London stage reading of 'Heart of Darkness' set for March 31

[RayKelly]

From http://www.screendaily.com/home/blogs/welles-diggers/5038866.article

It’s a cause for celebration for Orson Welles fans — and Joseph Conrad fans. Artist Fiona Banner is presenting the first performance of Welles’ screenplay based on Conrad’s classic Heart Of Darkness.

Brian Cox will play all the parts in the special reading, planned for March 31 from 5:30 pm. The reading will be streamed live at http://www.aroomforlondon.co.uk (and available there through June 30) and also projected onto a screen in the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room (free admittance).

Welles had adapted the story in the late 1930s and planned to play the roles of narrator Marlow and Kurtz. RKO decided not to make the film because it was too expensive and too political (Kurtz could be seen as a Hitler-like figure), so Welles made his debut with Citizen Kane instead.

Fiona Banner said: “Like the original novel, Welles’ script is a parody of power gone bad. It’s also a narrative of seduction, both a lens and a mirror. In the 1890s, Conrad’s theme was colonialism, in the 1930s Welles’ theme was the rise of fascism. Today, the focus is greed, globalisation and high finance.”

Cox will be performing the entire script live to camera in A Room For London, a boat-shaped installation at the top of Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. The boat, called Roi des Belges, was designed by David Kohn Architects in collaboration with Banner, and was inspired by the riverboat of the same name captained by Conrad in the Congo in 1890.

The screenplay reading is part of Artangel’s A Room For London programme, which uses the boat as a temporary studio for writers, musicians and artists throughout 2012.

[tadao]

Just saw this in London and it was... interesting...

Cox read most of the dialogue live with a prompter quietly interjecting the names of the characters. Wasn't sure if this was for our benefit or his, the names spoken were often barely audible but Cox did a creditable job of providing a different accent and vocalisation for each. The German-monikered supporting cast were harder to differentiate, but did seem less amalgamous than they had when I was able to read through the text myself some years ago at the Lilly. Of course we lost the sense of first person camera eye, and in fact the reading didn't include the prologue introducing the first person camerawork, via the sequences with the canary and the death row inmate, which must rate as my favourite part. The screen directions were mostly played back as a pre-recorded track, with Cox using his own Scottish accent. This was quite effective and well realised, with only occasional overlaps of live and pre-recorded speech. The reading was shot in black and white, and the camerawork drifted between serviceable and barely competent, with unneccesary and unmotivated camera movement, extreme and indistinct close ups which didn't feel in service of the narrative. Thankfully the audio was clear enough that the camerawork was a relatively minor distraction; the live dialogue seemed to come from only the right speaker, which I also wasn't sure if this was intentional; whereas the pre-recorded narration was from a front stereo pair. The event was billed as lasting 4+ hours with several breaks, but ended up starting at 6pm and running without a break until 8.45 or so. The audience was generally appreciative, with I'd estimate around 250 seats filled in the 370 seat auditorium. Maybe about 25% of them drifted out before the end, but there was less turnover than I expected when it had been billed as 'come and go as you please'. Nil points to those sitting behind me who returned 20 minutes before the end and rustled food wrappers loudly at the climactic sequence of Kurtz's death and Marlow's reunion with Elsa... Perhaps not the case that everybody behaved 'admirably' but certainly a worthy endeavour by Artangel and the South Bank Centre, Ms Banner and Mr Cox, and always heartening to see Welles's profile raised in popular consciousness.

The event got some coverage on BBC Radio 4 last week, I haven't yet heard the programmes but they might be worth a listen in the brief time left that they're available.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... 2_03_2012/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... reenplays/

and I think the full event will be well worth a look by those who frequent these boards, once it's posted here:
http://aroomforlondon.co.uk/hearts-of-darkness

[ToddBaesen]

Thanks for the report on the reading of HEART OF DARKNESS. It doesn't appear to be on the ROOM FOR LONDON site
for listening yet, but it's funny that in the Brian Cox BBC interview he does a clip from the POV opening
scene of the script, where he says "This is Orson Welles..." that he didn't read in the actual performance.

Brian Cox and Fiona Banner also get the reason why HEART OF DARKNESS was never made wrong.
According to Welles, It was the budget, pure and simple, and the politics in the script, which are very oblique to begin with,
didn't factor into RKO's decision to postpone production...

In fact, the idea was Welles would do a less expensive
film first, and then come back and make HEART OF DARKNESS later on.

[tadao]

The recording is now up at the Room For London site. Dipping into it again I feel a bit more charitably disposed towards it; the limitations of low bitrate internet video actually seem to smooth it out a bit; whereas in a live context the high definition imagery with soap-opera interlaced motion was nakedly exposing towards every nuance of performance, staging and camera movement, the internet rendition with crushed black levels, deinterlacing and lower resolution looks and feels rather closer to film like than the live video link did, and the low expectations of YouTube type video make it look like a pretty decent web video, rather than a not-quite-successful theatrical event. They've also fixed the sound (if there was anything wrong in the first place), it now seems to be a clean dual mono and is less distracting than the separated live audio was, and again is a bit more credible as a pastiche of a 40s film soundtrack.

It occurred to me that Mr Cox's portrayal of Kurtz reminded me of Harry Lime, an affable rogue with some sociopathic tendencies, but charmingly bemused by the situation in which he finds himself, which didn't quite have me believing that this was a political figure beloved by his nation and all who met him. He ought, in my opinion, to be more like a Franz Kindler or Gregory Arkadin, with a more immediate and powerful charisma rather than affability, and a closer to the surface streak of ruthlessness that would make his stated aim of taking over the world a credible and threatening possibility. I didn't remember Kurtz's dying assessment of Hitler and the current world situation from my reading of the screenplay either - it makes Kurtz a more sympathetic and rational humanist presence, and I'm not sure that it's of any service to the character or the script - but I can see why it would be tempting to introduce it in an attempt to shake an isolationist US populace into supporting action in WWII.

I wonder if it's seemly to suggest to a moderator that might be worth linking on the main Wellesnet page, as the screenplay must rank as a substantial piece of Wellesiana that's historically been difficult to access by the the general public, and since the script seems to have fallen off the internet, this must currently be the best way to access this tantalising might-have-been project, aside of any of the recording's own merits as an artefact. Worth bearing in mind that it's a substantial time commitment to sit through the whole thing, and it'll slip into the ether again at the end of June, so catch it while you can!

[Glenn Anders]

Dear tadao: Thank you for reminding us again of this extraordinary undertaking. I found the recording of "Hearts of Darkness" with some difficulty -- the arrow in front of my face -- and though I have not watched the whole thing, it being 1 a.m. here in San Francisco, I certainly intend to. The production makes more and not less of "A Theater of the Mind." Already, I see all sorts of ideas that Welles used later in other films = e.g., the one-eyed anthropologist prefiguring Misha Auer in MR. ARKADIN.

How marvelous that the original Hannibal Lector should play Kurtz! With an actor like Brian Cox, even the slightest shift of stance whisks away any fear of monotony. Kudos to Fiona Banner, the BBC, and all involved, including "The Estate of Orson Welles." How sad that the Estate does not get behind Orson Welles' other great unrecovered work, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. Or at least, some way of preserving this production. [I do see that Fiona Banner is opening a show based on the above exhibition in LA; I wonder if the DAX Foundation is involved?]

Still, one can hope for the rest, as Wellsians do.

Glenn Anders

[mteal]

Finally got a chance to listen to this. Very impressive job by Mr. Cox. I was skeptical of the idea at first, but I think it has a lot of potential now. It's like a cross between a movie and an audio book. Bravo!

[Glenn Anders]

Yes, indeed, Mike -- and I think tadao's suggestion, if its possible, to add a link to piece on the Facebook Page is an excellent one. We are constantly looking for restorations and fresh works from Orson Welles' oeuvre. Here is one we may share with a wider audience for at least the next two months. Might you importune Todd Baesen to have Larry French do that?

I intend to say more about Fiona Banner's production of Welles' HEART OF DARKNESS, as soon as I can spare the time to watch it again, taking notes.

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

And here I am back, two months later, with further observations on Fiona Banner's production. I fully agree with tadao's observations of "echoes" in later Welles' films: Harry Lime, Franz Kindler, Gregorie Arkadin. And here are some further observations of my own:

Most of the afternoon, I watched Fiona Banner's art installation of Orson Welles' screenplay for Joseph Conrad's THE HEART OF DARKNESS at the BBC's Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Banner secured the performance rights to Welles' first Hollywood screenplay from Daughter Beatrice Welles' "The Estate of Orson Welles." Then, on the roof of the BBC Studio, looking out on the Thames and London, she constructed a replica of Roi de Belges, the actual riverboat Conrad commanded on Africa's Congo River, setting of his novella masterpiece (often thought to be the most prescient and artful meditation in English about European Colonialism). Actor's Actor, the Scotsman Brian Cox agreed to play the dual role of Marlow (Conrad's usual narrator) and Mr. Kurtz (a model of a pre-fascist Colonial leader), as well as most of the other characters.

The reading takes two and a half hours, but of course, as a film, would have come in at under two. The 1939 script is a brilliant dramatization of the madness that is Colonialism. Welles freely adapted the novella, bringing it up to date, opening the action in New York Harbor, and bringing in references to the rise of Fascist dictators in Europe, one of whom, it is suggested, Mr. Kurtz was being groomed to become. [A viewer is reminded that, in 1935, Generalisimo Francisco Franco was brought back from Spanish Morocco with his colonial army to put down the Republlican Revolution in Spain.]

Brian Cox's reading was filmed live in the wheelhouse of the Roi de Belges on March 30, 2012, piped downstairs to a studio audience (where tadao witnessed it), and broadcast live Worldwide through the facilities of the BBC. So what we have is a somewhat primative record, in black and white, rather like a 1940's film, or an experimental Studion One drama in early TV, of Ms. Banner's art installation, which she has recently brought with imaginative lobby cards to a museum in Los Angeles. The intended film itself was never made, running into political and finance objections from the RKO head office. [I disagree with Todd on that.] They had expected a motion picture version of the H.G. Welles' "The War of the Worlds," the radio adaptation which had made Orson Welles a household name in 1938. Welles and his Mercury Theater then moped around for over a year before producing CITIZEN KANE, often named the greatest black and white picture of Hollywood's Golden Age.

After giving THE HEART OF DARKNESS a third viewing, the dramatized screenplay suggests for me a number of themes and touches which would be echoed in Welles' later films. For instance, in CITIZEN KANE, Charles Foster Kane, the Robber Baron of Journalism, can be seen as an American replica of Mr. Kurtz; both men's grandiose ambitions ending in regret and horror. Welles introduces a quite exotic girlfriend for Kurtz in his script and names her Elsa. Years later, in his next fully original motion picture, LADY FROM SHANGHAI, Welles has a wandering sailor take command of vessel, owned by fascist-types, which sails from New York around the Horn to San Francisco, where the sailor (played by Welles), a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, finds a heart of darkness with his fascist employer and the man's wife in the old Playland at the Beach. He names his unreliable heroine Elsa, and she is played by Rita Hayworth, in a role which mirrored the breakup of Welles' marriage to the Star.

Perhaps you might find echoes of THE HEART OF DARKNESS in other films of Orson Welles. The BBC art installation will be up only to June 30, 2012. Better hurry!

Here is the URL:

http://www.aroomforlondon.co.uk/hearts-of-darkness

One wonders (with a wink) if Simon Callow has seen THE HEART OF DARKNESS.

"The Horror . . . the horror. . . ."

Glenn

[tadao]

Wonderful to read such a pleasingly succinct and perceptive distillation of thoughts about the recording. To correct one small point of order: as far as I know, neither the Queen Elizabeth Hall itself, the staging of the reading, nor the webcast of the event are under the auspices of the BBC. As best as I can determine through the slightly labyrinthine dependencies of the organisations concerned, credit belongs to the producing organisation Artangel, and their collaborators Living Architecture for creating the 'Room For London' space (the Roi des Belges) used for the performance (which apparently is doing dual duty as a hotel room when not being used for artistic endeavours); the event programmers at Artangel, together with their counterparts at the Southbank Centre, both of which organisations receive funding from Arts Council England; Ms Banner (who as well as Heart of Darkness was involved with the choice of the Roi des Belges as the model for the space, and with the programme of other events taking place there), and the small production team on the taping of the screenplay. The BBC's only involvement that I can discern is mentioning the event and speaking with the participants in episodes of its arts programmes, now sadly offline.

The parallel with Elsa in Lady From Shanghai completely passed me by, I'd heard the name as Ilsa and my associations went only as far as Casablanca. Looking back at my earlier post, I've recorded the name correctly as 'Elsa' there, so I must have looked up the character list and still not made the connection; and neither did the penny drop when I was rewatching the former a week ago (and enjoying your own performance therein, Glenn, if I may say so!).

Incidentally, I'll be making my own return visit to the Purcell Room in a week, this time behind the camera myself to record an event about Shakespeare on Robben Island, the South African prison whose political section held opponents of apartheid until Mandela's release and the ANC's victory at the subsequent free elections. I hope that, clearances permitting, this will get its own airing somewhere on the internet in the near future; in the meantime, the Southbank Centre's page for the event is here:
http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/literature-spoken-word/tickets/robben-island-bible-65990

Not to be outdone in the cultural stakes, the BBC are offering an impressive lineup for the Cultural Olympiad, including a broadcast yesterday of a rather good filmed version of the RSC's present-day African-set staging of Julius Caesar; I don't know whether it's available for viewing online internationally (if not, perhaps PBS or BBC America will host a TV airing at some point), but I think it's well worth a viewing, principally for its own merits, but with extra interest here due to its resonances with Welles's on and off Broadway activities of 1936-38. Link is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/juliuscaesar/

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, tadao, and apologies for my gaffes. I haven't been in London for nearly twenty years, and only vaguely remember spying the Queen Elizabeth's Hall on a river trip up the Thames to Greenwich. From America, an observer might have thought Ms. Banner's work was being sponsored by the BBC and that The Queen Elizabeth's Hall was a BBC facility, but to be entirely fair in my ignorance, Ray Kelly's original entry had all the details correct.

Looking at the site again, I realize that a number of the installations, by various artists, were to have at least tertiary connections to Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness." One work I noticed with a reference to another maverick of Welles' early Hollywood experience was "Allo!" by the Belgian artist Luc Tuymans. He took a copy of Albert Lewin's THE MOON AND SIX PENCE (1942), photocopied and blew up the brilliantly technicolored sequence of the Gauguin-like paintings at the end of the picture, in such a way that he created something new, which he proceeded to hang on an interior wall of "A Room for London" (otherwise known as the Roi de Belges):

http://www.aroomforlondon.co.uk/hearts- ... ymans-allo

Gauguin, Belgium, French Oceanie, Strickland, George Sanders, Albert Lewin, THE MOON AND SIXPENCE (a black and white film of 1942 which explodes into to Technicolor at the end . . . A Wellsian may find a certain interest there.

Good luck, tadao, on your Shakespeare project, and its germane twist of our theme; Julius Caesar played by black actors in a South African prison!

Many of us will try to catch up with it, I'm sure.

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

Orson Welles' THE HEART OF DARKNESS may well live on in a renewed Fiona Banner installation, perhaps at the 1301 PE Gallery on Wilshire Blvd, LA. If not now . . . when? Meanwhile, a fine comprehensive review by Michael Wood is to be found in Artforum, with a couple of nice jaunty photos of Le Roi de Belges replica:

http://www.1301pe.com/news/detail.asp?NewsID=314

Surely, a record of Ms Banner's work is being preserved somewhere.

Glenn