‘Salome’ proves Insurgo’s Beane needs to be saved from himself

The worst thing John Beane may ever have done for himself, artistically, was form the Insurgo Theatre.

When we first see him in Oscar Wilde's retelling of the biblical "Salome," he's in fine bellowing and blustering voice. As the evil King Herod, he commands your attention. But it doesn't take long before you tire of his mannerisms: the frequent pushing of his hand through his unruly hair to mimic angst; his stopping in mid-sentence to seem spontaneous; his fast slurring of consonants to indicate how upset he is. When you look in Beane's eyes, he doesn't seem to be there. He's so busy acting, calling attention to his performance, that he doesn't have time to be a part of the action.

Beane didn't direct this show (Dave Surratt did), but you feel as if the emoting is being done in the style of the John Beane School of Acting. In nearly every Insurgo production, Brandon McClenahan (who here plays a captain, but what's the difference?) performs a similar kind of circus act, in which every line is accompanied by two frantic gestures, a toss of the hair, a neurotic rush of words.

Natascha Negro, as Herod's Queen, always looks elegant, but usually plays a vixen and usually plays it all on one note. Once you hear her first line, there's no point to listening to the other hundred, because they're all the same. Does she not understand that evil has gradations?

Surratt shows promise as a director. He and light designer Dave Rippinghill come up with some spectacular images that don't upstage the script. And Shane Cullum, as a John the Baptist figure who gets his head handed on a plate, shows how effortless good acting can look when a performer has the humility and instinct to subjugate himself to the needs of a role.

But you leave this show wondering what Beane is doing to his talents and the talents of those who put themselves in his service? Perhaps he belongs in a place like the Nevada Conservatory Theatre, where he would be directed by union artists who likely would immediately recognize his gimmicks, put a stop to them and help him become the actor he could be. Beane once told the press he wanted Insurgo to become a phenomenon. I wish for right now, he'd just settle on becoming good.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at vegastheaterchat @aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.