By RAY KELLY
Several years ago, I came across a theater playbill and discovered that my hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts, was a two-night stop on a national tour of The Barretts of Wimpole Street and Candida in June 1934 with 19-year-old Orson Welles in a supporting role.
Recently, I learned of a second Springfield visit by Welles. This time as a solo act.
Welles — fresh off the success of The War of the Worlds radio show and a string of New York stage hits — lectured about the “Theater of Tomorrow,” performed a pair of Shakespearean soliloquies and fielded questions from a large crowd at Springfield’s Municipal Auditorium on January 21, 1939.
His appearance was first announced a month earlier in The Springfield Daily News.
“The youthful genius of the Mercury Theater will discuss ‘Theater tomorrow’,” the newspaper reported on December 21, 1938. “He will also present one or two of his best known characterizations and at the close of his regular program will conduct a public forum.” The audience was invited to later meet the 23-year-old actor-director at a reception in the second floor Mahogany Room.
The Springfield appearance was orchestrated by Mercury Theatre member Harold J. Kennedy, who was born in nearby Holyoke, Massachusetts, in conjunction with Berkshire Playhouse and the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts.
Tickets, priced between 55 cents and a $1.65, were sold at two music shops: Steinert M. Sons on Main Street and J.G. Heidner & Sons in Holyoke. Springfield Mayor Roger Lowell Putnam was photographed as being first in line. Proceeds benefited a scholarship fund at Smith College in Northampton.
On the night of the show, it was a bit of a mad dash for Welles, who arrived at Springfield Union Station on the 6:40 p.m. train from New York City. Showtime was 8:30 p.m.
He was accompanied by pal Joseph Cotten, who had been rehearsing with Welles for the upcoming Friday night radio broadcast of I Lost My Girlish Laughter before boarding the train.
Stepping onto the platform, Welles was greeted by representatives of the Smith College Club of Springfield.
Welles told The Springfield Republican he had hoped to bring with him Amherst College alum Burgess Meredith as the two had been readying for Five Kings, which was set to open the following month at the Colonial Theatre in Boston. However, Meredith, who would play Prince Hal opposite Welles’ Falstaff, remained in New York rehearsing for Five Kings.
Welles reportedly looked sleepy and went to a nearby hotel to freshen up with a newspaper reporter in tow.
His physical appearance was described as tall, heavy set with thick, long (by 1939 standards) black hair, very dark eyes and a voice that was “hearty, booming, and loaded with good humor.” (“It can be used as fluidly as an organ at the touch of a master.”)
He charmed the reporter, who later described him as “genuinely friendly,” patient and courteous despite numerous requests for an autograph.
Welles was alarmed when a hat was tossed on the hotel bed and ordered it off, obviously aware of the superstition that it invited bad luck.
He wanted a shave, but there was no time for him to visit a barbershop. He came up with the novel idea of shaving himself and paid for a kit delivered by a bellhop to the hotel room with a $2 bill.
Welles noted his jacket needed some care before the stage performance. “If I don’t get this pressed, they’ll think I am a visiting English journalist,” he quipped.
The next day’s newspaper featured a front page photo of Welles tying his tie after two failed attempts and getting ready for his lecture.
“What have you agreed to present,” he asked the Mercury’s Kennedy about his impending performance. “Am I going to be Gargantua, is it ‘The Man of a Hundred Faces’ or ‘Orson Welles and his Makeup Kit’.”
During the hour-long respite, Welles rehearsed for his radio show and ate a late lunch before heading to the nearby Municipal Auditorium across from Court Square. There, he debated whether a microphone would be necessary, joked about sending up smoke signals for those who could not hear him, and eventually took advantage of a stage mic.
Walking out onto the stage, Welles described himself to the crowd of 3,500 as a Midwesterner, who considered Broadway about as far northeast as he intended to go. (Springfield is 140 miles further northeast from New York City.)
Welles began his 80-minute appearance by describing the theater as “a thing I love so much and believe in so much.”
He said his recently reported characterization of the theater as being doomed was misquoted or misunderstood, though he admitted it was in “tough shape.”
The Springfield Republican wrote, “But before he had finished the discussion, Mr. Welles had painted a picture of ill health for the theater that was as convincing and terrifying as is often as heard in an automobile insurance case. He also said a lot of things (a word he used repeatedly) about Hollywood and the radio which probably wouldn’t be appreciated by either branch of the entertainment industry.”
“The theater has died a hundred times in recorded time,” Welles said. “The theater is in a pretty perilous state… There are more audiences than first-class theaters and players.”
Actors and producers, he noted, haunt Broadway in hopes of being called to Hollywood, where they will earn their fortunes amid “those appalling garbage-colored hills.”
Welles assured the audience that if the theater died, like a phoenix it would rise from the ashes and renew itself.
He followed his lecture with two Shakespearean soliloquies before fielding numerous questions.
Welles took part in the Mahogany Room reception and was photographed with various dignitaries, including Smith College president William Allan Neilson.
However, Welles was reportedly disappointed in the visit. He found the Springfield crowd to be too polite, too quiet and unresponsive. He was overheard in conversation after the show vowing to never again return to New England for a speaking engagement.
It was an empty threat as Welles made two other high profile visits to Massachusetts.
On November 4, 1944, Welles and Frank Sinatra accompanied President Franklin D. Roosevelt at his final campaign stop and spoke before a crowd of 40,000 at Fenway Park in Boston. Welles attacked Republican candidate Thomas Dewey for running a negative campaign, which had questioned FDR’s health. (Roosevelt would die five months later.)
Welles made his final visit to Massachusetts on January 7, 1977 at the behest of friend Larry Jackson (The Other Side of the Wind‘s production manager and cast member).
Some 2,100 people turned out for “An Evening With Orson Welles” at Boston Symphony Hall despite a massive winter storm that dumped 14 inches of snow and shut down major roads. It was among Welles’ last stage performances.
The following day, a segment for the documentary Filming Othello was shot at the 400-seat Cinema 1 of the Orson Welles Cinema Complex in Cambridge.
(A version of this article also appeared in The (Springfield, MA) Republican on October 2, 2022.)
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