Oscar Wilde's Salome: the Reading Will Not Tour in California

By: Apr. 11, 2005
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Variety reported yesterday both that Oscar Wilde's Salome: The Reading was to launch a a month-long California tour starting at the end of the month, and then that the tour had been called off. Cited for the reason of the cancellation were scheduling conflicts. The staged reading of the decadent classic was expected to play the California Theatre for the Performing Arts in San Bernadino from April 25-27 and then to tour seven other cities.

Oscar Wilde's Salome: The Reading, which originally played at St. Anne's Warehouse in Brooklyn, opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on April 30, 2003. Directed by Estelle Parsons and starring Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei, the show played concurrently with an off-Broadway Oedipus Rex also conceived by Parsons and Pacino. The starry supporting cast also featured Dianne Wiest and David Straitharn, along with Timothy Altmeyer, Jill Alexander, Daryl Dismond, Timothy Doyle, Robert Heller, Owen Hollander, Bob Lavelle, Chric McGarry, Ed Setrakian and Kevin Stapleton. While Wiest will be performing off-Broadway in The Memory House, Pacino and Tomei will repeat their roles (Herod and Salome, respectively) on the California tour. The rest of the cast has yet to be announced.

Salome is the highly stylized biblical story of the Judean princess of the title. Lusting after John the Baptist, Salome sexually manipulates her stepfather King Herod by performing the dance of the seven veils. Her conditions for the performance?--the head of her beloved brought to her on a silver platter.

Ben Brantley of The New York Times was captivated by the production, calling it "a luxuriously and disturbingly entertaining illustration of a dictum well know to people of all ages: Be careful what you wish for."

While film legend Pacino needs no introduction for his decades-spanning work as a movie star, he also has extensive theatre credits. He has won two Tonys for Best Actor in a Play: for his 1969 Broadway debut in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?, and for his performance in the 1977 revival of The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. He has also acted on Broadway in Camino Real, Richard III (the inspiration for his film Looking for Richard), Chinese Coffee, American Buffalo, and Hughie (which he also directed).

Parsons, also a noted screen actress (and current Artistic Director of the Actor's Studio), has appeared on Broadway in over two dozen productions. She earned Best Actress in a Play Tony nominations for 1968's The Seven Descents of Myrtle, 1971's Miss Reardon Drinks a Little and 1978's Miss Margarida's Way. She was nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the 2002 revival of Mornings at Seven, and recently starred in the Paper Mill Playhouse musical Harold and Maude.

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