For all the high power star hoo-hah of the "importantly" titled "Salome: The Reading", it’s not much more than a novelty event, the value of which depends entirely upon your delight in the stunt.
Oh, sure it’s a stunt. Maybe even consciously, though it’s hard to flat-out label director Estelle Parsons as its mastermind, or to attribute the correct degree of complicity to any of her over-the-title players. And why is it so?
For starters, because Oscar Wilde’s "Salome" is a perfectly terrible play. In fact, this, his first, is barely a "play" at all, but rather a poetic attenuation of a very brief scenario: John the Baptist’s rejection of Salome’s prison advances; Herod’s desire to see Salome dance, over the objections of her mother Herodias, and his offer to Salome of anything she wishes; Salome’s willingness to dance if she can be rewarded with the head of John the Baptist; her dance; and her claim of the reward, over Herod’s protestations. The text offers little more than dialectic and debate, but without the wit that would mark Wilde’s later work or enough variation the argument (a la Shaw) to keep it from tedious repetition. And did I mention the style of both language and presentation is archaic, even by the standards of Mr. Wilde’s day?
The trick, then, is keeping it interesting. Well, stars sure help. Persona doesn’t solve problems, but it can cover them for a time…and that’s precisely what happens at "Salome"–in two layers.
David Strathairn plays Jokanaan (a.k.a John the Baptist) like a man in schizophrenic reverie, less holy than disconnected, obeying only "the voices."
Marisa Tomei assays Salome like a some sexy punker’s idea of what a temptress ought to be–bratty, demanding and brazen.
Diane Weist comes down on the judgmental queen Herodias with grand dame haughtiness, sounding for all the world like voice-over actress June Foray playing the same kind of part in one of Jay Ward’s "Fractured Fairy Tales", or maybe Witch Hazel in that Bugs Bunny Halloween cartoon directed by Chuck Jones.
And then there’s Pacino as Herod. Laconic, whiny, debauched, at the core weak…you’d swear that at times he was doing Richard Lewis, or Jerry Lewis, or Louie Anderson. A biblical bad guy by way of standup.
How the two-layer system works is this: you have the star persona…then you have the caricature exaggeration the star adopts. A hat on top of a hat.
If the play were staged worth a damn, this would not work at all; but since the conceit is to present the thing as a reading–music stands, scripts in hands, the occasional semblance of referring to them, though the text is probably well memorized by now–there’s the leeway to regard it all as what happens when a bunch of headliners get together and sort of wing it over an obscure classic.
It says in the press material that the development of this event was two years in the making.
Yeah, right. Two calendar years maybe, sporadic concentration here and there. But not two dedicated years. Make no mistake, this is not any noble investigation of the material. It’s an actor’s holiday. And not only don’t you mind that they seem to be phoning it in…the giddy brazenness of that is pretty much the point. Again, maybe not consciously…but for you out there thinking about buying tickets, consider this your most accurate consumer report.
And then decide if the call is for you…