Salome

Unique among his works, Oscar Wildes play Salom (1893) was written originally in French. Joseph Donohues new translation of the horrific New Testament story has recast Wildes shockingly radical drama in the natural idiomatic language of our own day. Presenting a colloquial and spare American English version of Wildes consciously stylised French, Donohues approach gives full value to the Irish authors dark ruminations on evil and perversity in a world on the brink of a new, unsettling Christian dispensation. The play was first translated into English in 1894 by Wildes young friend Lord Alfred Douglas, but Wilde was far from pleased with the outcome. And yet Douglass stilted, inaccurate version has somehow retained a long-standing place on the stage and in the study. Donohues lucid vernacular transformation of Douglass safe, thee-and-thou faux-biblical language has the quality of a startling modern-dress remounting of an overly familiar classic play. This new Salom is calculated to bring both readers and playgoers into close, disturbing confrontation with one of the most erotic and bloodiest sequences of testamentary lore. Brilliantly complementing Donohues unprecedented approach is a set of engravings by a master illustrator of our time. Barry Moser is an artist who speaks the blunt yet fluent language of present-day communication through the penetrating gestural vocabulary of the graphic arts. The resulting combination of words and images directly engages with Wildes characters and their story, setting a bold new standard for the melding of literary and pictorial excellence. At the same time, it leads readers and audiences alike to rediscover perennially significant themesof love, death, power, and individuality.