Sunday, July 01, 2007

Orson's Shadow or Why I More or Less Hate Theater

The play wasn't terrible. Let's start there. There were a few minutes in the first act and a solid chunk of time in the second that things were firing on all cylinders. Michael Mendelsohn was pretty great as Ken Tynant. Though his role had to carry a lot of expositional back story. Which is where I get a little annoyed. Theatre goers are considered of a higher intelligence. If that's so, why do we need so much tidy, comprehensive information? The play seems to ignore that there are a dozen biographies of Welles widely available. That you can Google him when you get home to fill in any blanks. Instead of stating anything new or challenging us to experience anything with Orson, we get a wordy biography delivered with sliding dialects.
The out-of-towners playing Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh were very good. I liked Olivier's haricut, but his moustache confused me throughout. Todd Van Voris as Welles was good at times. He got the boom of Orson's voice, but missed the soft lilt. I would say he missed all of Welles's feminitity. Lauren Bair as Joan Plowright did a fine job, though her costuming was awful. And the other supporting actor; oh my I think I'll let that one go without further mention.
Maybe it was the writing, but Van Voris seemed to bellow and boast from the surface more than he allowed us any experience of his or Orson's viscera. I've read the biographies and I realize it's not entirely clear what kept Orson from living up to his genius. I do think it's the task of the playwright, the director and the actor to make a strong choice in representing that protrayal. In this production we got a lot of single-mindedness and finger pointing. If that's a true representation of the historical facts, and I know it isn't limited to such facts, it makes for more squabbling than drama.
Everytime I go to the theater I feel like I'm at the ballet or the opera -- upper middle-class supporters and the prodcution co-signing the stuffy reputation of culture and art regardless of the quality of the performance. If I had to pay forty bucks a ticket for that, I would be pissed. Even with our comps I felt like I was being held prisoner at times.

Popcorn anyone?
Signore Direttore

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