september 16 - october 15, 1999
Thursdays through saturdays at 7pm

Salome

a story by Oscar wilde

Constructed and performed by - Hanne Tierney
Flute and saxophone - Sabir Mateen
Double bass and percussion - Jane Wang
Voice of Jokanaan - Balaro Chambers
Lighting design - Trevor Brown

Oscar Wilde's text, Hanne Tierney's disembodied cast, and the live music of Sabir Mateen and Jane Wang tell the strange story of Salome, the Judean princess, and her fatal desire for the prophet Yokanaan, starting September 16, 1999 and running through October 15, 1999, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $15
For reservations call 718.783.4438

Hanne Tierney's abstract theater, performed through the movement and gestures of simple materials and operated on an instrument of strings, a counterweight system of washers, weights and fishing line, is the perfect vehicle for Salome,Oscar Wilde's surreal and poetic play. Silks, coils, and rubber tubing are cast as characters that are essentially line and silhouette, like the figures in Beardley's illustrations. Sabir Mateen (saxophone) and Jane Wang (double bass), two accomplished jazz musicians, blend free-style jazz improvisation with the movement and drama of the piece. Their performance is part of an ongoing live performance experience, being in constant change according to the atmosphere and feel of the piece.

Over the past fifteen years Tierney has developed a form of theater that comes as close to Edward Gordon's Craigs vision of a theater without actors as can be done. Taking the early avant-garde's concept of abstraction to its logical conclusion, Tierney isolates movement and gesture as the essential elements contributed by human actors. Constructing abstract and symbolic forms that move and live through her innovative system of manipulating them, she focuses the attention of the audience on the gesture rather than on the incident it describes. She creates a subtle choreography of form and gesture, speaking the lines of the characters while controlling all movement on the stage through her instrument and in full view of the audience.
"Tierney creates incredible nuances of gesture and expression among inert objects." - Village Voice.

about Salome

Oscar Wilde wrote this adaptation of the Old Testament story of John the Baptist in 1892. Hoping to interest Sarah Bernhard in the title role he wrote the play in French. It was in full rehearsal with Mme Bernhardt playing Salome, when the censor closed it because of the obvious allusions to sexual desire. The first production of the play did not take place until 1896 at Lugne-Poe’s Theatre Libre in Paris. By then Oscar Wilde had already been imprisoned. Wilde used to say that Salome was a mirror in which everyone could see himself: the artist, his art; the dull, dullness; the vulgar, vulgarity.

Hanne Tierney dramatized and performed Flatland, a 19th century geometry book, as part of the Artists in Action project at BAM in 1996 in a collaboration with Jene Highstein. She presented Lorca’s Blood Wedding with Jane Wang (1997) and Chekhov’s The Seagull (1995) at the Sculpture Center in New York. She performed Gertrude Stein’s A Play Called Not and Now at the Henson Foundation International Puppetry Festival in1994, and her Incidental Pieces at Lincoln Center (1992) and at PS1 Museum (1991). Salome was presented as a work-in-progress at the Guggenheim Museum in 1990. Tierney has performed her abstract theater through Europe and the United States.

Balaro Chambers is a resident of St. Johns Place and has performed his version of Romeo and Juliet at the five myles presentation of St. Johns Place on Stage.

Sabir Mateen has performed with many renown jazz players, including Horace Tapscott, Sunny Murray, Butch Morris, Alan Silva, Raphe Malik, Ramond A. King and many others. His recordings include CD’s with One World Ensemble, Sunny Murray, Mark Edwards, Tom Bruno and others.

Jane Wang plays acoustic bass, cello, piano and sings. She has performed with All Nationalities of Women Sextet, the Satako Fujii Band among others, and can be heard on the Lydian People’s Front’s CD, Laundry for the Nineties, and with the Ryo Hashizume Group. She frequently tours in Japan.

Cast in order of appearance:
Narraboth - captain of King Herod’s palace guards, in love with Salome
The Page of Queen Herodias - loves Narraboth
The Palace Guards - guarding the palace garden
Salome - daughter of Herodias and princess of Judeah
Tigellius - chamberlain of King Herod
Yokanaan - the Prophet John the Baptist, imprisoned by Herod in an old cistern
Herod (the Tetrach) - King of Judeah
Herodias -wife of Herod
Dance of the Seven Veils

Stage Manager and Sound - Linda Bjork
Publicity - Heidi Riegler
Light Operator - Eric Wallach

Special Thanks to Phil Soltanoff, Sinje Ollen, and Ondine Galsworthy

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.