Orson's Shadow" (the play) and Orson's daughter - appearing Oct. 26 at Barrow St. Theatre

[Christopher]

Those who have not yet seen Austin's Pendleton's hit play, "Orson's Shadow." still playing at the Barrow Street Theatre in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, might want to go on Wednesday night, October 26th. After the performance, Pendleton will interview Chris Welles Feder, Orson's eldest daughter, about her participation in the Orson Welles retrospective held in Locarno this August. There will also be a fifteen-minute reading from Chris's book, THE MOVIE DIRECTOR, with Chris, Austin and several members of the "Orson's Shadow" cast participating.

THE MOVIE DIRECTOR was inspired by Orson Welles but intended to be a fictive, not a literal, portrait of a larger-than-life movie director. Fifty copies were sold at the Locarno festival to raise money for the Munich Fillmmuseum (which sponsored the Orson Welles retrospective) and the sale raised over $2,000. Now those who did not have an opportunity to purchase the book in Locarno can hear an extract performed live at the Barrow Street Theatre this coming Wednesday.

[Christopher]

P. S. After the staged reading from the book, THE MOVIE DIRECTOR, a limited number of copies will be available for purchase.

[Lucy]

Entertainment Weekly chose "Orson's Shadow" as one of it's top 10 theatre productions of the year.

Entertainment Weekly
THURSDAY, December 29, 2005
Orson's Shadow
Reviewed by Scott Brown
The best play of its kind since Copenhagen, Austin Pendleton's reimagining of a very real, very quixotic attempt by critic Kenneth Tynan (Tracy Letts) to unite declining director Orson Welles (Jeff Still) and imploding actor Sir Laurence Olivier (John Judd) in a 1960 production of Ionesco's Rhinoceros is a massive set of aesthetic and sociopolitical concepts, heartbreakingly humanized and (for the most part) judiciously compacted. Classicism, modernism, and postmodernism collide under the ghost light of the tiny Barrow Street stage,...

[Store Hadji]

Anyone seen this thing? How accurate is it? In what light does it portray Welles? In 'decline?'

Yeah - got FAT and subsequently lost his career...

[Clive Dale]

Orson's Shadow final New York performance is Dec. 31

[jaime marzol]

i did a google search on orson's shadow to see if it was going to play anywhere near me, and it seems not to be going anywhere after dec 31. what a shame. at amazon they have the book, and the unabridged audio recording. has any one heard this? has any one seen the play? has any one read the book?

[NoFake]

I saw the play, but I've hesitated posting my reaction because it was a while ago, and I was doing a three-day NYC marathon -- Broadway, Lincoln Center, MT&R, etc. etc. etc. -- the waves of time & cultural overkill (but glorious overkill!!) obliterating much of what I once recalled. I do remember being impressed with the acting, and being relieved that the play did not cater to the popular misconceptions of Welles. Chris Welles Feder was very enthusiastic about the play, and came onstage with Pendleton afterwards to take questions. (Don't ask me what they said -- I can't find my notes.) For what it's worth, hope this is helpful.

[colwood]

For anyone wondering about the show, here are a couple of past threads here at wellesnet,

http://www.wellesnet.com/cgi-bin....+shadow
http://www.wellesnet.com/cgi-bin....+shadow
http://www.wellesnet.com/cgi-bin....+shadow
http://www.wellesnet.com/cgi-bin....+shadow


Sorry to hear it's closing tomorrow. I kept saying I'm going to see it, I'm going to see it. And as usual for me, I guess I ran out of time.

[Vidamonte]

I have read the book "The Movie Director". It is very beautifully written and moving book by someone who lost his father to Peter Bogdanoviche's and Oja Kodars of this world or to put it straight - to US, to audiences all over.

[mteal]

Michael Anderegg's Welles/Shakespeare book...mentions how Olivier's HAMLET was used by critics as a convenient stick to beat Welles's MACBETH with.

This is a major theme of "Orson's Shadow", where Welles says Olivier shot Hamlet like a bad Joan Crawford picture.. "Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture" shows the Life Magazine articles from 1948 contrasting Macbeth and Hamlet.

Yes, you're right. I remember seeing ORSON'S SHADOW in Chicago back in 2000, when it was still in workshop form. I could have sworn I heard the Welles character say, about Olivier: "That son-of-a-bitch had me run out of Hollywood in 1948". When I posted this on the old tierranet Welles board, I recieved a response from someone named Matthew Wilson who also saw the show in workshop form:

'I saw "Orson's Shadow" at Steppenwolf, too, and thought it was terrific. I don't think, though, that the idea was that Olivier used his clout to run Welles out of town. I think the idea was that his slick, glossy, Hollywood Shakespeare films made Welles look bad to the powers that be and Welles felt that those films helped "ruin" him in Hollywood.'

I agreed with Matthew that he was probably right, and that perhaps the actor playing Welles had misread or ad-libbed the line I heard. This prompted the following response from Jeff Still, the actor who originated the Welles role:

'As the actor who played Orson Welles in "Orson's Shadow", I can assure you that I did not "misread" or "ad-lib" the line you are talking about ("that son-of-a-bitch ran me out of Hollywood"). Though I have been with this production from the start, and have been with it through its many re-writes, I can tell you that the line is "Olivier destroyed me in Hollywood, did you know that?" ... "Never mind, I'm not going into the details, but he destroyed me in Hollywood in 1948." Later in the play (and this HAS been re-written since the Chicago production) it becomes apparent that what Welles is referring to is that "Hollywood" said (following Welles' MACBETH) "This is not the way you make a movie out of Shakespeare - you do it like Larry does it").'

Anderreg's book helped clarify the situation too.

[Clive Dale]

Orson's Shadow will be at at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, Calif. in January 2008.

[RayKelly]

For those on the West Coast:
Orson's Shadow plays at the Long Beach Playhouse from Jan. 20 to Feb. 5, 2012.
The theater is located at 5021 E. Anaheim St. in Long Beach, California