There’s a famous saying that “All drama must remain on the stage,” and that’s certainly true in Austin Pendleton’s play “Orson’s Shadow” about the lives and idiosyncrasies of theater legends. But the reason it stays on stage in this production, presented at Theater for the New City, is very simply because the entire play is set on stark stage of two British theaters with no scenery to hide behind. We see Lawrence Olivier (Ryan Tramont), critic Kenneth Tynan (Patrick Hamilton), Orson Welles (Brad Fryman), Joan Plowright (Cady McClain), Vivien Leigh (Natalie Menna) and stagehand Sean (Luke Hofmaier). Part of the fun is seeing Pendleton summon the ghosts of great performers past at a key point in their lives. But as is sometimes the case, in this play, we find their greatest role is themselves.
Although the title is about Orson Welles, he is only one of the pantheon of performers to haunt the hallowed British stages shown here. The play actually begins with a ghost light, as if Pendleton and director David Schweizer are telling us, tonight, ghosts will rule the stage. But theater, dramaturgy and great acting are the tools rather than a ouija board. The plot of Pendleton’s play follows somewhat cantankerous, yet cool critic Kenneth Tynan, played flawlessly by Patrick Hamilton, who has sought to get Lawrence Olivier to do Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, a play that Olivier doesn’t exactly love. Tynan, a wrier, is our magician summoning the ghosts from the slumber of the past. He has a vision, a plan.
Joan Plowright (Cady McClain), who is having an affair with Olivier, will act with Olivier on stage, while taking a key role in his life offstage, while Vivien Leigh (Natalie Menna), Olivier’s wife, struggles in near solitude. Olivier wants Tony Richardson to direct, but Tynan believes Orson Welles will be better. Who will be the captain of this ship? We watch powerful personalities clash in a battle for control, but at the same time we see the second play. Olivier has become involved with, if not infatuated with, Plowright, while being married to Leigh. He talks about how he has always sought to protect the women in his life, although Leigh is portrayed as manic depressive, as fragile as she is beautiful. After Tramont as Olivier lies, saying he is an office, Menna as Leigh says “Macbeth” in a conversation, later finding out he is in a theater, bringing a curse down upon them all. We are flies on the walls of a very interesting world. And we watch Olivier draw closer and apart from Leigh, before the two women appear together. Olivier finally lets go of Leigh to go with Plowright in the plot at the heart of this script that, at the same time, is about the actors, acting and theater itself a shadow of, and a type of lightning striking, life.
There are many plays about theater, whether by Shakespeare or Mamet, but "Orson’s Shadow" is at least in part about “making” theater. Just as seeing how sausage is made is dirty business, so is the process here. A reprise, with a slightly different cast, of an earlier production at Theater for the New City, this show is about the insecurities of actors, the impossible desire for perfection, the urge to entertain, and the emotions of great performers going beyond their role on stage. Tramont, torn like some Hamlet between choices, reminds Menna that the “regularity” of rehearsal reassures her. Theater is at once the thing that drives everyone crazy and keeps them sane in this truly fluid show where the cast is up to portraying larger than life characters. Hamilton as Tynan prowls the stage, walking purposefully, as if he is the “real” director of events. Tramont’s Olivier is a prisoner of the desire for perfection with gestures so carefully measured and postures so posed that he seems at once human and trapped by a kind of perpetual poise. And Natalie Menna as Viven Leigh and Cady McClain as Joan Plowright are Olivier’s two women in a kind of cat fight to the finish with consequences.
This play, a wonderful experience for anyone who loves theater, is about what happens when great actors collaborate and their egos collide, about seeking to take control, and the lives of legends in a theater when each is on a precipice. Set entirely on two stark nearly identical stages, after we see a ghost light at the start, we see a theatrical group’s lives as our laboratory, each at a delicate moment. Fryman as Welles frets over making “Chimes at Midnight” in a commercial universe, frustrated by a world that has frozen him in 1941 when he made “Citizen Kane.” Set on the stage of the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin and the Royal Court Theatre in London, it is a truly towering show about theater, and how performers’ lives on and off stage collide.
But even if the drama does remain on stage, here much of it comes from Tramont as Olivier who is torn between two women, one who is the past and one who is the future. Hamilton’s Tynan is so sophisticated and sensible, pale as if he has never set foot in the sun, constantly nursing the coffin nail of a cigarette, and yet someone who has skewered actors on stage. These are friends, but precarious friends, each so sensitive that any wrong word can set the others off. They walk through a mine field of insecurities and neuroses that are part and parcel of the artistic process for some. The word “Macbeth,” the real title for the “Scottish play” never to be said in a theater, is spoken several times, leading to bursts of thunder and lightning. Theater is a blessing and a curse for these legends who, sometimes past their prime, must compete with their own past.
The play, like so many, is also in part about power, a power play, so to speak, as Pendleton shows us strong personalities each eager to take over the stage. Who’s in charge varies as strength seesaws between these singular figures. Fryman's Orson Welles is loud with large gestures, while Hamilton's Tynan is tall, thin and overwhelmed by Olivier, studying in the presence of pure talent. The height of one and the gravity of another provides a visual counterpoint. Hamilton as the sometimes dyspeptic, imperturbably calm critic Kenneth Tynan, who has panned Vivian Leigh, advises us that good reviews can be valuable, but bad ones can be pivotal. What seems like a criticism can be a call to excellence. But there's also a certain lack of humanity in a person who, out of a belief that he knows the truth, will hurt those around him.
Nathalie Menna as Vivien Leigh, Lawrence Olivier’s wife, is fragile as a figure in “The Glass Menagerie.” Fryman’s Welles creates chaos, knocking down chairs, to give his well-known actors something to do, by having them pick them up. Pendleton, in addition to being an accomplished actor, director and playwright, is an acting teacher. And this show has more than its share of acting lessons, both from the playwright and the performers. In a kind of all’s Welles that ends Welles, we see our Orson at one point refer to a dusty copy of the script for what Shakespeare in "Othello" calls the “ocular proof” to remind the cast that he, not a bevy of British actors, is listed as director. For anyone who has ever seen a rehearsal and said a play about behind the scenes could be fascinating, "Orson’s Shadow" is proof that it can be.
Although there may be moments when the dialogue supersedes the drama, each performer brings a special presence that lets us believe that they are at once the person, in the flesh, yet also have the charisma, charm and energy to be a great actor. They all command the stage well under David Schweizer’s direction, using up the entire stage and at once bringing characters closer together and further apart. Joan Plowright and Lawrence Olivier rehearse a production of Ionesco’s absurdist play Rhinoceros, a veiled metaphor for how totalitarianism turns us into animals. And in what amounts to a clash of great egos, Tramont’s Olivier, a heartfelt creation that includes comedy from the character he creates, seems to take over the scene, an aptly stark set devoid of any of the friendly frivolity of scenery designed by director David Schweitzer, making decisions that go beyond an actor’s prerogative. There are few objects for actors to hold onto when the flood of events arrives.
“Who’s directing...” Welles played by Brad Fryman asks.
One might very well ask who’s in charge here, although it’s clear Pendleton is the very able author of their very amusing dialogue and heartfelt agonies. "Orson’s Shadow" is a wonderful ensemble piece for anyone who loves theater, actors, ego, romance, the counterpoint between intimacy and infidelity and, not to forget, Vivian Leigh, Joan Playwright, Orson Welles, critic Kenneth Tynan and a young Irishman named Sean. Just as in life comedy and drama can be woven together, "Orson’s Shadow," along with presenting theater legends, shows us a play, and a play within a play, and both are fascinating. Emotions mix here like colors in Renoir's palette, creating things at once beautiful and painful.
“It’s my fault,” Fryman’s Orson proclaims with deliberate, theatrical or at least thespian zeal. “Everything’s my fault.”
The reality in this play is, even though Welles is director, we watch Olivier decide on the direction of his life. And the direction of our lives will always matter more than the direction of a performance. We watch the actors literally on the stage of the Royal Court Theater in London rehearsing, conversing and competing for attention. Tynan says once a person, such as Orson, has been declared a genius, “we exist only to disappoint.” That is Orson Welles’ dilemma, his triumph and his tragedy, possibly his shadow, to be constantly competing with his youth, suffering the curse of early success, directing and acting in "Citizen Kane" at a young age. His past casts a longer shadow than he can ever cast physically. And Olivier keeps analyzing acting while acting, mixing the awareness of the director with the ability of an actor.
“I’m an animal on stage,” Olivier says when Welles directs him. “I can’t be an animal everywhere.”
This is really a play about giants who are larger than life, experts in drama, yet devoid of experience with daily chores. Larger than life can mean problems when it comes to living. “How does one dust, having never dusted?” Tramont as Olivier asks in an at once theatrical, realistic and comic performance.
“Now can we get back to work?” Welles says, trying to remind everyone they are there to do a good job with a play they dislike.
‘I wish I were young again,” Olivier says, pining for the freedom and hope of his youth, as we see Luke Hofmaier as Sean embody the innocence, simplicity and ignorance of someone not consumed by theater.
We see egos on parade, as we realize that the real drama is not simply on stage, but in the lives of these legends. Orson Welles has been shunned as persona non grata in Hollywood, not finishing films, or having the editing snatched from him. There are moments of exposition, but so many more moments of emotion. Welles schemes to do “Chimes at Midnight,” his Shakespeare compilation. David Schweizer’s direction creates a theatrical atmosphere, where we see Welles’ back to us, while Vivien Leigh looks on. The plot only kicks in later in the show, but this is also about legends, so many little conflicts, and one big one, during a delicate moment in their lives. Our Kenneth Tynan clutches a cigarette like a security blanket, a fearful magician summoning ghosts that are much more real than he will ever be.
The dramatic peak occurs when Natalie Menna as Viven Leigh seeks to get Sean played by Luke Hofmaier to kiss her. We think she has moved on from Olivier and wants to reaffirm her femininity through an affair with a younger man. She wants youth and will get it, even if it's by sleeping with him. And he provides a refreshing escape, it seems, to theater, someone not self-conscious, but a little animal and not aware. She is famous. He is real. Which is better? As she tries to seduce him, we find out her agenda. She just wants to make Olivier jealous. She hasn’t changed. Her would be romance with Sean, it turns out, is performance. These are performers at the core.
This is a play whose initial interest comes from a script presenting famous theater figures. But in the end, Pendleton’s characters, dialogue, dramaturgy and plot carry the day. The plot is only part of the play. To truly enjoy "Orson's Shadow," it's important to enjoy simply watching the actors inhabit their characters. This play is about people who care about each other and yet clash. They are friends and lovers who clearly love each other, but love theater and their craft more, and yet are sensitive about and maybe a little scared of failure. An extremely gifted actor himself, Pendleton has written a play not just about actors, but the desires, fears and accomplishments of acting. When Fryman sits in the audience, directing the show from there, for a few moments, we know that Orson Welles' life is not over, because he is an outsider, an observer. And life is always about action more than observation.
An epilogue lets us know what happened after "Rhinoceros." Orson Welles would live many years after this experience, and complete precious few films. Olivier and Tynan would collaborate until they would be pushed out of their beloved theater. We get an update on everyone, except for Sean. The truth is, Sean's life is not about achievement, accomplishment, but simply living. And maybe, just maybe, there is more value in living one's life than creating with it. In any case, we don't know Sean's future, because it's his present, not his future, that will always matter. It's not what he did, but how he lived day to day. If most of us didn’t get the pleasure of seeing much more of Welles’ movies or plays, we do get to see a great cast and great characters come to life including Welles. Although I didn’t get to see their production of "Rhinoceros," my suspicion is the greatest thing to come out of it may be Pendleton’s imagining of what could have happened both onstage and off.
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