| Orson's Shadow | |
|---|---|
 Poster art from the off-Broadway production | |
| Written by | Austin Pendleton |
| Date premiered | January 2000 |
| Place premiered | Steppenwolf Theatre Company |
| Original language | English |
Orson's Shadow is a play by Austin Pendleton. The play received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Play and won the Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance.
The play, based on true events, is set in 1960 London. In his declining years, Orson Welles is directing a production of Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceros , starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright. Olivier is fresh from his triumphant theatrical portrayal of vaudevillian Archie Rice in John Osborne's The Entertainer and is about to reprise the role in the film adaptation. He and Plowright are in the early stages of a romantic liaison; Olivier's tumultuous marriage to Vivien Leigh is all but ended. Critic Kenneth Tynan also figures in the plot, which debates the merits of stage versus screen, the internal struggle that theatrical performers endure when contemplating a leap to films, and the ways that the studio system frustrated the careers of individual artists.
It is a study of theatrical egos, each of the protagonists living more on the stage than in real life, each one feeling insecure while jockeying for power.
The play debuted at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago in January 2000 and was performed at the Westport Country Playhouse that summer and the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego in September of that year. [1]
The off-Broadway production, directed by David Cromer, opened on March 13, 2005 at the Barrow Street Theatre, where it ran for 349 performances. The cast included Jeff Still as Orson Welles, John Judd as Laurence Olivier, Susan Bennett as Joan Plowright, Lee Roy Rogers as Vivien Leigh, Tracy Letts as Ken Tynan, and Ian Westerfer as the stagehand Sean.
Since its New York City staging, Orson's Shadow has been mounted by a number of regional theatres, including Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley, California, [2] Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Maryland, [3] Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri, [4] and the Gorilla Theatre in Tampa, Florida. [5]
In 2006 it received a rehearsed reading at London's Old Vic Theatre, and in July 2015 received its European premiere directed by Alice Hamilton at London's Southwark Playhouse, as part of the Orson Welles centenary. The cast included John Hodgkinson as Orson Welles, Adrian Lukis as Laurence Olivier, Louise Ford as Joan Plowright, Gina Bellman as Vivien Leigh, Edward Bennett as Kenneth Tynan, and Ciaran O'Brien as the stagehand Sean. [6]
Vivien Leigh, styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich (1963). Although her career had periods of inactivity, in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Leigh as the 16th-greatest female movie star of classic Hollywood cinema.
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles. Late in his career he had considerable success in television roles.
Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier,, professionally known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English retired actress whose career spanned over six decades. She has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy and two BAFTA Awards. She was the second of only four actresses to have won two Golden Globes in the same year. She won the Laurence Olivier Award for Actress of the Year in a New Play in 1978 for Filumena.
Jill Esmond Moore was an English stage and screen actress.
Ray Bidwell Collins was an American character actor in stock and Broadway theatre, radio, films, and television. With 900 stage roles to his credit, he became one of the most successful actors in the developing field of radio drama. A friend and associate of Orson Welles for many years, Collins went to Hollywood with the Mercury Theatre company and made his feature-film debut in Citizen Kane (1941), as Kane's political rival. Collins appeared in more than 75 films and had one of his best-remembered roles on television, as Los Angeles homicide detective Lieutenant Arthur Tragg in the CBS-TV series Perry Mason.
The Entertainer is a 1960 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Tony Richardson, produced by Harry Saltzman and adapted by John Osborne and Nigel Kneale from Osborne’s stage play of the same name. The film stars Laurence Olivier as Archie Rice, a failing third-rate music-hall stage performer who tries to keep his career going even as the music-hall tradition fades into history and his personal life falls apart. Olivier was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
The Sleeping Prince: An Occasional Fairy Tale is a 1953 play by Terence Rattigan, conceived to coincide with the coronation of Elizabeth II in the same year. Set in London in 1911, it tells the story of Mary Morgan, a young actress, who meets and ultimately captivates Prince Charles of Carpathia, considered to be inspired by Carol II of Romania.
The Entertainer is a three-act play by John Osborne, first produced in 1957. His first play, Look Back in Anger, had attracted mixed notices but a great deal of publicity. Having depicted an "angry young man" in the earlier play, Osborne wrote at Laurence Olivier's request about an angry middle-aged man in The Entertainer. Its main character is Archie Rice, a failing music-hall performer. Years later, Tony Richardson, who directed The Entertainer's premiere season, described Archie as "the embodiment of a national mood ... Archie was the future, the decline, the sourness, the ashes of old glory, where Britain was heading". The first performance was given on 10 April 1957 at the Royal Court Theatre, London. This theatre was well-known for its commitment to new and non-traditional drama, and the inclusion of a West End star such as Olivier in the cast caused much interest.
Moby Dick is a two-act drama by Orson Welles. The play was staged June 16–July 9, 1955, at the Duke of York's Theatre in London, in a production directed by Welles. The original cast included Welles, Christopher Lee, Kenneth Williams, Joan Plowright, Patrick McGoohan, Gordon Jackson, Peter Sallis, and Wensley Pithey. The play was published by Samuel French in 1965.
Dorothy Renée Ascherson, known professionally as Renée Asherson, was an English actress. Much of her theatrical career was spent in Shakespearean plays, appearing at such venues as the Old Vic, the Liverpool Playhouse, and the Westminster Theatre. Her first stage appearance was on 17 October 1935, aged 20, and her first major film appearance was in The Way Ahead (1944). Her last film appearance was in The Others (2001).
Three Sisters is a 1970 British drama film starring Alan Bates, Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright, based on the 1901 play by Anton Chekhov. Olivier also directed, with co-director John Sichel; it was the final feature film directed by Olivier. The film was based on a 1967 theatre production that Olivier had directed at the Royal National Theatre. Both the theatrical production and the film used the translation from the original Russian by Moura Budberg. The film was released in the U.S. in 1974 as part of the American Film Theatre. This was a series of thirteen film adaptations of stage plays shown to subscribers at about 500 movie theaters across the country.
George Alexander Cassady Devine was an English theatrical manager, director, teacher, and actor based in London from the early 1930s until his death. He also worked in TV and film.
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Creswick Jenkinson was an Australian writer, producer and director. As a screenwriter, he wrote the film Captain Thunderbolt (1953) as well as episodes of the TV series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Autumn Affair and Motel.
Rhinoceros was a 1960 production of Eugène Ionesco's surrealist play of the same name, which had been written the year before. It was the first English-language production of the play, starred future husband-and-wife team Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright, and was directed by Orson Welles. Olivier also co-produced the play, which was Welles's last work as a theatre director.
Othello was a 1951 production of William Shakespeare's play of the same name, which was produced, directed by and starring Orson Welles in his first appearance on the London stage.
A film of Macbeth with Laurence Olivier as director and in the lead role was a project for which Olivier was ultimately unable to gain financing.
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This is a comprehensive listing of the theatre work of Orson Welles.
There isn't one person, I suppose, in a million, who knows that I was ever in the theatre.
John Rodney Buckmaster was an English actor on the stage, in films and on television, and a cabaret singer-songwriter. He was the son of actress Dame Gladys Cooper (1888–1971) and Captain Herbert Buckmaster (1881–1966). Educated at Elstree and Eton, he followed his mother into the acting profession and worked on both sides of the Atlantic.