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2008-02-12

by Ed Rampell

'Orson Shadow'

Summary

A look at celebrity, genius and madness

Article

The title of playwright-actor Austin Pendleton’s play is a play on words. It not only refers to the great radio character Orson Welles incarnated on the airwaves during radio’s golden age, but to the shadow the genius of this artistic outcast cast on the stage and screen. The first act of this piece of imaginative historical fiction begins around 1959 in Dublin. There the influential British theatre critic Kenneth Tynan (Scott Lowell) meets with the exiled bard of Hollywood, where Welles (Bruce McGill, who is returning to the stage after 22 years onscreen in 100 movies) is directing and starring in a theatrical version of his Chimes of Midnight.

Through some clever exposition that is a witty self-referential commentary on exposition, Tynan reviews how Welles’ brilliance clashed with the studio system, leading him to lose final cut after 1940’s Citizen Kane and a promising film career. We are reminded that Welles was a cinematic Icarus who flew too close to the sun and then professionally crashed and burned. Tynan’s purpose in rendezvousing with Welles in the Emerald Isle is to arrange for him to direct a production of Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros at the then-new British Royal National Theatre, where Laurence Olivier (Charles Shaughnessy) is its first artistic director. Tynan also hopes to be installed as the National’s literary adviser and, as theatergoers eventually discover, the critic has a secret motive.

The play really comes alive in act II, as Welles interacts with Olivier and his current girlfriend and future wife, Joan Plowright (Libby West), and the Shakespearean superstar’s then-current wife, Vivien Leigh (Sharon Lawrence, probably best known for the TV cop drama NYPD Blue). In this far livelier and funnier act, the personalities cross swords over artistic and sexual differences, liberally sprinkled with the egomania that accompanies celebrity-hood and genius worship.

This play may be named after Welles, but as Sir Laurence’s troubled wife Lawrence steals the show, depicting the erratic behavior of the mentally ill actress who rues the shadow that Scarlett O’Hara has cast on her film and theatrical career, and probably over her private life as well. Leigh’s portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, as a lost soul who always relied upon the kindness of strangers, was much closer to her off screen self than the scrappy survivor who vowed, as god was her witness, to never go hungry again in Gone With the Wind.

Directed by Damasco Rodriguez the play explores the nature of madness and genius, the creative process and also criticism through the character of the Oxford-educated Tynan, who wrote for The Observer, The New Yorker, etc. It has been alleged that Tynan’s sexual tastes embraced sadomasochism and, if so, this may account for the Brit’s finding his metier as a critic, who had license to frequently inflict pain by criticizing others (and presumably enjoying doing so). Tynan’s catty review of Leigh’s Cleopatra performances are repeatedly referred to in Orson’s Shadow. Here’s an example I dug up for you, Dear Reader, of Tynan on poor Vivien’s acting in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus: "She receives the news that she is about to be ravished on her husband's corpse with little more than the mild annoyance of one who would have preferred foam rubber."

Nevertheless, Tynan couldn’t be all bad: Orson’s Shadow reveals that the leftist critic has been summoned to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, forcing him out of America and back to Britain. This is mentioned quickly in passing (keep your ears peeled!), but it’s important to note that Tynan’s being blacklisted is the catalyst for the action of this entire play.

What Pendleton does not mention onstage is how the HUAC affected the left leaning Welles, who spent much of the McCarthy era abroad, foraging for acting roles and eventually as the pitchman of Paul Masson wines, in order to raise money to complete the films Tinseltown moguls would not. An FBI dossier alleged Welles “consistently followed the Communist Party line,” and was fingered by Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television.

Orson’s Shadow is a fine piece of theatre with witty, insightful, incisive dialogue, and although it works as a comedy/drama on its own terms, it’s especially for theatergoers with a keen interest in film and theatre history. There are insider jokes and lines galore. And that shining Sharon Lawrence as Vivien Leigh may have you saying “Fiddle-dee-dee!”

Orson’s Shadow runs until Feb. 17 at the Pasadena Playhouse, 39 South El Molino Ave., Pasadena. For more info call 626/356-7529.