Last night, we went out to the Pasadena Playhouse for the first show of the 2008 season, “Orson’s Shadow”. In the words of Kander and Ebb, “It isn’t working.”
“Orson’s Shadow”, by Austin Pendleton, purports to tell the story of the time in 1960 when the cinema great Orson Wells agrees to direct Sir Lawrence Olivier and Dame Judith Plowright in a restaging of Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. At the time, Wells was coming off of multiple years of failure in Hollywood post-“Citizen Kane,” and was involved in a disasterous production of “Chimes at Midnight” in Dublin. This activity was arranged by theatre critic Kenneth Tynan as a way to get involved with the forthcoming National Theatre, directed by Olivier. At the same time, Olivier was fresh from his portrayal of vaudevillean Archie Rice on stage in John Osborne’s “The Entertainer”, and about to reprise the role in the film adaptation thereof. He was also getting romantically involved with Plowright, and was in the process of leaving Vivian Leigh (also a character in the play). Leigh, at the time, was coping with her manic-depression, TB, and was about to go to New York to work on a play. Lastly, adding to the complications, were the supposed reactions of Olivier and Leigh to bad reviews written by Tynan of the stage productions of “Streetcar Named Desire” in London and the Cleopatra Plays in New York.
So here we have a number of big egos–Wells, Olivier, Leigh, and to some extent Tynan–coming together. The explosion should be interesting to watch, right, and the drama is in how the characters pick up the pieces. I’m sure that’s what the author thought, and why Judith Auberjoinois suggested the idea. To some extent, it was — when the play was concentrating on the characters in character, it was good (although you weren’t quite sure where it was going). However, there was a lot of backstory to be brought in if the audience was to understand the production. How to do it? How to do it?
In this, the job devolved to characters in the play — although not as their characters. Instead, they would turn to the audience and give a monologue providing the necessary exposition. As an example of this, in the first scene, the Tynan character turns to the audience and says (paraphrased): “Here’s where the maid would receive a phone call where through the answers to the questions the backstory would be given. It would go like this…”, and he goes on for 5 minutes related the call and the exposition. This continued throughout the play, including announcing the intermission, and having Plowright (the only character still alive today) turn to the audience at the end and giving a recap of where every character ended up. This, to me, is poor writing. The play needs a different framing device, or additional scenes and characters to bring in this background in a more realistic fashion.
There were further book problems. Some scenes went on too long (such as the first rehearsal of Rhinoceros). More importantly, the playwright never found the right dramatic arc: at the end of the play, you need to provide redemption for some characters and comeuppance for others to provide the feeling of satisfaction… and that never happened in this incident, which was a fiasco from beginning to end. Perhaps that’s why they needed the expository bookends, but maybe this just wasn’t the right thing to dramatize. However, I must note that the middle — where the characters were being their characters — was very well written. There is the nucleus of gem here, but I think it still needs more work to polish it and get rid of some of the rough edges.
Aside from the book problems, how was the play? Acting-wise, most of the performances was excellent. I was particularly taken by the performances of Bruce McGill as Orson Wells, and Sharon Lawrence as Vivian Leigh. Lawrence’s performance in Act 2 was particularly good: she did a remarkable job of showing the manic-depressive nature of Leigh, and just shone in her scenes. McGill as Wells became the character: he had the stage presence and authority to become the man. Alas, the same could not be said of the other role requiring stage presence, Sir Lawrence Olivier, as played by Charles Shaughnessy (who most folks know as the male lead on “The Nanny”). Shaughnessy had the accent and played the role well, but just didn’t have the special something that made Olivier. Another key role in the cast was Scott Lowell, who did a good job as Kenneth Tynan — he had down the cough and meek nature of the man, but the role just isn’t a “shine” role. I also liked Libby West as Joan Plowright, but the role just didn’t allow this talented actress much to do. Rounding out the cast was Nick Cernoch as Sean, an invented minor stage hand/assistant role whose main purpose seemed to be for reaction and exposition.
On the technical side, this was the directoral debut of Damaso Rodriguez, the new associate artistic director of the Playhouse. He did OK, although there was some stiffness at time. The scenic design (a mostly backstage set, dark and dreary) was by Gary Wissmann. Costume design was by Mary Vogt, with lighting by Dan Jenkens and sound by Cricket S. Myers. Casting was by Michael Donovan, and the production was aided by dance consultant Art Manke with dialect coaching by Joel Goldes. Stage management was by Lea Chazin assisted by Hethyr Verhoef. The production continues through February 17.
As for us, the next show on the theatre calendar is “1776” at Actors Co-Op (with shutterbug93). I’m still considering whether to get tickets for something the remaining two weekends of February. The weekend of March 6-8 we’ll likely see “Grease” at Van Nuys High. Also sometime in March will be “W;t” at REP East (it runs 3/7 through 4/5). March 15 brings “Jekyll & Hyde” at Cabrillo Music Theatre, followed the next day by “Sweeney Todd” at the Ahmanson. That’s our current 1Q08 in theatre, as we know it now.
