A new production of Oscar Wilde’s haunting play Salomé from the Israeli Gesher Theatre company comes to the Theatre Royal Haymarket this autumn.
Salomé premiered in 2024 as part of Jaffa Fest, and this co-production between the Tel Aviv-founded Gesher Theatre and Theatre Royal Haymarket takes place in the West End from September 30 to October 11, with an exclusive performance hosted by the JC on October 9.
Written by Wilde in 1891, the lyrical one-act play tells the biblical story of Salomé, the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, her infatuation with John the Baptist and the deadly results of her advances being spurned.
Salomé caused a scandal when it was first created. Banned in Britain by the Lord Chamberlain – who referred to an old law against the portrayal of biblical characters on stage – two weeks into rehearsals, with Sarah Bernhardt playing the lead, the play was never seen performed in London by its writer.
The ban was lifted in 1931, when it played at the Savoy Theatre and marked Wilde’s first great theatrical success. The mysterious Jewish princess captured artistic vision in Europe for centuries and became a worldwide cultural classic, spawning Richard Strauss’s popular 1905 opera.
One of Europe’s leading directors, Russia-born Maxim Didenko, brings the themes of desire, power and obsession to the fore in this stylised production that combines elements of French Symbolism and the 19th-century literary and artistic Decadent movement. The show promises to be, “bold, provocative, drenched in poetic decadence” and “a haunting exploration of power, eroticism, and the price of forbidden longing”.
Len Blavatnik is co-producer, while designer Galia Solodovnikova, winner of the 2024 Off West End Award for Best Set, brings the set to life alongside lighting artist Gleb Filshtinsky and French composer Louis Lebe. Based in Jaffa, Gesher Theatre (Gesher means “bridge” in Hebrew) has a repertory troupe of immigrant artists and a mission to build bridges between cultures.
This is Gesher’s first return to the UK in more than 25 years; the company played at the Barbican in 1999.
Book here for the 9 October evening performance plus a JC exclusive post-show Q&A with the cast and creative team
