“decadent party atmosphere captured perfectly and pleasing to the eye”
The Hoxton Hall was certainly looking the part for Anastasia Revi’s take on this Oscar Wilde tragedy. Centred in this beautifully restored 1860s music hall was a banquet table, draped in red and laden with wine and fruit. Vines tumbled from the upper levels on to the stage. The scene was set.
The events and characters have been re-imagined and the action is now set in the 1930s. Herod (Konstantinos Kavakiotis) is a debonair slightly sleazy gent celebrating his birthday with his Queen (Helen Bang) and guests. In a seamy fashion he begs his beautiful sultry stepdaughter, Salome (Denise Moreno) to dance for him for his birthday and after much cajoling and the offer of any reward she so chooses, she agrees.
Salome performs a ‘dance of seven veils’ for him, satisfying his lust for her. At the end of the dance he asks her her wish. She demands the head of prophet Iokannan (Matthew Wade), much to the horror of Herod. The reason turns out was that she had unreciprocated love for Iokannan (John the Baptist) and this was her cruel revenge. Herod and his servant (Tobias Deacon) try unsuccessfully to lure her with other treasures such as wondrous jewels or beautiful white peacocks. Yet she refuses and her wish in carried out.
Most of the action takes place around the central banqueting table. The parts that don’t are difficult to see – the seating arrangement (with perhaps the most bizarre numbering system ever) made it difficult to see anything other than directly ahead. There’s no rake and the seats are small and close together which didn’t help matters.
The cast were pleasant to watch, beautiful costumes (Valentina Senna) and some nicely paced action. At times some of the delivery was a bit ‘shouty’ making it difficult to fully comprehend what was being said and indeed follow exactly what was going on.
As previously mentioned, the setting for the play was however superb. The decadent party atmosphere captured perfectly and pleasing to the eye. Yet there seemed to be something missing, some how the characters didn’t entirely fit together.
For me the character Eros (Annabelle Brown), who started off as a strangely charming, instrument playing delight soon became irritating and distracting. Some of the scenes as well became hard to follow (possibly due to not being able to see the characters when they moved away from the table).
Altogether fairly pleasing to watch but tricky at times (for me at least!) to follow.
