Critical response Upon release,
National Theatre Live: Salomé received mixed reviews from critics. Several critics noted that Farber’s
Salomé is a revisionist, feminist retelling:
The Arts Desk and
The Independent stated that she seeks to restore a “lost voice” to a historically sidelined female figure. In his review for
The Guardian,
Michael Billington gave the film a 2 out of 4-star rating and the production a negative review, calling it "slow-moving and portentous." He did claim it was visually ambitious and that there was much to enjoy in its design elements, while Yaël Farber's script was "terrible," with florid, archaic language weakening the drama. Billington noted good performances from
Olwen Fouéré and Isabella Nefar but concluded that the aesthetic power of the production was undermined by its overwrought text. He also noted that the stage pictures may be impressive, but they are tied to the ball and chain of a terrible text. Also
Susannah Clapp of
The Guardian criticised the production’s overall approach, describing
Yaël Farber’s interpretation as “turgid” and arguing that it “leaves some fine actors stranded in the desert.” She wrote that while the production is filled with images that appear significant, “it is hard to know what anything means,” characterising it as a slow-moving tableau accompanied by ritualistic ululations and wrapped in Susan Hilferty’s “luscious” design. Dan Rubins of
A Younger Theatre observed that despite the director’s political framing of Salomé as a revolutionary, the narrative’s clarity suffers, making her ultimate goal – to reclaim Salomé’s agency – feel under-realized. Dom O'Hanlon of
London Theatre, said that Farber’s staging emphasizes ritual and tableau over traditional dramatic narrative, which some critics felt left the play emotionally distant. Rosemary Waugh
Exeunt Magazine also offered a delicate critique: although she described the design as “painterly” and ritualistic, and argued that the poetry sometimes “strays into cliché,” and the juxtaposition of historical and modern elements feels awkward. Matt Trueman of
Whatsonstage, called the poetry “a sludge” and argued that “great actors [are] wasted,” due to the inaccessible, sing-song structure of the text. In the
Evening Standard,
Henry Hitchings wrote that the production is “stylish but slow … the script strains for a poetic profundity that it never achieves.” He praised tableaux moments (such as a “
spectral Last Supper”) but argued the political themes of revolution and erasure were undermined by overblown gestures. == References ==