The relationship between Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles will be explored for laughs in The Sacred Beasts, a new play debuting at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in Los Angeles in June.
Three pairs of actors will play the author and filmmaker at various stages of their lives. The comedy takes its title from a planned Welles film about a bullfighter, which later became the basis for The Other Side of the Wind.
Welles and Hemingway shared a love of bullfighting and Spain. In September 2015, a monuments honoring Welles and Hemingway were placed outside Ronda’s historic bullring.
“In my research, I found a number of interesting parallels between the two men, and thought their stories and friendship would be an interesting way to address a lot of issues we’re having in modern times regarding the prevalence of toxic masculinity and pride, amongst other things,” writer-director Chris Wollman told Broadway World. “Plus, I just thought it would be funny.”
When asked about what audiences can expect from The Sacred Beasts, Wollman said, “I’m hoping first and foremost that audiences laugh. That they feel they’ve learned something about these two men beyond the trivia and tall tales. Hopefully they might draw some parallels to things happening today in terms of men struggling with expectations and what it means to be a man.”
Producers described The Sacred Beasts as “the booze and resentment-soaked real life friendship of Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles is conjured in three scenes spanning three decades with the besotted wordsmiths played by different actors in each stage of their lives. Celebrated as much for their personal lives filled with prodigious beard growth, cigar chomping, and romanticized alcoholism as anything they actually wrote, these two tempestuous, swaggering egos in human form are often elevated as mythic symbols of a particularly distinct and antiquated flavor of Manhood. Here we break the idols and display these sacred beasts as they were. Watch them drink, fight, hunt, smoke, and bloviate their way across such issues as easy success, hard won failure, and the corrosive effects of hypermasculinity. Claim your ringside seat as these fists of genius at last come to blows.”
Tickets are priced at: $15 with discounts available for seniors and students for the production at Asylum @ Underground Theater in LA. For more information, visit hollywoodfringe.org/projects/4589
________
Post your comments on the Wellesnet Message Board.