Saw Oscar Wilde's Salome last night with friends. Al Pacino as Herod, Dianne Wiest as Herodias, David Strathairn as Jokanaan (a/k/a John the Baptist), and an absolutely revelatory Marisa Tomei in the title role. I've never seen a more powerful evocation of the self-centered destructive petulance and entitlement of a sexually awakening child. Tomei's (veil-less) dance of the seven veils was alluring, arresting, and terrifying. It felt like something I shouldn't be watching. (Fortunately she didn't rip off her blouse during the dance, as she is reported to have done during one preview performance, so caught up in the moment was she. I don't know if my ticker could have taken it.)

Pacino is always fun to watch onstage, though the wheedling way he kept repeating the "Sahh-luh-mayyyyy" grated on my nerves. In an almost pleasurable way.

The play was staged as a reading. I emphasize "staged," because despite the fact that the entire cast had script books in hand, they didn't refer to them much. The play was obviously well-rehearsed, and designed to draw attention to the lovely language. As Laura said, the entire last third of the play, with the dance, then Herod's long long speech trying to talk Salome out of her request for Jokanaan's head, then Salome's long speech to Jokanaan's head, was riveting.

After the show, we were clustered on the sidewalk in front of the theater, but well away from the stage door where a crowd had gathered for a glimpse of Pacino. While the crowd was intent on their goal, David Strathairn ambled quietly out the front door of the theater in jeans and a sweatshirt, crossed the street, and then stood well down the block under the awning of the Hotel Edison watching the huge knot of theater-goers. When he realized that our group was watching him, he continued on his way. No one spoke to him, and no one seemed to have spotted him.

Then Pacino made his grand exit, waving to the crowd and pointing to people as police escorted him into a huge black SUV waiting at the curb. He kept waving and pointing out the window and smiling as he was driven off into the night.