Theatre is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.

If you’re feeling a little nostalgic checking in with that opening line then you’re on the right path.

How you doin’? Betcha you’ll be da bomb after you hit up the current production of Salome with The Rude Mechanicals at Greenbelt Arts Center. Conceptualized and directed by Wes Dennis, this Oscar Wilde…adaptation doesn’t seem like the right word here, so we’ll go with ‘transplanted transportation’ falls in-line with the company’s WandaVision obsession. (For quite some time now, The Rudes have been taking various and sundry just outside the Bard’s canon and dropping into various decade restylings a la the aforementioned TV series.) This one is far-out, off-the-chain, man. No diggity!

There are adaptations and then there are productions like this where the overriding concept sinks by osmosis into the text, the aesthetic, and the overall verve of the production and just infiltrates every conceivable aspect. Sometimes it lands, sometimes it doesn’t; for this production it works extremely well and not only does it elevate the overall experience of Oscar Wilde’s Salome but it serves as a whacky road trip— to infinity…and beyond!— right down memory lane for anyone who grew up in or remembers the zany pop culture of the 90s. BONUS: There’s a ‘BINGO’ card (and crayons) for you to play ‘catch the 90s’ reference. There’s like 92 different things on the list— some of which are red herrings. I caught 38 and had the highest score the performance I attended (and I won a prize! It was pretty PHAT!) You should absolutely try your luck and see if you can catch ‘em all!

If you take the Salome part of the production out of the experience, it’s like being in a living history museum dedicated to the pop culture component of the 1990s. The creative team on board for this production is all that and a bag of chips. Let’s break it down. Scenery: Alan Duda— man’s coming in with those geometric neon-bright shapes on a black wall that reminds you of every playroom ever from your 90s childhood. And glow-splotch slime all over the stairs/platforms. Though the serious piece of success for Duda is the ‘optical illusion’ table that you don’t get to see until the end of the production. It’s pretty sweet just to look at (and if you hang around after the production…you can get a really sick showcase of how it works— totally worth it, IMO.) There’s a velvet-high-heel chair, (the iconic Rudes’ throne…they own one throne and it’s going to get used in every single show they can get away with using it…and since The Rudes were formed somewhere in the 90s…it totally tracks!) There’s all kinds of easter eggs tucked all around the set (and there’s a whole team & crew that helped Duda smack it together) and half the fun of the production is just marveling in the pure nostalgia of the scenery and picking out what all you remember from that decade.

Costumes are fo’ shizzle off the chizzle. Chain. Hook. All of the above. Linda “Spencer” Dye on design with Becca Korn as the ‘sewist’ (and Alan Duda made the wings, apparently.) But if you wanna talk about a mad-match for concept to aesthetic? Dye and Korn have the ticket, hands down. Some of the most iconic TV and film characters— think Peg Bundy, Buzz & Woody, Urkel— are all coming at you in this show’s sartorial selection in addition to some more ‘generic’ 90s stereotypes, like the Checker-plaid school girl look made dual-famous by both Clueless and Britney Spears, the gold-lamé that showed up on Sisqó & Fresh Prince, and even some more basic togs like that oh-so-coveted ‘Green Monkeys’ (LotHT) t-shirt or the ‘goth’ vibe. You’ll also note some other…characters…like silent dude-skis and their 10^th-letter buddy. It’s wild. It’s Waldo. It’s really perfect for the overall concept of the show. BUT WAIT! There’s more! Not only do we see some of these iconic looks featured on the cast (check the bottom of the shoes, baby!) but the dialogue wraps itself into there. Early on when Narraboth and Page are chattering about Salome? “The Princess is Coming!” and we get a freeze/floor-drop. #IYKYK And that happens throughout the performance in spades with a bunch of different character references warping their way through the text.

Sounds of the 90s are all too memorable and iconic, especially if you lived through them. And you get some pretty intense ones that are just scatter-dropped throughout the production, not unlike some of the scatter-brained experiences of that era. Think of the Sound Team like the OG-Five Power Rangers— with Stephen Duda as the consultant, Samuel Kopel as the engineer, Stephen Cox as the operator, Wes Dennis as the creator-devisor, and the Effects themselves as that fifth ranger. If I started attempting to list out all the fun and fabulous effects that essentially become the MegaRanger of the aural experience, I’d probably miss a really important one and or be here all day. Suffice it to say that the layers of 90s nostalgia continues when it comes to the show’s soundscape. While the lighting isn’t 90s there are a lot of colors that play their way into some of the 90s scenic components (Shoutout to Jeff Poretsky as light designer and Chris Dullnig as light board ops.)

Director Wes Dennis (aided in fabricating his vision into actuality by SM-P Liana Olear, AD Alan Duda, and the rest of the Rudes’ Crew) has really outdone himself with making the vision an experience. It’s not just ‘set in the 90s’ or aesthetically of the 90s, it’s a full-on warp tour back in time (though there are a few references I would have thrown in for good measure that didn’t make it— I’m still salty about the POGS!! It’s nearly forgivable for my favorite, somewhat obscure reference, when Herod is trying to offer treasures to Salome and offers her up some peacocks, takes a pause to count and then says ‘53’. #IYKYK) There is so much thought that is palpable and visible in Dennis’ final product that you feel like you’re on the journey with him through this jaunt back in time.

One of the most iconic representations of this is during Salome’s dance of the seven veils. If you’re unfamiliar with the over-arching plot of Salome the hyper bullet-point version is she wants the profit Jokanaan, he refuses her. Her step-daddy the king, Herod, wants her to— dance— for him. Doing that whole “I’ll give you anything” plea-bargain. Salome’s a bright girl and knows exactly what she’s going to ask for, capitulating after multiple refusals to dance. And then “Dance of the Seven Veils.” Only Dennis and company (Summer Moore as dance choreographer along with that aforementioned Power Rangers Sound Team) straps those elementary school rainbow-clear silks to her bullet-bandolier— seven of them— and Salome hits the dance floor with iconic 90s moves and tunes including but not limited to: MC Hammer’s shuffle, Vogue, and of course The Macarena. It’s hilarious (including that “NOPE” skipped song that comes on and gets halted.)

There are character choices and infusions like this which get the whole plot in motion to the tune of Dennis’ vision. And The Rudes have always been a 4^th Wall-Demolition style company; Salome is no exception. Other really nifty character-model choices include The Prophet Jokanaan literally being Urkel, having our non-descript 90s stereotypes (for this instance Charlie Suchi and Linda “Spencer” Dye) acoustically singing and strumming ‘Wonderwall’ at the top of the second act (and those blended harmonies that the pair achieves are TIGHT!), and having our Goth (Tone Arce) be overly enthusiastic about blood and death. Dennis’ concept works because it’s wholly articulated, stays true to his vision whilst supporting the story, and keeps the audience just disoriented enough that they can roll with the humor, jubilate in the nostalgia, and still feel like they’ve gotten some dramatic-history component fro the overall experience.

It’s a cast of 13 and about half of them are ‘background’ style characters but they fill out these roles in a delightful fashion. Bender (Linda “Spencer” Dye), Solver (A’Nya Ross), Goth (Tone Arce), Roman (Charlie Suchi), and 1^st Soldier (Kelci Friend) and 2^nd Soldier (Marianne Virnelson) have lines here, there, and everywhere but do a lot of brilliant background and scene chewing that just keeps the production engaging. This is particularly true of Friend and Virnelson, who have a very iconic look about them (guys like them just don’t fall out of the sky, you know!) Dye and Suchi have already won the Kids Choice Award for ‘best musical duo’ in the production, and the way Ross has that ‘cast-member of All That’ flavor to just the way she sits is pretty chill. Arce is the scene-stealer of the background-bunches, particularly when he gets that look on his face of giddy-yum whenever blood gets mentioned.

Tigellinus (Tommy Stack) is one of those ‘this could be quite a few different 90s references and/or one specific 90s character’ type fixtures that serves plot-pushing purposes and also has the second-best source-text delivery. Stack’s character has lines that flow more directly from the Oscar Wilde version of Salome (only Salome herself gets more and it’s only in that unhinged, feral rant at the end where you’re suddenly reminded you’ve just watched this atrocious event because Dennis and the cast/crew have splattered beautiful 90s easy-bake-oven-spin-art all over the stage and made you forget this play is about seduction, power-dynamic struggles, and decapitation.) But there’s something really fun and ‘in-your-face’ about the way Stack handles the character and it just ‘fits’ into this universe that Dennis has created.

Narraboth (Becca Korn) and Page (Maya Catoe) are a hoot. Forget whatever it is their actual characters are supposed to do/be/represent in the original, what they’ve got going on is quite the story! You’ll have so much fun watching them, it’ll be like playing with your toys all over again. (Anybody wanna go to PizzaPlanet?) Korn is lively and bubbly and awkwardly effervescent, mooning and fawning and drooling over Salome. Catoe is much more like “this isn’t gonna end well, it’s not ending well, it didn’t end well, I told you so” but bottled up into a pragmatic and hysterical caricature of deliverance. And they play off one another divinely in their opening bid. I don’t want to spoil their respective outcomes but it’s a BIT and they COMMIT! See if you can catch Korn popping up in the second act as…well, you’ll see. And with one of the legendary treasures of the 90s in tow!

Herod (De”Maryo Platt), referred to as the tetrarch, and Herodias (Darcella Owens), his wife, are our ‘royals’ in this one. And what better way to do it than make Platt’s character wear that stunning gold lamé tracksuit and kit out Owens like Peg Bundy. And Owens is serving up FACE in that role non-stop. Owens has the best facial expressions in the performance, particularly when she’s throwing RBF at Herod and ‘girl you better not’ face at Salome. And there are few people who can work a hand-prop with such efficacy; Owens gets a fan and you feel like its an extension of her sassy spirit. Platt is a hilarity onto himself. Channeling some serious Fresh Prince vibes right along with a lil gold-shine Michael Jackson, Sisqó and some over the top Kel Mitchell vibes from the Nickelodeon realm, you’re getting pump, pizzazz, yahoo, and how from his performance. There’s a lot of comedic timing and nuance happening with Platt and it really amps up the comedic components that Dennis pushed to the forefront of his concept for this production.

Move over Cher Horowitz, pack-it-up Britney Spears, because Celia Richardson just rolled through and her performance as Salome is the perfectly mannered unhinged little 90s lady that we all remember— either being, wish we had been, or were both deeply afraid of an in awe of. Unhinged, unhooked, and totally living her best 90s life, Richardson is playing in two plays. The 90s edition of this considerably spectacular chaos and also some textual edition of its source and she’s blending them together superbly. For the most part, she’s ensconced in the 90s version of this show— but that deep, intensively monologue where she’s addressing Jokanaan…well…part of him…near the end? THAT is some straight up 1891 Oscar Wilde intensity— think of those Marvel movies where you’re in present-day but then suddenly get one of those overwhelming flashbacks (which will later become the damn origin story in the film franchise), it’s exactly that and it’s really scary but in the most intensely engaging way possible. Richardson’s ferocity and precociousness know no bounds and she’s not afraid to get down with her 90s dance self (or at the very least has done the intensive era-study-work required to make us all think she was a child of the 90s.)

It’s a rare condition, this day and age, to see such an impressive impersonator on a theatre stage— and the ‘homage tradition’ of this ‘nod-to’ design, some people say is even harder to find…but Dylan Nicholson has got the magic glue and he is off the chain amazing as Jokanaan. Seriously, I had to stop at intermission and check to see if Jaleel White was still alive, that’s how hardcore this kid is channeling that level of Urkel-dork intensity. The look, the mannerisms, the vocal affectation, the speech patterns— you’d swear you’d been sucked into TGIF and were standing right beside him, suspenders and all! Nicholson is bringing this amazing caricature to the text in the exact manner it needs to be brought and it makes the whole audience believe that Steve Urkel really could have been the biblical prophet; it’s insane, it’s epic, and it hysterical. Everything from his ‘arrival’ from the well, which is preceded by his ‘voice’ chanting memorable theme song lyrics as prophecies, to the way he drops the final line on the show (which will have you in stitches) is just so perfect for this production, it’s unbelievable.

BYO POGS, I guess, because Wes Dennis didn’t love/appreciate the lunchroom slam-offs, but if that’s the one major point of 90s pop-culture he’s missed out on (and if that’s my only complaint about this show) then he’s well, well ahead of the game, whether its on PlayStation, Sega, or Nintendo. It’s creativity way outside the box, really making the story enjoyable, and really delivering on those addicting hits of 90s nostalgia; a production well-worth seeing, and one to be infinitely proud of.

Running Time: Just under two hours including one intermission

Salome: Rudes 90s Edition plays through May 16^th 2026 as a Rude Mechanicals production at Greenbelt Arts Center— 123 Centerway in downtown Greenbelt, MD. For tickets call the box office at 301-441-8770 or purchase them online.