Me and Orson Welles

In my junior year of high school, following the Christmas break, I began a half year course called Film. My instructor, Mr. Henry N. Littlefield, began by telling us what the course was all about, and what we could expect. He said that we would, in a few weeks, be seeing the greatest movie ever made. Did anyone know what that movie was? I confidently raised my hand, and answered, "Citizen Kane". Go to the head of the class, young man. I graduated that semester with 3 Ds and an A. The A was in Film. After that semester my academic career took off, largely because I finally knew what I really wanted to study.

There was, at the time, a cultural landmark in Cambridge known as The Orson Welles Theater. Tommy Lee Jones was once the House Manager. It had three screens, a restaurant, a bookstore, and an academic institution known as The Orson Welles Film Institute. Housed between Central Square and Harvard Square, cinephiles flocked to it in those days as much as coffee hounds seek out Starbucks today.  It was also known, in my house, as Mecca. Imagine if there was only one Starbucks in the world today.

In 1976 I was in Europe studying cinema and Shakespeare when a new Orson Welles film, F For Fake, was released. I'm pretty sure that I saw it at the National Film Theater in London, but I honestly can't be sure. In any case, it was a documentary (sort of), and quite unique. Friends back home didn't know anything about it. As usual, Orson had trouble finding distribution in the US for one of his films. I came back to the states just in time for Christmas, itching to talk to someone about it, but realized that it would have to wait.

In January of 1977, Orson announced that he was coming to the theater which bore his name to premiere the film in the US. Before that, however, his minions in the Boston area put up the money to have Orson appear, one night only, at Symphony Hall in Boston for what was billed as An Evening with Orson Welles. I booked tickets faster than you can say, "Rosebud". What could go wrong?

Well, it was January, and you know what that means. My girlfriend and I left early that day, as there was the prediction of some snow. That prediction proved to be an understatement. It became a blizzard. Orson made it, amazingly enough, but most people didn't. The grandiose Symphony Hall, sold out, became an intimate setting for less than two hundred snow covered patrons who wouldn't have cared if Orson Welles read from the phone book that night. He was one hell of a storyteller. He entertained us for over two hours with stories, Shakespearean monologues (Anthony's speech from Julius Ceasar and Shylock's famous soliloquy from Merchant of Venice), and he took questions from us. When he mentioned F For Fake, I blurted out, "It's great!", and the great man looked me in the eye and thanked me. And that's no story.

The Orson Welles Theater closed in 1986, the result of insurance problems following an electrical fire. By that time, the institute and bookstore had closed, and the restaurant had become a Chi-Chi's. And the man who had inspired it was dead. I was married, and running a wine shop less than 2 miles away in Harvard Square. I mourned in my own way, as much for my dreams as for the past. How, I wondered, could I ever capture that magic again?

"What's that, sir? I used to be a magician? Sir, I'm still working on it."

Orson's Shadow

This is a long story, so please bear with me. In December of 2009, looking for a project to follow up my staging of Hedda Gabler at The Player's Ring in Portsmouth, NH, I decided that I should try directing something from the Absurdist movement. Ianesco, Beckett, Genet - really challenging dramatists. Since most of these plays exist in various translations, I just began hunting for information about notable productions, figuring that I'd find some comment about the translation that way. It's a scattershot method, I'll admit, but that's how I found Judith Thompson's adaptation of Hedda.

As I scanned the internet, I came upon a reference to a production of Ianesco's Rhinoceros directed by Orson Welles and starring Laurence Olivier staged in 1960. I believe I uttered the words, "No shit!", ignored my main goal, and tried to dig up any information I could find on that particular production. Within minutes, I learned that there was, of all things, a play written about this show by, of all people, Austin Pendleton. Well, hell, I figured, I have got to read this!

By the time I had finished my first reading of the play, Orson's Shadow, I had laughed until I hurt, and gulped back about a pint of tears. At once hilarious and heart-clenchingly sorrowful, I felt that Pendleton had written the play specifically for me. I understood it as if I had written it myself. It was about people whom I had regarded as godlike in my youth, and it was filled with rich insight about my two greatest passions - theater and film. I was born to stage this show!

So, I pitched it to at the annual Producer's meeting at The Player's Ring, with all the commited drive that I could muster. No luck. It was rejected.

Now, ordinarily, that would be the end of it. I considered proposing it to other theater groups closer to home, but if anybody was going to stage it, it was likely to be The Ring. Luckily, Bruce Allen was at The Player's Ring the night I pitched it. He offered to bring a staged reading of it to the Kittery Library, if I was interested. Well, hell - better than nothing, right?

I assembled a cast, took one of the roles for myself, and we staged it roughly a year after I had first read the play. There was a nice crowd in attendance, and they really seemed to love it. And so did the cast! I just knew that we had something here, and I loved the show more than ever. So, I spit in the wind like a stubborn old fool and pitched the show again at the Producer's meeting in 2011. I guarantee you that I was going to shop the show around until I found it a home, but the Ring has been my theatrical home for a decade, and I wanted it to be staged there.

We go up at The Player's Ring for three weekends, beginning September 23. I have a remarkable cast and stage manager. Barbara Newton is costuming the show, and my niece is choreographing a brief scene. In the weeks to follow, I'll post some thoughts about the production and the play itself. For now, it is enough to say that the show that I was born to direct is coming to life.

Absurd!