Salome

SUMMARY

Salome rudimentarily follows the biblical story of King Herod and his unbridled lust for his 14 year-old stepdaughter, Salome. Her arousal over and sexual baiting of the pious Jokanaan (a.k.a. John the Baptist) and subsequent rejection by him enrages the teenager. It is, of course, Salome's desire for Jokanaan that causes her to dance before Herod. She ultimately demands Jokanaan's severed head to be presented to her - her fee for an arousing performance. Alla Nazimova's Salome (1923) A review by Lori K. Martin, A Silents Majority Featured Video

CAST / CREW

Al Pacino............. Marisa Tomei....... Dianne Wiest........ David Strathairn....	King Herod Salome Herod's wife, Herodias Jokanaan, John the Baptist.	You are Visitor No: Counter by Escati

ARTICLES

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/79152.html

Complete Casting for Pacino Salome Announced, Playbill

Al Pacino to star in Oscar Wilde's Salome

    Al Pacino, who appeared off-Broadway last fall, will appear on Broadway this spring. The actor will play King Herod in Oscar Wilde's Salome, opening April 30 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Marisa Tomei will portray the title character, best known for her "Dance of the Seven Veils." Also in the cast are Dianne Wiest and David Strathairn. The director is Estelle Parsons. Preview performances begin April 12, and the production closes June 7. Pacino, 62, appeared off-Broadway last October, starring in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Bertolt Brecht's tale of a Chicago gangster.

 

Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei to Headline Broadway Salome, April 12-June 7

    (thanks Karen W. for this info)
    By Andrew Gans, 06 Mar 2003
    Al Pacino will return to the stage this spring in a production of Salome by Oscar Wilde: The Reading.
    Pacino, who spent the fall in the National Actors Theatre's production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, will play Herod in the upcoming Salome revival, which will be mounted at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. A spokesperson for the production confirmed that Pacino will star opposite Marisa Tomei, who will play the title character. (Tomei is also scheduled to star in the upcoming Broadway revival of Sweet Charity in Jan. 2004.) Pacino and Tomei took part in a reading of Salome this past November and December at Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse. Like that production, the Broadway version will be directed by Academy Award winner Estelle Parsons.
    Robert Fox, Daryl Roth and Amy Nederlander will produce the spring production, which begins performances at the Barrymore April 12. The official opening night is April 30, and the 58-performance run will end June 7. The cast will also include Dianne Wiest and David Strathairn.
    Although Parsons and Pacino have been working on a new version of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, that production is on the back burner. Robert Fox, who is producing the Salome revival, told the industry paper, "Oedipus will come later."
   Salome, a tale of lust and revenge, follows the legend of King Herod and his lust for Salome, his young stepdaughter, and her sexual baiting of John the Baptist. Pacino starred in the 1992 production of the Wilde play at Circle in the Square Theatre. The recent Brooklyn workshop of Salome also starred Tim Altmeyer, Jill Alexander, Brian Delate, Daryl Dismond, Timothy Doyle, Andrew Garman, Bob Heller, Owen Hollander, Bob Lavelle, Chris McGarry, Ed Setrakian, Kevin Stapleton, David Strathairn and Dianne Wiest.
    Al Pacino made his Broadway debut in the 1969 production of Does a Tiger Wear Necktie?, earning a Tony Award for his performance. He scored another Tony for his role in the 1977 revival of The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. The stage and film actor was last on Broadway in 1996 in a revival of Hughie, which he also directed. Pacino's other Broadway credits include Camino Real, King Richard III, American Buffalo, Chinese Coffee and Salome. He received the Academy Award for his work in the film "Scent of a Woman" and starred in the recent motion picture, "Simone."

 

    (thanks Lisa W. for this info)
    NEW YORK -- Al Pacino, who appeared off-Broadway last fall, will appear on Broadway this spring.
    The actor will play King Herod in Oscar Wilde's "Salome," opening April 30 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Marisa Tomei will portray the title character, best known for her dance of the seven veils. Also in the cast are Dianne Wiest and David Strathairn. The director is Estelle Parsons. Preview
performances begin April 12, and the production closes June 7.
    Pacino, 62, appeared off-Broadway last October, starring in "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui," Bertolt Brecht's tale of a Chicago gangster.

 

Pacino in Rex Flies into De La Guarda Venue (go to the original story to see a nice pic of Al)

    (thanks Karen Winslow for this info)
   Al Pacino's legit schedule is getting even busier. In addition to The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at Pace and Salome at St. Anne's Warehouse, the Academy Award-winning actor will star in Oedipus Rex and Salome in repertory at the Daryl Roth Theater, according to Variety.
    As we previously reported, the Actors Studio production of Oscar Wilde's Salome, directed by Estelle Parsons, will premiere at the St. Anne's Warehouse in Brooklyn. The presentation, which is described as a "concert reading," will run at the tiny theater from November 11 through December 22. Pacino will star opposite Liev Schreiber, David Strathairn, Marisa Tomei and Dianne Wiest in the drama.
    Pacino has been working with Parsons on Oedipus Rex for almost two years, but, because of the actor's busy schedule, plans to mount a full-scale production of the piece never came to fruition before now. In order to stage the tragedy at the cavernous Daryl Roth Theater, designer Peter Larkin will create a Greek amphitheater in the large space.
    The Daryl Roth Theater is currently home to the long-running hit De La Guarda. The space housed a bank before Roth acquired the building and turned it into an off-Broadway venue; however, seats were never installed in the theater because De La Guarda, which became its first tenant in 1998, is performed around a standing audience. The show is currently booking through December 22. A closing date has not yet been

 

Al Pacino, Marisa Tomei come to Bardavon stage: Readings set for Feb. 5-9, Poughkeepsie Journal

    (Thanks Lisa W. for this info)
    By John W. Barry,
    Oscar winners Al Pacino, left, and Marisa Tomei are shown reading from a scene from Oscar Wilde's "Salome," which will be coming to the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie Feb. 5-9. The production is directed by Oscar winner Estelle Parsons and also includes two-time Oscar winner Dianne Wiest.
    Three Academy Award winners will soon take the stage at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie for a reading of Oscar Wilde's ''Salome'' that is directed by a fourth holder of the coveted statuette. Bardavon Executive Director Chris Silva announced on Tuesday that Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei are set to star Feb. 5 through 9 in a reading of the tale of biblical lust and revenge that in 1892 was banned by the British government. ''Salome'' completed a sold-out, five-week run in December at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn.
    Tickets go on sale today at 11 a.m. at the Bardavon Box Office and Ticketmaster. ''Salome'' builds on the momentum of a banner season for the
Bardavon, which in late 2002 hosted violinist Itzhak Perlman and jam band favorite Medeski, Martin & Wood, and come March will welcome legendary guitarist David Crosby.
    Joining Pacino and Tomei on stage will be two-time Academy Award winner Dianne Wiest. Directing the reading is Estelle Parsons, who has also won an Oscar.
    ''This totally harkens back to what this theater was built for, in 1869, when Sarah Bernhardt, who this play was written for, would play here,'' Silva
said.
    Taking a more contemporary view of the upcoming event, Lawrence Middleton of the City of Poughkeepsie said he might make his first visit to the Bardavon to see one of his favorite movie stars.
    ''He seems just like a regular person,'' Middleton, who enjoyed seeing Pacino in 1997's ''Devil's Advocate,'' said yesterday while pausing at the
intersection of Main and Market streets in Poughkeepsie. ''He always seems so real. He's just being himself. Now that you tell me he's playing there, I'll
plan on going.''

    Exposure to stage
    In addition to thrilling fans of Wilder, Pacino and the others could expose more people like Middleton, who know the actors for their work in modern film, to traditional theater, said the Chairman of the Theater Arts Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
    ''Somebody that may go to 'Salome' because of Pacino and Tomei and Dianne Wiest may see it's wonderful to be in a community like that,'' said New Paltz Theater Arts Department Chairman Frank Trezza.
    He added that a reading with such big names would provide a great experience for his department's students.
    ''It's not enough to talk about theater,'' Trezza said. ''You have to have outstanding models to take them to.''
    Beth Fargis-Lancaster, executive producer of Vassar Powerhouse Theater, said Pacino's decision to appear in Poughkeepsie says a lot about the star.
    ''I think it's great that Al Pacino is into doing a reading, which means for me in the theater ... that he's not an actor satisfied doing any old movie,
that doing a live reading is important to him,'' said Fargis-Lancaster, whose Vassar Powerhouse Theater in past years has staged performances that included Tomei and Parsons.
    Richard Schwartz, chairman of the Manhattan-based New York State Council on the Arts, from which the Bardavon in 2002 received close to $250,000 in taxpayer dollars, said the Academy-Award winning lineup of ''Salome'' says a lot about the community.
    ''I think they should be very proud,'' Schwartz said of the Bardavon. ''This says that the Bardavon is really a player and so is Poughkeepsie -- they can get bigger audiences and support a major, major attraction.''

    IF YOU GO READING
    What -- A reading of Oscar Wilde's ''Salome,'' starring Academy Award winners Al Pacino, Marisa Tomei and Dianne Wiest and directed by Academy Award winner Estelle Parsons.
    Where -- Bardavon 1869 Opera House, 35 Market St., Poughkeepsie.
    Admission -- $60 all seats; $50, Bardavon members. Tickets go on sale at 11
a.m. today. Tickets can be purchased by visiting the Bardavon Box Office at 35 Market St., Poughkeepsie, calling Ticketmaster at (845) 454-3388 or by visiting http://www.ticketmaster.com Only Bardavon members can purchase tickets by calling the Bardavon Box Office at 473-2072.

 

Pacino, Tomei, Wiest and Strathairn in Salome: The Reading, Nov. 12-Dec. 22, 03-NOV-2002

    (thanks Lisa W. for this info)
    Readings of Oscar Wilde's Salome starring Al Pacino, Marisa Tomei, Dianne Wiest and David Strathairn are scheduled for Nov. 12 through Dec. 22.
    The 26 performances of Salome by Oscar Wilde: The Reading will be held at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn; Estelle Parsons directs. The readings will also feature a musical accompaniment composed and performed by Yukio Tsuji.
    Pacino, who starred in the 1992 production of the Wilde play at Circle in the Square Theatre, is currently appearing in the National Actors Theatre's
mounting of The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, which ends its twice extended run on Nov. 10.
    Al Pacino made his Broadway debut in the 1969 production of Does a Tiger Wear Necktie?, earning a Tony Award for his performance. He scored another Tony for his role in the 1977 revival of The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. The stage and film actor was last on Broadway in 1996 in a revival of Hughie, which he also directed. Pacino's other Broadway credits include Camino Real, King Richard III, American Buffalo, Chinese Coffee and Salome. He received the Academy Award for his work in the film "Scent of a Woman" and stars in the New Line motion picture Simone.
    St. Ann's Warehouse is located at 38 Water Street, corner of Dock and Water Streets in Brooklyn. Tickets priced at $50 are now available by calling (866) 468-7619 or by going on-line to www.ticketweb.com.
    By Andrew Gans.

Pacino Unveils 'Salome', NEW YORK (Variety)

    (thanks Lisa for this info)
    Oct. 3, By Robert Hofler - Al Pacino is on a theater roll in Gotham.
    After his Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui at Pace University this month, he will go to a concert reading of "Salome."
    Estelle Parsons, who is directing the Oscar Wilde play, confirmed the project for the month of November at St. Anne's Warehouse. It has been in rehearsals at the Actors Studio for about six months. Pacino will play Herod to Marisa Tomei's Salome. Others in the cast include Dianne Wiest, Liev Schreiber and David Strathairn.
    Pacino appeared in the same role in a 1992 run of the play at Circle in the Square.
    The Actors Studio continues to plan for a full production of Oedipus Rex, with Pacino in the titular role.
    "Plans for 'Oedipus' are floating around in the firmament," Parsons said with a laugh. (Daily Variety first interviewed Parsons about the project more than two years ago.) "We've been rehearsing it on and off for that long," she added. "The role of Oedipus is just too rough on the psyche. Rehearsing 'Salome' has liberated (Pacino) from the horror that is Oedipus."
    Plans are to perform the two works back-to-back in the near, or perhaps far, future. Parsons said they hoped eventually to stage Oedipus Rex in the new, 99-seat Daryl Roth Theater, aka DR2.
    Reports have circulated of a possible Broadway transfer for the National Actors Theater production of The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui Manny Kladitis, the executive director of the Tony Randall-founded company, has called the possibility highly unlikely due to the cast's future work schedules. If the unlikely happens, it is very likely that "Salome" and perhaps Oedipus Rex will be first on Pacino's theater schedule.

He Has His Eye on 'Salome', Is Al Pacino serious? Apparently very.

    (thanks Anne for this info)

    Not your average Hollywood star dabbling in the theater, Mr. Pacino, a former president of the Actors Studio, is spending almost all his time delving into high-minded drama. He is currently in the pricey but sold-out revival of Bertolt Brecht's "Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui," playing at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University.
    But that is just his night schedule. For the last two weeks, Al (I can call you Al, right?) has been rehearsing for another project: Oscar Wilde's "Salome," with Mr. Pacino playing the lustful King Herod, whose fascination with his step-daughter causes all kinds of problems.
    The project, which Mr. Pacino has been working on for several months, with Estelle Parsons directing, is about to step out for a public peek. Beginning on Tuesday — just two days after "Ui" closes — Mr. Pacino will play Herod for six weeks in a staged reading of "Salome" alongside Marisa Tomei as Salome; Dianne Wiest as Herod's wife, Herodias; and David Strathairn as Jokanaan, John the Baptist. The readings will be at St. Ann's Warehouse, on Water Street along the Brooklyn waterfront; tickets are $50, steep for a reading but not for stars.
    Ms. Parsons said "Salome" was developed as a counterpoint to yet another of Mr. Pacino's continuing projects, a soon-to-be-staged Oedipus Rex.
    "Al's been interested in `Salome' for a long time," she said. "And it offers a nice refreshment from doing `Oedipus,' which is a lot of work."
    This is not Mr. Pacino's first swing at Herod; he played the role on Broadway in 1992, getting mainly good reviews for his flamboyant approach. This time around, the plan had been to run "Salome" and "Oedipus" in repertory this winter at the Daryl Roth Theater on Union Square. That plan has been delayed, however, by the continued popularity there of the aerial spectacle "De la Guarda," which has added a D.J. night on Thursdays to spark sales understandably fatigued by a four-year run. Mr. Pacino and Ms. Parsons held a reading of "Oedipus" in the space last year and would like to put their show there, but they have to wait until "De la Guarda" flys away.
    "Daryl is eager to have us," Ms. Parsons said of Ms. Roth, who is presenting the "Salome" readings along with Robert Fox and Amy Nederlander. "And we're eager to go in there."
    Until that happens, however, Mr. Pacino will try out the material at St. Ann's Warehouse, which has become a favorite spot for quirky performances, including a recent show by David Bowie.
    If all goes well, "Salome" could be seen in Manhattan next year, though there is also still a possibility that "Ui" could come to Broadway, in which case Mr. Pacino's already classic, and classy, schedule would be even more complicated. (Just like his characters.)

Alla Nazimova's Salome (1923)

A review by Lori K. Martin, A Silents Majority Featured Video

Here is a review of a performance of Madame Nasimova's 1927 - found at the Ask Jeeves website. Of course there is nothing about Al here, but you can see what the play is about and some history of it's controversy. Thanks Michelle for posting this on the Al Pacino Mailing List.

Salome rudimentarily follows the biblical story of King Herod and his unbridled lust for his 14 year-old stepdaughter, Salome. Her arousal over and sexual baiting of the pious Jokanaan (a.k.a. John the Baptist) and subsequent rejection by him enrages the teenager. It is, of course, Salome's desire for Jokanaan that causes her to dance before Herod. She ultimately demands Jokanaan's severed head to be presented to her - her fee for an arousing performance.

The direction and appearance of the cast is a sight to behold. Herod (played with suitable lechery by Mitchell Lewis) wears a crown of posies, white face make-up and red rouge generously smeared on his lips. Almost immediately, the intertitle bluntly announces: "Herod lusts for his stepdaughter, Salome." Herodias (play with suitable repulsiveness by Rose Dione), with long frizzy hair, and wearing a kind of lace leotard, is jealous of the attention her husband shows her daughter. She asks Herod, "Why are you always staring at Salome?"

Perhaps it is because Salome (played by Nazimova) is dressed in a tunic, slit up the sides. She wears a headpiece covered with balls on springs, vibrating with every toss of her coy, empty little head. Salome is a spite who exudes the debauchery within her blood. She has all the worst characteristics of a teenager with the frightening aspect of imperial power to make everyone pay for her adolescent turmoil. Madame was 42 years old at the time of this production. She was playing the part of a 14 year old princess: pouty, petulant, self-absorbed and vapid. Her body was as tiny and gamine as a teen, and, to her credit as an actress, she actually pulls it off - unless the camera lingers in extreme close-up for too long.

Salome brought with it years of controversy - from its very beginnings. Oscar Wilde wrote the play in French, hoping that Sarah Bernhardt would play the lead. The play was, however, banned by the Lord Chamberlain of France. When it was at last published, it was in French, and sold in purple wrappers. In 1894, Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, translated the play into English and it was published in England a year later with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. Beardsley redrew some of the illustrations the publisher considered "indecent." Richard Strauss wrote his opera based the play in 1905, and its presentation was met with controversy. In 1918, Theda Bara brought forth her interpretation of Salome (Fox) to the screen, and the now-lost film was banned in many areas of the country.

At the time Salome was produced, the Fatty Arbuckle murder-rape trial was under way, and the public was looking with disfavor on the excesses of the film colony. In addition, the system of censorship had only just begun. Any chance that a film with the controversial baggage Salome brought with it being produced by any major production company was frankly slim to none. It was rumored that in homage to Wilde, Madame even made certain that most of the actors in the film were homosexual.

Variety even noted that "the heroic figures were given a decided appearance of effeminacy." However, according to Gavin Lambert's excellent biography Nazimova (Knopf, 1997): "Perhaps because of so many of the actors wore nothing but loincloths, and either Nazimova or Rambova had the idea that some of the court ladies should be played by men in drag, another grew up: the entire cast of the picture was said to be homosexual, in homage to Wilde. According to one of the extras, however, "some of the cast were gay, and some of the extras as well, but there's nothing surprising or unusual about that."

Incidently, Salome is the role that Gloria Swanson's "Norma Desmond" sought to use as a vehicle to make her comeback on the silver screen in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (Paramount, 1950). The infamous play still tours on occasion with the Beardsley inspired sets today.

Madame Nazimova's finished Salome sat on the shelf for a year. When at last it found a distributor, it was not successful. Salome was the finish of Nazimova's career as an independent producer, and in fact, shortly afterward, she retreated to the theatre. It was said that her staged-trained voice (she played Juan Gallardo's mother in the Tyrone Power version of Blood and Sand {20th Century-Fox, 1941}) was "wasted on the silent screen."

Salome was hailed as America's first art film. America didn't seem as much shocked by the film as bored by it. Perhaps America was not ready for art. Or, perhaps America just wasn't ready for Nazimova. Today the same question can be asked of this film - is it a curiosity or is it art?

    THEATER REVIEW | 'SALOME: THE READING', Veils or No Veils, Whatever She Wants She Gets, By BEN BRANTLEY
    There's not one veil in sight, let alone seven. But for once, Salome's mythic dance is effective in exactly the right way: sexy as all get-out and thoroughly demoralizing.
    It is hard not to identify with that old lecher who's been watching her, frozen, through a haze of red light, looking like the ultimate tired businessman. "Wonderful," he says proprietarily, with a Yiddish lilt, at the dance's conclusion. But you can tell this voyeuristic episode has taken a lot out of him.
    The old lecher is a king, Herod by name. And in the smashing new production of Oscar Wilde's "Salome," which opened last night at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, Herod is portrayed by Al Pacino, a specialist in thugs at the top, as a soul encased in the armor of jadedness that comes from years of exercising ruthless power. He is also, however, a man who can be betrayed into visible discomfort, at least momentarily, by his own appetites.
    As for the princess Salome, she is played by another Oscar winner, Marisa Tomei, as an untouched Lolita just beginning to appreciate the power she commands over men. When she dances, she begins self-consciously, experimentally undulating her thighs and exposed midriff. Then by degrees, she succumbs to a gyrating, autoerotic frenzy that chills even as it generates heat.
    Toward the end of preview performances, Ms. Tomei was reported to be so caught up in the moment that she tore off the top of her costume. This didn't happen when I saw the show, but it wasn't necessary. You still had a feeling that this was something you perhaps had no right to be watching. Which is entirely appropriate to a play in which people are forever admonishing one another not to look at the objects of their desire. And in which it is said that what is 
seen in the mirror may be the only image to be trusted.
    "Salome: The Reading," directed by Estelle Parsons, was developed at the Actors Studio and previously staged in Brooklyn and Poughkeepsie, N.Y. The version that opened last night, which also stars David Strathairn and Dianne Wiest, shows the careful collaboration and textual excavation associated with the venerable studio.
    But theatergoers expecting 110 minutes of teeth-gritting kitchen-sink naturalism — in the manner of famous studio graduates like Brando, De Niro and (yes) Pacino — are in for a shock. What Ms. Parsons and company have devised is a strange, shrewdly stylized interpretation of Wilde's densely lyrical text that would seem more suitable to an experimental theater downtown than to Broadway, where plays often look and feel the way they did 50 years ago.
    But while the cast members of "Salome" may not be going for strictly lifelike effects, they're not stinting on feeling. Transforming the play's biblical royals, toadies and men of religion into gargoyles of contemporary archetypes, they find both a scary emotional intensity and a pitch-black sense of humor. In doing so, they make Wilde's most arcane theatrical work feel as luridly 
immediate as this morning's tabloids.
    Written originally in French in 1891, with the idea of Sarah Bernhardt in the title role, "Salome" is by far the hardest of Wilde's plays to bring to credible life. He was then besotted with French Symbolist poetry, and "Salome" is more than anything a chain of glittering images and metaphors that reflect off one another. (Wilde's less than realistic approach to staging is summed up by his suggestion that there be perfume-dispensing censers in the orchestra pit to signal changes of mood.)
    To speak the purple dialogue in the ringing heroic tones "Salome" would seem to demand would turn the play into camp. And really, how can you deliver dramatic moments like Salome's kissing the decapitated head of John the Baptist without inviting hoots? As for that dance of the seven veils, even Rita Hayworth couldn't pull it off (in a 1953 movie, not taken from Wilde).
    A 1992 New York version, which also featured Mr. Pacino as Herod, had critics in amused awe of its star's eccentric performance, but the show was largely dismissed as a mess. Three years later Steven Berkoff imported an English production to the Brooklyn Academy of Music that was an ice-cold slow-motion rhapsody in black and white that brought to mind a German silent movie. The Actors Studio stakes out its own twilight territory between a full physical staging and its self-described status as a reading. There are music stands artfully arranged on the Barrymore stage, and the performers do carry scripts, at least some of the time. But you get the sense that they know their lines as well as they do their phone numbers. And their performances have the rhythmic 
assurance of thoroughly rehearsed vocal parts in an oratorio.
    The pretense of the production as a reading has important advantages, though. It avoids the impossible responsibility of creating a set to match Wilde's fantastical language. And it means that the performers don't have to address one another directly in words that are hard, to put it mildly, to justify as spontaneous conversation. Instead, set off by the ominous, whispery music of Yukio Tsuji and the jewel-toned lighting of Howard Thies, the characters mostly speak to the audience.
    This is appropriate to a play in which vision, it is suggested, is as much of a creation of the mind and the loins as the eye. In the show's opening moments, a young Syrian guard (Chris Messina) sets the tone as, gaze fixed on some ambiguous horizon, he rhapsodizes about Salome, that princess who "has little white doves for feet."
    Not an easy thing to say with a straight face, is it? Mr. Messina delivers his paeans at a high monotonal pitch, like a mooning adolescent. And his voice makes you aware of the painful gap between pretty words and gut feelings. It is an idea that will be explored in nearly every performance that follows.
    As Herodias, Herod's wife and Salome's mother, the tuxedo-clad Ms. Wiest has the straight-backed carriage and stentorian tones of someone born to public life, streaked with a testy impatience with her less patrician husband. Playing the prophet Jokanaan (a k a John the Baptist), Mr. Strathairn has the pale, wild-eyed look of Bob Dylan at his most visionary and an artificially enhanced voice that could peel flesh. And the production wittily summons the gallery of soldiers as a wary chorus and the court's visiting diplomats as a squabbling United Nations.
    But the show is at its most inspired in its presentation of Herod and Salome as different sides of the same expensive coin. Ms. Tomei, a Salome in a runaway state of sexual awakening, looks lithe-bodied and luscious, and she speaks with the petulant breathiness of a 1950's starlet. Mr. Pacino, his stomach straining against his black dress shirt, looks bleary and bloated and talks in the weary, high-pitched singsong of a man who is long accustomed to people hanging on his every word.
    For all their surface differences, they are both spoiled monsters, creatures of vast appetites used to getting exactly what they want. Both Herod and Salome have a habit here of letting their tongues stray out of their mouths, as if in anticipation of tastes to come.
    The plot of the play of course hinges on two specific wants: Salome wants to kiss the head of Jokanaan; Herod wants to see Salome dance. It's that simple. And that complicated. Watching these two pursue their appetites makes this "Salome" a luxuriously and disturbingly entertaining illustration of a dictum well known to people of power of all ages: Be careful what you wish for.

    ONLY AL KEEPS HIS HEAD, By CLIVE BARNES
    May 1, 2003 -- THE nice thing about being Al Pacino is that on Broadway - or just about anywhere there's a the ater - you can do what you like.
    But after seeing his latest show, "Salome - The Reading," I had to wonder why he chose it.
    This production - where the actors carry around scripts -started as a workshop at the Actors' Studio, was performed in Brooklyn and Poughkeepsie, N.Y., before opening here last night after two weeks of previews.
    So you might well wonder when Pacino and co. are finally going to learn their lines.
    Why not a fully staged "Salome"? For that matter, why stage "Salome" at all?
    Wilde's 1896 play, inspired by the Salome paintings of Gustave Moreau and written for Sarah Bernhardt (who very sensibly never played it), is extraordinarily bad.
    For me it comes to life only in Richard Strauss' great operatic version.
    Pacino doesn't have the advantage of Strauss' music, but he's still the best Herod I've encountered.
    Of course, Pacino could read the Congressional Record and make it sound fantastic (please, Al, I'm only joking), and he has an affinity for Herod, the weak, cruel despot who lusts after his willful step-daughter, Salome.
    Pacino has played Herod before, and this new Herod is far more exaggerated - more decadent, more obscenely caricatured and, yes, more whiningly, imperiously effective.
    But despite his bravura high-wire act (just listen to his perverse listing of all the jewels he'll offer Salome if she'll stop demanding John the Baptist's head), he's virtually alone.
    Director Estelle Parsons has done little by way of staging - it seems more like chair arrangement than anything else - and the scenery and costumes almost suggest a high school performance.
    And the cast isn't much more than adequate.
    Marisa Tomei, as a sexpot Salome, substitutes an abdominally virtuosic belly dance for the dance of the seven veils, while David Strathairn produces a gaunt nobility as John.
    As Herod's wife, Dianne Wiest seems oddly detached, like someone who signed on for a production before realizing how small the part was.
    Yet to see Pacino in full flight is worthwhile. Earlier in the season, he starred in an off-Broadway production of Brecht's "Arturo Ui." It was by no means perfect, but I wouldn't have missed it.

SALOME ARTICLE - ADVOCATE.COM

    Al Pacino to star in Oscar Wilde's Salome

    Al Pacino, who appeared off-Broadway last fall, will appear on Broadway this spring. The actor will play King Herod in Oscar Wilde's Salome, opening April 30 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Marisa Tomei will portray the title character, best known for her "Dance of the Seven Veils." Also in the cast are Dianne Wiest and David Strathairn. The director is Estelle Parsons. Preview performances begin April 12, and the production closes June 7. Pacino, 62, appeared off-Broadway last October, starring in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Bertolt Brecht's tale of a Chicago gangster.

 

SALOME ARTICLE

Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei to Headline Broadway Salome, April 12-June 7

    (thanks Karen W. for this info)
    By Andrew Gans, 06 Mar 2003
    Al Pacino will return to the stage this spring in a production of Salome by Oscar Wilde: The Reading.
    Pacino, who spent the fall in the National Actors Theatre's production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, will play Herod in the upcoming Salome revival, which will be mounted at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. A spokesperson for the production confirmed that Pacino will star opposite Marisa Tomei, who will play the title character. (Tomei is also scheduled to star in the upcoming Broadway revival of Sweet Charity in Jan. 2004.) Pacino and Tomei took part in a reading of Salome this past November and December at Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse. Like that production, the Broadway version will be directed by Academy Award winner Estelle Parsons.
    Robert Fox, Daryl Roth and Amy Nederlander will produce the spring production, which begins performances at the Barrymore April 12. The official opening night is April 30, and the 58-performance run will end June 7. The cast will also include Dianne Wiest and David Strathairn.
    Although Parsons and Pacino have been working on a new version of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, that production is on the back burner. Robert Fox, who is producing the Salome revival, told the industry paper, "Oedipus will come later."
   Salome, a tale of lust and revenge, follows the legend of King Herod and his lust for Salome, his young stepdaughter, and her sexual baiting of John the Baptist. Pacino starred in the 1992 production of the Wilde play at Circle in the Square Theatre. The recent Brooklyn workshop of Salome also starred Tim Altmeyer, Jill Alexander, Brian Delate, Daryl Dismond, Timothy Doyle, Andrew Garman, Bob Heller, Owen Hollander, Bob Lavelle, Chris McGarry, Ed Setrakian, Kevin Stapleton, David Strathairn and Dianne Wiest.
    Al Pacino made his Broadway debut in the 1969 production of Does a Tiger Wear Necktie?, earning a Tony Award for his performance. He scored another Tony for his role in the 1977 revival of The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. The stage and film actor was last on Broadway in 1996 in a revival of Hughie, which he also directed. Pacino's other Broadway credits include Camino Real, King Richard III, American Buffalo, Chinese Coffee and Salome. He received the Academy Award for his work in the film "Scent of a Woman" and starred in the recent motion picture, "Simone."

SALOME COMES TO A CLOSE

(thanks Lisa for this info)

    Veils Removed: Oscar Wilde's Salome: The Reading Closes June 12, By Andrew Gans, 12 Jun 2003
    The star-studded production of Oscar Wilde's Salome: The Reading — with Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei — ends its limited run June 12.
    Although the production had originally extended its engagement through June 14, it was recently announced the show would close two days early in order to accommodate Tomei’s busy schedule. (Tomei will begin a new workshop of the Broadway-bound revival of Sweet Charity June 23.)
    Produced by Robert Fox, Daryl Roth and Amy Nederlander, Salome featured direction by Estelle Parsons and original music by Yukio Tsuji. The remainder of the creative team comprised Peter Larkin (set design), Jane Greenwood (set design), Howard Thies (lighting design) and Erich Brechtel and David Schnirman (sound design). The company also included Dianne Wiest and David Strathairn with Timothy Altmeyer, Jill Alexander, Daryl Dismond, Timothy Doyle, Robert Heller, Owen Hollander, Bob Lavelle, Chris McGarry, Ed Setrakian and Kevin Stapleton.
    Pacino, who spent the fall in the National Actors Theatre's production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, took part in a reading of Salome this past November and December at Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse. Pacino also starred in the 1992 production of the Wilde play at Circle in the Square Theatre. The Academy Award winner was deemed ineligible for a 2003 Tony Award nomination because of this previous run.
    Salome, a tale of desire and revenge, follows the legend of King Herod and his lust for Salome, his young stepdaughter, and her sexual baiting of John the Baptist.
    The Ethel Barrymore Theatre is located at 243 West 47th Street.

(6-12-03) SALOME CLOSING ARTICLE - PLAYBILL

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/80080.html 

 

(6-10-03) SALOME - SCENES TO REMEMBER (LA CALENDAR)

    'SALOME: THE READING'    (Article By Stuart Miller)
    The scene: Seeking revenge on the prophet Jokanaan for rejecting her advances, Salome (Marisa Tomei) performs an erotic dance for her lustful stepfather, Herod (Al Pacino), after he promises to grant her any wish.
    Why it's worthy: Some audience members might find Tomei whiny and Pacino shticky, but her swirling, sensual dance strips everything away. It's erotic and emotionally exhausting, leaving both Salome and Herod forever altered. Afterward, Tomei's acting seems deeper, more confident.
    Behind the scenes: Director Estelle Parsons says that because it's a "reading," she was originally uncertain whether Salome would dance at all. The dance differs every night. "It's not choreographed, it's spontaneous," Parsons says. "Marisa takes her shirt off or she may not. And when she feels she has done all she can do, that's when the dance ends."

SALOME NEWS

    (thanks Anne for this info)
    http://www.playbill.com/news/article/79723.html 
    Salome To Close Two Days Early, June 12, By Andrew Gans, 25 May 2003
    The star-studded production of Oscar Wilde's Salome: The Reading, which had extended its limited engagement through June 14, will now close June 12.
    A production spokesperson confirmed that the play - starring Al Pacino as King Herod and Marisa Tomei in the title role - will close two days early to accommodate Tomei's busy schedule. Tomei will begin a new workshop of the Broadway bound revival of Sweet Charity on June 23.
    Two performances of the Oscar Wilde work have been added that final week: an 8 PM performance Monday, June 8 and a 2 PM show Wednesday, June 11. (The show normally plays Tuesday through Saturdays at 8 PM with matinees on Saturdays at 2 PM).
    Produced by Robert Fox, Daryl Roth and Amy Nederlander, Salome features direction by Estelle Parsons and original music by Yukio Tsuji. The remainder of the creative team comprises Peter Larkin (set design), Jane Greenwood (set design), Howard Thies (lighting design) and Erich Brechtel and David Schnirman (sound design). The company also includes Dianne Wiest and David Strathairn with Timothy Altmeyer, Jill Alexander, Daryl Dismond, Timothy Doyle, Robert Heller, Owen Hollander, Bob Lavelle, Chris  McGarry, Ed Setrakian and Kevin Stapleton.
    Pacino, who spent the fall in the National Actors Theatre's production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, took part in a reading of Salome this past November and December at Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse.
    Salome, a tale of desire and revenge, follows the legend of King Herod and his lust for Salome, his young stepdaughter, and her sexual baiting of John the Baptist. Pacino also starred in the 1992 production of the Wilde play at Circle in the Square Theatre.
    Salome plays Monday through Saturday evenings at 8 PM with Saturday matinees at 2 PM. Tickets are priced between $25 and $85. Beginning March 28, call Telecharge at (212) 239-6200 or log on to www.telecharge.com. The Ethel Barrymore Theatre is located at 243 West 47th Street.

SALOME PICTURES

Photos of the opening night of Salome (thanks Anne for this info)
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/79345.html 
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/79152.html 

SALOME TONY ELIGIBILITY

    (thanks Lisa Wollney for this info)
    Tony Administration Committee Announces Additional Eligibility Rulings; More to Come Monday
    By Andrew Gans, 08 May 2003
    The Tony Awards Administration Committee assembled May 8 for its final discussion of eligibility of shows that opened on Broadway during the 2002-2003 season.
    According to a Tony Awards spokesperson, several decisions —including the much-anticipated ruling about the rotating casts of La Bohème — will not be made public until Monday, May 12 at Sardi’s, prior to the announcement of this season’s Tony Award nominations.
    Decisions that were revealed today include the following:
    Oscar Wilde’s Salome: The Reading will be eligible in the Best Revival category, although Al Pacino — who stars in the Wilde opus at the Barrymore — will not be eligible, since he has played the role previously on Broadway. His co-star Marisa Tomei, however, will be eligible in the leading actress category. Salome’s other key players, Dianne Wiest and David Straithairn, will be eligible in the featured categories.

SALOME IN LONDON??

(thanks Anne for this info)

    Fox Hat Trick with Peters, Pacino & Jackman???  9th May 2003
    The Daily Mail reports that three more high-profile Broadway hits could find their way to London at some point, thanks to British producer Robert Fox.His productions of Oscar Wilde's play Salome (See The Goss, 25 Mar 2003),starring Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei, and Sam Mendes' revival of Gypsy (See This Week's Feature), starring Bernadette Peters, have both opened to strong
reviews in the past fortnight (though the latter has been troubled by the illness-forced absences of its leading lady). Coming up in October is The Boy from Oz, starring Australian Hugh Jackman as camp showman Peter Allen. Jackman illuminated the National Theatre's stage in Trevor Nunn's 1998 production of Oklahoma! and has since found international fame for his film roles in X-Men and the just-released X-Men 2. All three productions have previously been tipped for West End transfers; in today's newspaper, Fox
confirmed the plans, though no dates or venues are confirmed.

SALOME REVIEW  

    (thanks Anne for this info)
    Plays Need Reimagining, Not Merely Reviving, By MARGO JEFFERSON
    Theater depends at least as much on revivals and adaptations as on new work. So do dance, classical music and jazz. Why? Because none of them are now at the center of the culture.
    Movies and pop music reign; with mass appeal, you can afford to live in a continuous present.
    A continuous present has its own terrors. Tradition nurtures individual talent and signals cultural prestige, to which every popular form aspires at some point: look at film and jazz studies programs or at the debates over what constitutes authentic rock or hip-hop. Hierarchies emerge; critics and chroniclers debate. They all know that canons are what get you into the history books.
    Still, living slavishly in the past destroys art as surely as it does people. What threatens mainstream theater is night after night of living-dead predictability. Another season of college course classics, from Ibsen to Pinter, done with "déjà vu all over again" fidelity. A Broadway hit from the high-style 1920's or 30's (preferably one that was made into a movie, like "The Women"), cast with actors who have hit television series.
    Haul out an old musical or play: you might get a thrillingly renewed classic with big stars like this year's "Gypsy" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night." (Neither will tour.) More often you'll get a handsome, stilted retread like last year's "Oklahoma!"
    Broadway has even renewed its old power struggle with Hollywood. It takes movies — "Thoroughly Modern Millie," "Sweet Smell of Success," "Hairspray" — and turns them into plays. Then, like generations of studio executives, it rids the adaptation of anything too provocative or eccentric. Faulkner did warn us: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." But he was talking about a past that can hurl bolts of lighting through you. The trouble with theater's past is that it so often feels dead.
    Can theater ever regain cultural power and popularity? Certainly not if ticket prices don't go down. Producers can talk all they want about hooking young people on the live experience only theater provides. But how many young people can or will pay so dearly for that experience?
    Theater also lacks an alternative means of distribution that is less expensive and more convenient. If you can't get to a pop concert at Madison Square Garden, you can buy the CD. If you want to stay home, you can rent a movie or watch one on cable. Of course, there are the spaces Off and Off Off Broadway, where prices are cheaper and inventiveness often greater. But those shows tend to have runs too short to pay for much advertising or to attract the reviews that bring in audiences.
    Nevertheless, we still crave art as live experience, immediate and unpredictable. We want to be part of an audience when something special happens: to jump to our feet, hold our breath, share the laughter or outrage or recognition.
    The theater industry desperately needs to support new work: on Broadway and Off, in the regional theaters and alternative spaces: lofts, art centers, schools, parks. It needs to treat its past as a conduit to our present. To revive means to bring someone or something back to life and consciousness. Adaptation is the process by which an organism becomes better suited to its environment.
    In New York this truth is grasped most often by Off Broadway companies. They are the ones who keep grappling with Shakespeare. Their classics can be unpredictable and exhilarating, from Sophocles to J. M. Barrie (Mabou Mines's "Gospel at Colonnus" and "Peter and Wendy"); Racine to Gertrude Stein (the Wooster Group's "To You the Birdie" and "Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights").
    I've seen brave new forays into Mark Twain (the Acting Company), E. T. A. Hoffmann (Target Margin Theater), Tennessee Williams and Harriet Beecher Stowe (the Drama Dept.).
    The Brooklyn Academy of Music has led the way with new work that integrates theater, music, dance, art and technology. But smaller organizations are doing their part with gusto and great skill. Last fall the excellent early-music group Artek turned a group of Monteverdi madrigals into an enchanting theater piece. And the Eos Orchestra took hold of Wagner's "Meistersinger" and stripped it down to a taut, muscular music drama.
    Recently I have seen two exciting productions. One began at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn and moved to Broadway. The other, which began at the Harlem School of the Arts and moved to the 13th Street Theater, is planning to reopen soon in another Off Broadway house. They make me think that the best revivals share certain characteristics.
    They are based on challenging work that is not regularly staged. The cast works as an ensemble even if there are stars in leading roles. The staging points up the text rather than competes with it. And the relationship between its time and ours is dramatized but not exploited.
    Oscar Wilde chose an accessible legend when he wrote "Salome." We all know the basic story of how this ravishing girl took revenge on King Herod, her lust-driven stepfather, and on John the Baptist, the imprisoned prophet who rebuffed her advances.
    But how do you stage her dance of the seven veils or show us the head of John taken to her on a platter? How do you find the human core of a play that is all incantation and poetic hyperbole? ("Thy mouth is like a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory. It is like a pomegranate cut with a knife of ivory.")
    The Actors Studio does all of this gorgeously in "Oscar Wilde's `Salome': The Reading," at the Barrymore Theater. Note those two words: "The Reading." In theater, tension has to start before any words are spoken. It starts for us here the moment we see actors behind music stands with scripts, and a set bare of anything but chairs. How much will be spoken or read? How much movement will there be?
    Our instincts quicken. When actors face an audience more than they face one another, we have a different kind of experience. We don't just spy on them; we witness their actions. We judge as well as feel.
    The director, Estelle Parsons, plays the tension of the opulent language against this stringent production. The ways the actors dig into their roles makes the language as natural to them as our speech is to us. Al Pacino is greedy, vain Herod; Dianne Weist is his proud, cynical wife, Herodias; Marisa Tomei is Salome, young, moody and spoiled, learning to use a sexual power that excites and repels her. The dance captures all these contradictions; it is astonishing.
    They are arrogant, spoiled people used to ruling. (It is awful to watch their subjects cower and gossip.) They are also frightened. John the Baptist (David Strathairn) and his followers represent a new order. Herod, Herodias and Salome belong to an old one that will soon be swept away by a thundering morality. They boast and quarrel, suffer and lust. And right before our eyes, civilizations rise and fall.
    Jean Genet's play "The Blacks: A Clown Show" is a work of racial exorcism, and when it opened in New York in 1961 it became part of the rising Off Broadway movement and of the civil rights movement. Its cast included Roscoe Lee Browne, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson and Louis Gossett. And it toured the country.
    "The Blacks" is plotted like a thriller; murders and trials take place offstage and on. But the language is exalted (even when obscene), formal and ecstatic. ("Princes of the Upper Empire, Princes of the bare feet and wooden stirrups, on your caparisoned horses, enter!")
    How do you compete with a legendary production that many people still remember? (I saw it as a thrilled teenager.) You reimagine it, taking our lives into account. Every period has its own time sense; as Gertrude Stein put it, "Things move more quickly, slowly, or differently, from one generation to another."
    The original staging had the mocking formality of the minstrel show: the actors were ranged in a semicircle, presided over by a Master of Ceremonies, or Mister Interlocutor. Our time sense is quicker, more offhandedly aggressive. So the director, Christopher McElroen, turns the theater into a black-and-white circus tent. Everything goes on at once, interactively.
    Actors greet us in the lobby, escort us to our seats, talk to us and bring us onstage. They are all around us, trying to break out of the ritual, drawing us into their passion, pushing us back with fierce displays of logic and anger. Like circus performers, they excite and intimidate with their physical virtuosity: commanding gestures, haughty silence, dances and somersaults.
    The actors improvise dialogue, too, according to how each audience, those seated and those taken onstage, responds. But Genet's astonishing words are there, shooting at high speed. There were times when I wanted to hear more clearly, but the audience knows the stakes are high. What we see and hear matters, inside the theater and in the world outside. We feel that what we take from here will matter to how we live and who we are.

NEWSDAY ARTICLE SALOME

    (thanks Lisa Wollney for this info)
    Lunch of 'Salome'
    Recent Columns, April 23, 2003

    'The only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it," Oscar Wilde said.
    Wilde was evoked at a luncheon in Joe Allen's, where a roundtable of theatrical biggies assembled - four Oscar winners and another distinguished player, plus a fine producer. Their questioners: Liz Smith and aide Diane Judge.
    This incredible cast and company of Oscar Wilde's "Salome: The Reading" is currently in previews and opens at the Ethel Barrymore next Wednesday for a limited engagement until June 7. In a long lifetime of interviewing, I had never before sat with such a great gathering of the anointed of theater and film.
    "Salome" is a product of a circle of actors dedicated to what they call "the classics," but, in reality, they pursue more eclectic and intellectual theatrical endeavors. They call themselves The Company, and the company these actors keep is estimable. Their focus is acting for art, with the hope of luring a popular audience, and was dreamed up by one of America's leading thespians, Al Pacino (Herod Antipas), and fellow Oscar winner Estelle Parsons, who directs this work. Two other artists who use their Oscars for doorstops are the gifted Dianne Wiest (Herodias) and the adorably sexy Marisa Tomei (Salome). Also at the table was David Strathairn (John the Baptist), who did such a marvelous, saturnine turn recently in August Strindberg's "Dance of Death." The excellent English producer Robert Fox joined us for coffee.
    Most ordered Joe's famous meat loaf and mashed potatoes, but a few reckless persons stuck with the portobello mushrooms and veggie plate, all of which was passed around. How can this starry group coordinate their demanding schedules to act for the fun of it? "Salome" started in Brooklyn and was a sellout in Poughkeepsie. The plan is to do "Oedipus" again, soon if possible. Pacino shrugged and said, "We have many members and double up on the casts. We fool around and try to get it right and do it for a while." Estelle interrupts, saying, "With all these big names, li

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