Ryan Tramont as Laurence Olivier and Natalie Menna as Vivian Leigh. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
Austin Pendleton is extremely well known as an actor, and as a director. He has appeared on Broadway in shows ranging from the original “Fiddler on the Roof” to “The Minutes” by Tracy Letts. He directed the revival of “Between Riverside and Crazy,” which led to a Tony Nomination after nominations for “Spoils of War” and “The Little Foxes.” And he has appeared in a long string of movies such as “A Beautiful Mind,” “Amistad,” “My Cousin Vinny,” “ Catch-22,” “What’s Up, Doc?,” “The Front Page” and many more. But some audience members may be surprised to know that he is also an accomplished playwright. Or maybe they shouldn’t be surprised, at all.
The recent production at Theater for the New City of “Orson’s Shadow,” a play originally conceived by Judith Auberjonois (and written for Rene Auberjonois)
, is technically a revival, but is every production after the first doomed to be designated with that word? It is, however, proof, if any is needed, that Austin Pendleton is a gifted playwright and story teller, as well as actor and director. This play, not quite like wine, has aged extremely well, remaining contemporary, entertaining, insightful and presenting relationships on and off stage. It is the best kind of drama and comedy, one rooted in character, not simply situation with a plot blending reality and speculation.
After simply hearing the title, “Orson’s Shadow” may sound like a show about Orson Welles and, of course, Welles is a key character. But it is really about theater, theater people (actors, directors and reviewers) and romance, love frustrated and, now and then, fulfilled. And of course the most nettlesome and strong of all shapes: the triangle. It’s also about the competing love of audience and another human being and two women as well as one very sizable ego.
Based on actual events, “Orson’s Shadow” unfurls on the stage of the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin and then the Royal Court Theatre, as Theater for the New City is reincarnated as both. Welles (Brad Freyman) is directing Eugène Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” a play he less than loves, starring Laurence Olivier (Ryan Tramont) and Joan Plowright. Olivier and Plowright (Kim Taff) are romantically or otherwise involved, while Olivier is married to Vivien Leigh (Nathalie Menna). Enter critic Kenneth Tynan (Patrick Hamilton), part sophisticated instigator and part referee, and we get an evening of theater at its best. It’s a boxing match between people whose punches are all thrown with words, and nobody is really keeping score. Sean (Luke Hofmaier) a stagehand reminds us that somewhere off stage reality still exists. Now and then someone says, “If only people saw what happened behind the scenes.” That’s part of what this play is, but it’s really about theater people trapped and dealing with difficulties in the privacy of a stage where we see them as themselves, before they put on the costume of character.
The production, in Theater for the New City’s Johnson Theater, offered a stand-out cast on a nearly bare stage except for a few chairs and the stark light that theaters leave on, when no show is there, to indicate the torch has not dimmed. The show scintillates with realistic, comic and dramatic dialogue. Although it takes a while to figure out what “Orson’s Shadow” is about, in terms of plot, that does develop. But it is really about something else beyond theater, as all theater, after all, should be. It is about character, or characters, dialogue, relationships, age, desire and duty, and the small as well as larger dramas at play, a kind of play within a play, so to speak.
Acting is about moments, conflict, comedy and drama, but also about something else: characters clashing and connecting. And this play shows us people at once larger than life (no pun intended) as well as people who also seem very true to life. We see them connect, and fail to, trapped in their own “self.” Orson Welles as a young man was a prodigy – and as an older man remained a prodigy. He commanded a stage with a voice honed in radio and developed on stage and screen. Brad Freyman looks more like Orson Welles…than Orson Welles did at a certain point. He brings gravity and comedy, an easy mastery of the world and the word, and the stage presence that Orson Welles must have exuded. Freyman displays strong emotions along with a sly cynicism and exudes a sense that he is the director of something more than a play. He is the God in this pantheon, playing with mere mortals around him. But directors always are gods and we see him here as a director, as well as actor, commanding attention, even when our Olivier vies for him for the center of gravity.
Ryan Tramont’s Laurence Olivier is smooth, suave and truly at ease, a man who is an actor first, theatrical in the best sense of the world, while real and torn between the stage and significant other(s). He gives us a lesson in acting, littering the stage with life, laughter and humanity, giving a heartfelt performance, showing us a fragile human being who is enamored of theater, confident and yet vulnerable. He wears acting like an armor. The counterpoint between his Olivier (Rene Auberjonois at one point was called the American “Olivier”) is a pleasure to behold, like two violons making beautiful music together. We watch him torn between two women, a Hamlet who cannot make up his mind and whose mind cannot quite make him into what he wishes to be.
Patrick Hamilton’s Kenneth Tynan is the charming, but devastating critic, the snake in this Eden. He hovers around lives, walking around the edge of the pool and now and then diving in. Tynan has been cruel, but like all scoundrels, hides behind the happy, convenient veil of honesty. He will tell you he was being kind, and maybe he was, because he presented his harsh criticism eloquently. The three truly present beautiful chamber music on stage with a well modulated score by Austin Pendleton. Luke Hofmaier as Sean presents and represents the audience, an ordinary “real” person not so enamored of the pageantry of show business. He stalks around the stark space like a reminder that reality exists somewhere off stage, attractive for his authenticity in a world of actors playing roles.
Nathalie Menna as Vivien Leigh shows us a poised if wronged, even disenchanted woman, sophisticated, accomplished and someone who easily could have been a Hollywood star. She is the queen in this kingdom or queendom, someone who has succeeded, Olivier’s match, a wonderful actress at a time when male actors still get unapologetic, preferential treatment. She doesn’t have sour grapes so much as a sense of being denied the credit and the emotional connection from Olivier that she desires (or desired) and deserves. All the world loves her, it seems, except for Olivier.
Kim Taff as Joan Plowright as shows us a vivacious woman who could easily be caught in a sort of love triangle. The play, although it’s called “Orson’s Shadow,” really is about Olivier, Orson, two women who can’t necessarily compete with the siren song of the stage. While it is based on a real encounter, the words and events fly off the page with the special spin of Austin Pendleton’s dramaturgy. It is really Austin’s Shadow as Austin Pendleton, so central to theater for so many years, casts his shadow on the stage as a writer.
I believe this is a play about theater, as well as theater people, but it, like all good theater, is about something more and something else. This is a play about connection, humanity, fantasy versus reality, about actors behaving like…well…actors. About directors and actors fighting over territory and supremacy. And it’s about people trying, even if they often fail, to truly “talk” to and with each other. This play clearly connects with the audience and the actors and characters connect with each other. “Orson’s Shadow” shows that Austen Pendleton is an adept writer, a puppet master who, like the best puppet masters, makes sure the strings are entirely invisible.
Pendleton as director and David Schweizer as co-director make us forget that the stage itself is nearly stark, a huge space for the characters to roam. The cast truly fill this large space. We see the actors pace around, not so much in a cage, but as people and characters each scoring points. The world is still flat here: The edge of the stage is the edge of the universe. The lighting by Alexander Bartenieff is just right, turning this stark space (where one shouldn’t, but might now and then, mention “Macbeth) into a haunted house. These shadows of stellar human beings briefly occupy the space.
“Orson’s Shadow” is a play that shows us great characters, great dialogue, comedy and drama. It takes a while for the plot to kick in, but it is there. It is a truly wonderful tribute to Rene Auberjonois, a great Broadway actor, as well as to Orson Welles, Lawrence Olivier, Vivian Leigh, Joan Plowright and Kenneth Tynan, truly a theater critic, as well as a reviewer. Tynan did more than express opinions. He provided perceptions that enriched his subjects. And of course it is a tribute to its author who, while not on the stage as an actor, is present every single moment in every single word.
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