National Theatre's Salomé - intertwining two stories of oppression and occupation: one political, the other personal

The National Theatre’s performance of Salomé was beamed into cinemas this evening as part of its NT Live programme.

It’s a novel reworking of the tale that is briefly mentioned in the Bible but has been expanded in countless pieces of art and culture, not least in Oscar Wilde’s play which popularised the notion of a dance of the seven veils and formed the basis of the opera (most recently performed in Belfast by NI Opera back in February 2015).

Yaël Farber’s version intertwines two stories of oppression and occupation: one political, the other personal.

The prophet who preaches outside the authority of the Temple is willing to die but Herod the Tetrarch (Paul Chahidi) knows he must not kill John the Baptist (Iokannan the Zealot played by Ramzi Choukair) for fear of a popular uprising. So instead he is kept incarcerated in, force fed and forgotten.

Herod lusts after his step daughter Salomé (Isabella Nefar). She in turn is fascinated by John and he inspires her to start her own sexual revolution with a ritual of passing through seven gates and casting off the accoutrements which so attract her perverse father (who fancies her as the next Queen of Judea) in order to find freedom. And so when he asks her to dance and give herself to him, the femme fatale in return calls for the one thing he truly politically fears.

The story is narrated in flashback by an older ‘nameless’ Salome (Olwen Fouéré) who has been incarcerated and forgotten, much like the man whose death she requested. Pilate faces a deadline and is running short of time to extract the story from the woman who has kept her silence for so long.

Susan Hilferty’s set of rotating concentric circles at times leaves the powerless going round in circles while the women take control. In fact that’s the point of this production: putting women back in control of a plot that has for so long been written by men projecting their own notions onto the women in the story. Metaphor piles on top of metaphor – much like the grains of sand that slip through Salomé’s fingers and form heaps on the stage floor – and her own violation seems to be mirroring the colonisation of Judea by the Romans.

Biblical imagery and Hebraic singing are constant companions to the unravelling story. Iokannan only ever speaks in Arabic (subtitled), and in finding her route to freedom, young Salomé joins him and switches away from English. The atmosphere is electric, though the amount of water on stage must make the NT’s electricians into nervous wrecks. (Given a bigger budget perhaps fire could have been added to the water earth and air that are already in the production.)

Overall, the novel adaptation of the story together with the big production values that would elude all but the largest producers of theatre made this version of Salomé a very worthwhile trip to the cinema.

The only thing that spoilt it was not the obtuse and poorly poetic script. Now was it the dramatic use of big billowy curtains comes over a bit too Eurovision at one point.

The downside of watching Salomé on the cinema screen was the ever so slightly aloof mindset of some fellow punters who talked louder than they normally would in the QFT. Someone even got up and went out, not to the toilet, but to the bar for a refill of coffee at one point. At least the incessant text message beeps that interrupted the play’s introduction were silenced by the time the actors stepped onto the stage.

Salomé continues to run in the National Theatre's Olivier Theatre in London until Saturday 15 July. 

Photo credit: Johan Persson