The Judas Kiss By David Hare Starring Liam Neeson, Tom Hollander and Peter Capaldi At the Broadhurst Theatre, New York ALSO TODAY Blue Glow Braugher exits "Homicide"; Ani DiFranco on "King of the Hill" Wilde Two new portraits of Oscar Wilde miss the wickedness of his style Woo Jada Pinkett Smith stars in this sexy, sunny comedy Y E S T E R D A Y The importance of being Wilde An interview with Britain's new Renaissance man, Stephen Fry Deep Impact The end of the world as Hallmark moment RECENTLY IN ENTERTAINMENT Sharps & Flats New music from Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Public Enemy, Solex and others (05/06/98) Best enemies By Roni Sarig The perfect harmonies of twin sister duo Dana & Karen Kletter (05/06/98) Home Movies By Charles Taylor Why "Rio Bravo" is the Great American Movie (05/05/98) Cheerio, Seinfeld By Joyce Millman Bidding farewell to the greatest sitcom of all time (05/04/98) He Got Game Reviewed by Gary Kamiya Spike Lee's soft-hearted but moving tribute to faith, love and basketball (05/01/98) BROWSE THE ENTERTAINMENT ARCHIVES FEATURES TELEVISION MOVIES MUSIC

_______waiting to inhale Liam Neeson hangs fire as Oscar Wilde in David Hare's new play, "The Judas Kiss." - - - - - - - - - - BY DWIGHT GARNER Liam Neeson, more than any other film or stage actor alive, looks great with a cigarette -- think Oskar Schindler -- and he fires them up like mad throughout David Hare's ruminative new play, "The Judas Kiss." What's odd about Neeson as Oscar Wilde, though, is that he never inhales. Fakey stage puffs belch from his lips like steam from a toy train. Dramatically, this isn't a big deal. But because Hare's play so ruthlessly examines Wilde in his darkest hours -- in the first act he's about to be imprisoned for "acts of gross indecency," and in the second he's in painful exile -- you're left to wonder why this ruined man's smokes don't seem to be offering him anything in the way of solace. Why light up at all? The idea of casting Neeson -- tall, lumbering, sturdy of proletarian brow -- as the dazzling 19th century wit has sparked a good deal of internecine warring among Wildeans. Never mind that Wilde himself was indeed tall and lumbering; the choice put many people in mind of Pauline Kael's crack about William Hurt playing the flamboyantly gay Molina in the film version of "Kiss of the Spider Woman." (It's the equivalent, Kael wrote, of "having a basset hound playing a Chihuahua.") But during the opening moments of "The Judas Kiss," you almost start to believe that, stage puffs aside, Neeson can bring it all off. Hare's play isn't a gloss on Wilde's life; it's all endgame, a snapshot of a great man at the end of his tether. The first act takes place in London's Cadogan Hotel, where Wilde awaits arrest following his final trial. With him are Robert Ross (Peter Capaldi), his first homosexual lover, and Lord Alfred Douglas (Tom Hollander) -- better known as Bosie -- who is his current, and destructive, passion. Ross urges Wilde to flee the country before he is captured; Bosie wants him to stand and fight. Wilde himself is conflicted, and he strains to lend the occasion an air of normalcy, even frivolity, while he ponders his options. He orders lunch, spouts very mild witticisms ("England doesn't like wits. They abhor people who are smarter than they are") and paces like a sedated bear. It's clear from the title of Hare's play that he wants you to view the proceedings as something of a passion play, and it's on that level that the production works best. As he watches his career come unglued and his legion of friends desert him, Neeson projects a haunted quality that's often genuinely moving. This is particularly true in the second act, which is set in Naples after Wilde's two-year imprisonment. Wilde and Bosie -- the writer's last remaining friend -- are broke and beaten, and Wilde is obsessed with the idea of betrayal. In jail, his only reading material had been the Bible, and when Bosie explains that he, too, will be leaving (his family has offered him money to return home), Wilde ruminates on what he considers the Bible's one great dramatic flaw. Jesus was betrayed by Judas, a man he barely knew, Wilde explains. How much more apt -- and how much more like life -- it would have been if Paul, a great friend, had sealed Christ's fate with a kiss. "The Judas Kiss" is full of fine moments, and the play's supporting cast -- notably Hollander's moody, scattered Bosie -- is uniformly fine. There are two reasons, though, why this production fails to ever come screaming to life. Hare's play, for all its subtlety, is almost utterly devoid of drama. Evoking Wilde's claustrophobia is one thing; inflicting something similar on an audience waiting for something -- anything -- to actually happen is another. Even more important, you're never quite willing to buy Neeson's portrayal, despite its haunted grandeur. Neeson is simply too deliberate a presence, and too deliberate a speaker. Bright, complicated sentences don't form easily in his mouth, and he recites his allegedly witty lines as if he's reading them from a TelePrompTer -- they don't leap from his lips like jolts of free-form electricity. Neeson looks battered, all right, but he rarely evinces a hint of Wilde's former glory. In order to believe that his charms have evaporated, you need to be convinced that they were once indeed there. Liam Neeson may light up throughout "The Judas Kiss," but he never catches fire. Exiting the play, I nearly found myself agreeing with a comment I overheard in the next aisle over: "Why the hell didn't they just hire Fran Leibowitz?" SALON | May 8, 1998

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