A first for Gesher Theatre: a co-production with the Theatre Royal Haymarket, in London’s West End.

The production premièred at Jaffa Fest 2024. It is performed in English, with subtitles in Russian and Hebrew.

With it, Maxim Didenko—once one of Russia’s leading directors, now a European one—made his debut in Israel.

 

Didenko staged Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” at Gesher with his regular team: the set designer Galya Solodovnikova (whose directors include Kirill Serebrennikov, Timofey Kulyabin, Sebastian Walker, and Michael Lokshin), the composer Louis Lebee, and the lighting designer Gleb Filshtinsky.

Their previous collaboration, “The White Factory,” based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s play, at London’s Marylebone Theatre, won Offies in three categories: Best Production, Best Video Art, and Best Scenic Design.

All of them left their homeland after Russia invaded Ukraine.

 

Time: first century AD

Place: here.

“She went out and said to her mother, ‘What shall I ask?’ And she said, ‘The head of John the Baptist!’ Immediately she came with haste to the king and asked, saying, ‘I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.’”

(Mark 6:24–25)

 

Who is she, this mysterious Salome, who for centuries has captured the hearts and minds of great artists, writers, and composers?

A naïve girl caught in the gears of history? A teen-ager rebelling against the vulgarity and hypocrisy of the adults around her? A bloodthirsty seductress with a hunger for power?

 

Salome, the Judaean princess—a riddle that has generated an entire tradition in European art—still won’t let us go.

The plot, in short, is simple. King Herod Antipas marries Herodias, his brother’s wife—forbidden under Jewish law—and draws the wrath of John the Baptist. To silence the prophet, Herod imprisons him. That isn’t enough for Herodias; she wants him dead, and the opportunity soon comes. At the fortress of Machaerus, Herod celebrates his birthday with a feast for “the high officers, and the chief men of Galilee” (Mark 6:21). Salome is there, drawing every eye with her looks and her nerve. Herodias sends her daughter to seduce Herod with the Dance of the Seven Veils. Herod will grant her anything—and, on her mother’s advice, Salome asks for the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter…

Wilde’s play, a scandal in the nineteenth century, long ago became a classic. Richard Strauss’s opera is performed all over the world and has drawn major directors, from Castellucci to Tcherniakov.

Didenko’s “Salome” opened at Gesher, in Tel Aviv, and in the autumn of 2025 played at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, in London.