Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

The Archive of American Television in partnership with E1 Entertainment has just released Orson Welles 1953 Television debut as King Lear in a deluxe DVD package. It is highly recommended, since although this historic TV show is still mastered from a kinescope copy, it looks far better than the blurry VHS copies that have long been in circulation.

The DVD also comes with over 90-minutes of bonus features, including:

* A 5-minute preview of King Lear, including rehearsal footage of the blinding of Glouster's eyes, along with interviews with director Peter Brook and composer Virgil Thompson. Peter Brook also shows us a series of drawings, (presumably rendered by production designer Henry May), which are much more detailed and elaborate then what eventually ended up in the production itself. See a excerpt on YouTube HERE.

* A discussion on staging Shakespeare by Walter Kerr, including scenes from Hamlet.

* A 43-minute report from the Yale University Shakespeare Festival in 1954 by Omnibus host Alastair Cooke.

* Dr. Frank Baxter on the Globe Theater, with Mr. Baxter explaining William Shakespeare’s famed theatre (10 minutes).

* A nicely designed 16-page booklet with rare photos taken during the performance, and a comprehensive background essay by Simon Callow, along with a short introduction from director Peter Brook, who relates his memories of working with Orson Welles.

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Here is a review of King Lear that appeared in The New York Herald-Tribune:

ORSON WELLES AS KING LEAR ON TV IS IMPRESSIVE

By John Crosby
October 22, 1953 – The New York Herald Tribune

Orson Welles, a great ham of an actor, undertook the role of King Lear, a great ham of a part, on Omnibus last Sunday and was, I thought, enormously impressive. This was the great Orson’s television debut and it was a fortunate inspiration to cast him as Lear. No other part is big enough for Welles who suffers from gigantism of manner and mind.

Welles, whose five year sojourn abroad has added quite a lot of poundage to his face and the rest of him, was every inch a king, a phrase that came from Lear, and his voice, a redoubtable organ, was superb in declaiming some of the most sweeping poetry in all of Shakespeare.

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Here is a link where you can hear what is probably Orson Welles only single, which was obviously never a hit, at least on Billboard's top 200, but all the same it was issued as a CD single, which in my book, is enough to call it a hit for Welles.

Hearing it for the first time, I was astonished that it seems to have captured the touch of Welles genius, transforming what might have been utterly banal lyrics into a meditation about what Welles own work was most concerned about at the end of his life: Death.

So here is the master on that subject from his proposal to make his last unfinished movie, King Lear:

"Death" is our only dirty word. And King Lear is about death and the approach of death, and about power and the loss of power, and about love. In our consumer society we are encouraged to forget that we will ever die, and old age can be postponed by the right face cream. And when it finally does come, we're encouraged to look forward to a long and lovely sunset.

"Old age," said Charles de Gaulle, "old age is a ship wreck"—and he knew whereof he spoke. The elderly are even more self-regarding than the young. To their dependents the elderly call out for love, for more love than they can possibly receive, and for more than they are likely—or capable—of giving back. When old age tempts or forces a man to give away the very source of his ascendancy over the young—his power—it's they, the young, who are the tyrants, and he, who was all-powerful, becomes a pensioner.

Link to the Youtube video of

I Know What it is to be Young:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMurd0OUbrQ&feature=related
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Here are two pieces on approaches to acting in KING LEAR. The first is by Orson Welles, the second an interview with the distinguished stage star, Morris Carnovsky.  

Welles wrote his piece on KING LEAR for the January  8, 1956 edition of The New York Times shortly before he opened in KING LEAR at the New York City Center. He mentions, in passing that LEAR hadn't been presented on the New York stage for five years, but fails to note that his old partner, John Houseman was the man who directed the 1950 Broadway presentation at the National Theater, starring Louis Calhern as King Lear. 

Housesman's version, like Welles own production, featured music by Marc Blitzstein, as well as several actors from the Mercury theater. In fact, Houseman's staging of LEAR had more Mercury actors than Welles own production.  Everett Sloane was slated to play the fool, until he clashed with Louis Calhern and resigned. He was replaced by Norman Lloyd. Martin Gabel played the Earl of Kent; Nina Foch was Cordelia; Joesph Wiseman was Edmund and both Wesley Addy, who played Edgar and Arnold Moss, who played the Earl of Gloucester would go on to act with Welles (but playing different roles), in the Peter Brook TV version of LEAR broadcast in 1953. 

As an introduction, I have taken Welles comments about Shakespeare's Othello, from Filming Othello, and substituted King Lear where Welles actually says Othello. 

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King Lear is something more than a masterpiece.  It stands through the centuries as a great monument to western civilization. Take an arbitrary figure: Twelve.  Name twelve plays which could be called great. King Lear must be one of those twelve. Of that twelve, at least nine (which is another arbitrary figure) are by Shakespeare. That leaves three on our list for all the other writers who ever lived.  Is that putting it too strongly? Or is it too high?  You can't go higher than that, and Shakespeare remains immortally number one.  Among all dramatists the first.  The greatest poet, in terms of sheer accomplishment, very possibly our greatest man.

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One of Orson Welles last Shakepearian projects was his planned screen adaptation of King Lear. As usual, Welles wrote a complete script, made many sketches for the project and even shot a short film detailing his approach to the subject. Here are some of Welles fascinating comments about what he planned to do with his version of King Lear. 
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