‘This Is a Historical Israeli Play’: Spectatorship, Ownership and the Israeli Localizations ofSalomé

Abstract

This article traces the reception of Oscar Wilde's playSaloméin Israeli theatre by focusing on the engagement of two artists – writer and translator Pinchas Sadeh and theatre director Ofira Henig – with the play at two different periods. InSalomé, Wilde utilizes his perception of Judaism, as well as the Song of Songs, for the creation of a theatrical space in which spectatorship and ownership are subverted and displaced. At the same time, ironically, the biblical and ‘Jewish’ presence in the play was fundamental for claims of ownership made by some in Hebrew and Israeli culture, asserting that the play somehow belonged to Hebrew culture and the Land of Israel. Despite these claims, the actual reception ofSaloméin Israeli theatre proved that the play's ‘belonging’ was far more tenuous. The article examines how the tensions between the seen and the unseen, between owning and disowning and between placement and displacement play out – in almost opposite directions – in Sadeh's ideological reasoning for translatingSaloméand in Henig's production of it.