Salome Jens

Marlene Dietrich was a movie legend, a mysterious beauty, a seductive chanteuse. The apparition of this exotic, blond siren in a top hat, smoking a cigarette through an elegant stem, will reign forever among the images of Hollywood in the '30s. The public Marlene is captured indelibly in photographs and on film.

What a great piece on Salome Jens ("She's Salome, Queen of L.A.'s Smaller Stages," by Daryl H. Miller, Feb. 22). I always thought there was something special about Jens' performances and now I know it was her spiritual quality. It was particularly telling of her character that she bought a home and lived with her mother there for the last 18 years of her mother's life. That her mother suffered from Alzheimer's disease did not seem to be a burden for her. Rather, she was "honored" that her mother wanted to be with her. What a great actress--and person.

Salome Jens and Mitchell Ryan were having a bit of a laugh trying to fit "Long Day's Journey Into Night," set in 1912, into the election year "family values" debate. "It's like a joke," Ryan said. "They say, 'Well, what happened to the good old American family?' It didn't do anything. It just went right along, like a Honda."

Salome Jens hands over a framed Esquire magazine piece that heralds her as "the reigning queen of Manhattan's booming off-Broadway theater movement." In the accompanying photo, she wears a teddy outfitted with a swishing horse tail. Her stockinged legs go on forever and her long blond hair swirls around her face. She is a blur of pure eros.

Salome Jens as Marlene Dietrich? She has the husky voice, the long legs. She knows how to stand--regally, and how to straddle a chair--provocatively. When she sings, she steers her arms and fingers through the air with crisp precision, just like Dietrich. She carefully caps many of the songs with a sharply turned left profile. What Jens lacks--in "An Evening With Marlene: Falling in Love Again," at Grove Shakespeare's Gem Theatre--is the Dietrich gaze.

What a great piece on Salome Jens ("She's Salome, Queen of L.A.'s Smaller Stages," by Daryl H. Miller, Feb. 22). I always thought there was something special about Jens' performances and now I know it was her spiritual quality. It was particularly telling of her character that she bought a home and lived with her mother there for the last 18 years of her mother's life. That her mother suffered from Alzheimer's disease did not seem to be a burden for her. Rather, she was "honored" that her mother wanted to be with her. What a great actress--and person.

Salome Jens, currently appearing in Franz Xaver Kroetz's "Request Concert" at the Cast Theatre, has been asked by playwright Sam Shepard to replace Geraldine Page in his Off-Broadway play, "A Lie of the Mind," for at least eight weeks. Page, who was hospitalized for exhaustion Thursday, will be taking a temporary leave from the highly successful production to do Somerset Maugham's "The Circle" for the Mirror Repertory Company in New York. Jens will take over for Page as of Feb. 4.

When as much has been glowingly written about a performance and a work as has been noted of Salome Jens in " . . . about Anne," the natural and perverse human tendency, when one returns to it later, is to pick at it, to say that everyone initially was caught up in the blush of its newness and that it doesn't hold up under the indifferent scrutiny of time. " . . . about Anne" is a compilation of the works of the poet Anne Sexton.

Salome Jens hands over a framed Esquire magazine piece that heralds her as "the reigning queen of Manhattan's booming off-Broadway theater movement." In the accompanying photo, she wears a teddy outfitted with a swishing horse tail. Her stockinged legs go on forever and her long blond hair swirls around her face. She is a blur of pure eros.

Playwright Eugene Ionesco, who was to have appeared at Stages Theatre Center's tribute "An Evening With Eugene Ionesco" on Saturday at the James Doolittle Theatre, is ailing in Paris and will be unable to attend. The benefit event, featuring staged readings of Ionesco's works, will be held as planned. Actors participating include Rene Auberjonois, Bud Cort, Patty Duke, Fionnula Flanagan, Joe Frank, Arye Gross, Salome Jens, Nan Martin, Tom Waits and Grace Zabriskie.

Salome Jens and Mitchell Ryan were having a bit of a laugh trying to fit "Long Day's Journey Into Night," set in 1912, into the election year "family values" debate. "It's like a joke," Ryan said. "They say, 'Well, what happened to the good old American family?' It didn't do anything. It just went right along, like a Honda."

Salome Jens as Marlene Dietrich? She has the husky voice, the long legs. She knows how to stand--regally, and how to straddle a chair--provocatively. When she sings, she steers her arms and fingers through the air with crisp precision, just like Dietrich. She carefully caps many of the songs with a sharply turned left profile. What Jens lacks--in "An Evening With Marlene: Falling in Love Again," at Grove Shakespeare's Gem Theatre--is the Dietrich gaze.

Marlene Dietrich was a movie legend, a mysterious beauty, a seductive chanteuse. The apparition of this exotic, blond siren in a top hat, smoking a cigarette through an elegant stem, will reign forever among the images of Hollywood in the '30s. The public Marlene is captured indelibly in photographs and on film.

When as much has been glowingly written about a performance and a work as has been noted of Salome Jens in " . . . about Anne," the natural and perverse human tendency, when one returns to it later, is to pick at it, to say that everyone initially was caught up in the blush of its newness and that it doesn't hold up under the indifferent scrutiny of time. " . . . about Anne" is a compilation of the works of the poet Anne Sexton.

Salome Jens, currently appearing in Franz Xaver Kroetz's "Request Concert" at the Cast Theatre, has been asked by playwright Sam Shepard to replace Geraldine Page in his Off-Broadway play, "A Lie of the Mind," for at least eight weeks. Page, who was hospitalized for exhaustion Thursday, will be taking a temporary leave from the highly successful production to do Somerset Maugham's "The Circle" for the Mirror Repertory Company in New York. Jens will take over for Page as of Feb. 4.

The Grove Shakespeare Festival has postponed indefinitely a Nov. 11 fund-raiser at the Gem Theatre because of "scheduling conflicts" with some of the participating actors, a theater spokesman said Friday. The announced guests for the evening of readings and monologues had included Patrick Stewart, Alan Mandell, David Birney, Sally Kirkland, Gary Armangnac, Diana Bellamy, Wendy Bowers, Salome Jens, John Frederick Jones and Alley Mills.