Maxim Didenko’s production of Salomé, performed by the Gesher Theatre, presents audiences with a heady mix of lust, loss, divinity, destiny, and death. With a runtime of one hour and forty minutes—and no interval—the opening half of this latest adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play unfolds slowly, yet it is elevated by a haunting musical accompaniment and charismatic central performances. The descent into sensuous brutality that constitutes the play’s climax lingers long after the curtain falls.
Maxim Didenko’s production of Salomé, performed by the Gesher Theatre, presents audiences with a heady mix of lust, loss, divinity, destiny, and death. With a runtime of one hour and forty minutes—and no interval—the opening half of this latest adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play unfolds slowly, yet it is elevated by a haunting musical accompaniment and charismatic central performances. The descent into sensuous brutality that constitutes the play’s climax lingers long after the curtain falls.
First published in 1893 in French, Wilde’s Salomé was initially banned from the British stage for depicting biblical figures. It would not receive its first UK performance until 1906, at London’s King’s Theatre—six years after Wilde’s death. The play draws on the New Testament story of the beheading of John the Baptist, known here as Jokanaan. Wilde transforms this biblical episode into a fevered exploration of desire, power, and the consequences of obsession.
At its core, Salomé is a play about the dangers of desire: whether fulfilled or denied, every longing exacts a price. Salomé herself is a creature of desire, surrounded by men who covet her—from humble soldiers to the mighty tetrarch of Judea. Neta Roth captures her sense of reckless entitlement with skill, embodying a spoilt princess accustomed to always getting her way.
Her dramatic counterpoint is Jokanaan (Shir Sayag), a prophet devoted only to serving God and proclaiming His message, which condemns Salomé’s family as incestuous. Jokanaan not only rejects Salomé’s advances but is repulsed by her. Sayag’s performance borders on the grotesque—almost Gollum-esque—and occasionally falters in its conviction, yet his extraordinary voice more than compensates. His choral proclamations resound with an almost otherworldly power. This integration of live Hebrew song, absent from Wilde’s text, emerges as one of Didenko’s most striking innovations.
Doron Tavori is electric as Herod, the tetrarch of Judea, imbuing the role with a flighty eccentricity that is by turns charming and exasperating. His jittery energy and offbeat delivery inject the production with fresh momentum at the halfway point. Among the supporting cast, Lena Fraifeld stands out as Herodias, whose imperious bearing and physical expressiveness reveal her background as a dancer.
The set is minimalist yet powerfully suggestive: a small bar, some cushions, and—dominating the stage—a vast water cistern that anchors both the action and the play’s sexual undercurrents. As the brief onstage nudity reminds us, Salomé is a work steeped in erotic symbolism, and water imagery carries potent biblical resonance. By the end, both stage and performers are literally drenched in the consequences of desire.
Ultimately, the Gesher Theatre’s Salomé succeeds as a disturbing meditation on the cost of getting exactly what one wants. It builds slowly but confidently toward a series of emotional crescendos, weaving together set, sound, and performance to deliver a bold, unsettling, and memorable theatrical experience—made all the more impressive by the fact that the entire cast performs in a second language.
Salomé by Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
Creative Team:
Director: Maxim Didenko
Set and Costume Designer: Galya Solodovnikova
Lighting Designer: Gleb Filchtinsky
Composer: Louis Lebée
Movement Director: Polina Dreydem
Musical Director: Evgenia Nathanova
Cast includes: Doron Tavori (Herod, the tetrarch of Judea), Lena Fraifeld (Herodias, his wife), Neta Roth (Salomé, her daughter), Shir Sayag (Jokanaan, a prophet), Nir Knaan (Pianist).
Running Time: 1 hour 40 minutes (no interval).
Until: Sunday 11th October 2025
Photo credit: Isaiah Fainberg