Dorel Visan
By LESLIE WEISMAN
Richard France’s play, Obediently Yours, Orson Welles, which has been translated into several languages and produced in major cities around the world, will be adding another notch on both of those belts when it premieres on Romanian TV on Monday, December 14.
Directed and translated by Cezar Ghioca and starring Dorel Visan as Welles, this will be the first time a play by a British or American playwright has been presented on Romanian National Television.
Ghioca has broken the text into 33 camera set-ups, and has used his cameras to get inside Welles’ head – where much of the play takes place.
The two-act play takes place on May 7, 1985, the day after Welles’ 70th and last birthday. It is set in a Hollywood recording studio where Welles is doing commercial voiceovers, reminiscing about his past and hoping in vain that Steven Spielberg will finance one of his unfinished projects.
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Leslie Weisman reviewed a Paris production of Obediently Yours, Orson Welles for Wellesnet in 2006 and contributed to a 2009 report on the San Sebastian Film Festival.
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