the acting. They seemed excellent and got a good dose of applause.
So, overall, I don't think I'll have the ghost of a memory for this in a few months time and certainly wouldn't go and see it again. But at no time did I - or anybody else - reach the 'I can't stand any more' threshold
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