The Magnificent Orson - What is this?

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

http://www.stagedirect.com/welles/

this guy does not look like orson?

and the title seems like it was chose by higham

not the magnificent orson title the other one

is this some kind of a joke?

[Harvey Chartrand]

Look like a good show.
Judging by this photo, actor Marcus Wolland is no dead ringer for Welles, but he has the same mustache and longish hair Welles sported while carousing in Rio in '42. Wolland reminds me more of Welles 17 years later playing defense lawyer Jonathan Wilk in Compulsion.

[Jeff Wilson]

I received a review copy of this very recently and will have my opinion of it up on the site shortly. It's not bad. Not great, but it has it's good points.

[Jeff Wilson]

For those who don't check the news page regularly, I've added my review of this tape to the site. You can access from the July 8 update section of the News.

[jaime marzol]

jeff:
that's quite a good review on the orson one man show. it told me everything i needed to know.

i've seen some trully bad one man shows, and some good ones. the groucho one man show (with 2 assistants) was excellent. all hardcore groucho fans (like me) walked out misty eyed. then i saw a one man show about a commie in his living room spouting off commie slogans, and paranoic theories. it was terrible, but i went with a bunch of friends, and nothing is more enjoyable than a bad play when you have a bunch of friends with you.

this orson thing sounds interesting enough, can't be any worse than the craddle will rock, and that deserved at least one look.

[jaime marzol]

............

what might be a good review to add is THE DOMINICI AFFAIR. a lot of people are passing on it thinking it's another installment of AROUND THE WORLD WITH OW. and it's quite superior to that.

that part where they show trancripts of the interview then highlight the parts welles used as we hear the interview, was great! opened a floodgate of information into welles' method. he did with that interview, on a smaller scale, what he did with shakespeare, and kafka. worth the price of purchase just for that, anything else you get is extra gravy, and there is plenty of that.

[jaime marzol]

................

great quote from DOMINICI AFFAIR:
the camera man runs into welles 10 years later. welles said, "you've changed." camera man says, "orson, we all change." orson says, "yes, but i surprise myself."

[Le Chiffre]

I agree Jeff, that is a good review of the video. I'm tempted to get it.

Welles is certainly a fitting subject for a one-man show. I saw another one about 12 years ago at the Woodstock Opera house in Woodstock, IL (where the teen-age Welles, fresh from his success in Ireland, had put on his 1934 summer theatre festival with Macliamior and Edwards when they visited America). It was called Orson: An Evening with Mr. Welles, and performed convincingly by an actor named Ronny Welsh. This play depicted the aged Welles(from around the 70s or so) reminiscing about his career. It had alot of great anecdotes - too bad it wasn't preserved on video as well. Or was it? I wonder.

[LA]

This idea of preserving stage productions on video is an interesting one. The blurb on their site "We find the best of these shows, shoot multiple performances with multiple digital cameras using professional crew and equipment..." reminded me of the technique that was used to make the film of Richard Burton's Hamlet. I'd often wondered why that kind of thing hadn't been done more often, looks as if it is now, although I suppose it's been done, on-and-off, for a long time (remembering that newsreel record of some of Welles' "voodoo" Macbeth).

I wonder why the video has a different title from the play though? I suppose The Magnificent Welles makes the content and subject clearer to the casual observer, but Lost Eden is a better title, IMHO.

[Welles Fan]

I like the idea of preserving stage shows, but I've never been into one-man shows unless the subject was someone who actually did one-man shows. For that reason, I love Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain shows (which I've seen live 2 or three times, and it's always different). James Whitmore did one of Will Rogers, and I think Emlyn Williams used to do one of Charles Dickens. Since all of these subjects did what were essentially one-man shows in their lifetime, the recreations by actors don't bother me.

The Holbrook Twain is so amazing-you have to slap yourself into remembering that it it is not Twain's timing you admiring but Holbtook's.

I suppose though, that Welles could have done such a show had he been fit enough in later life.

[Welles Fan]

I just read Jeff's review. I also just watched the trailer. It sounds kind of interesting, particularly for people unfamiliar with Welles' career, but I don't like the actor in the part. I know it is asking too much to expect a Wellesian performance, but his weak voice and lack of stage presence probably undermine what he is attempting to do in the show.

Kelsey Grammar, with his deep baritone voice and inflated ego reminds me more of Welles on any episode of Frasier that this guy does. My 2¢ worth.

[jaime marzol]

.............

holbook's AN EVENING WITH MARK TWAIN i hear is now available on video. i saw it 20 or 25 years ago and still remember it vividly, i even remember some of the jokes. it was excellent. lucky you are to have seen it live. in my part of the world i get stuff like, 'MANUEL'S ANGST IN AMERICA, a one meng chou.' no hal or twain ever. the latins, and the gays have their own theaters that cater to their special intrests, but no one else does.

.......................

[Le Chiffre]

Stopped by Facets Multimedia after seeing Orson's Shadow and rented this video. It's not bad - nothing earth-shattering, but a fine, energetic performance by Wolland. I'm actually weary of all these long recounts of Welles' youth and early career, but the bits where Welles tries desperately to call all his Ambersons coworkers from Rio in order to find out what's going on with the recutting are entertainingly done.
One assertion struck me, though: Wolland contends that Wise put back the 22 minutes that Welles had ordered cut for the first preview, so in other words, the running time at the disastrous Pamona preview of Ambersons was the full 132 minutes. I'd like to know where he got this info from.

[Wellesnet]

Deleted thread (2005) by Arvium 3-

Just caught this Seattle production on DVD. Wolland is a real pleasure to watch as he brings OW to life, recounting his story to date in a sweaty Rio hotel room as his control over "Ambersons" disentegrates. It's not just that Wolland, who wrote the play himself, looks so much like him. He had a real handle on OW's showmanship, but he showed his irascibility and frailty, too, in his conversations with Robert Wise, Joseph Cotten, and others when they gave him the bad news by phone about what he had hoped to be his greatest work. And this translated well into a teleplay with careful attention to the shots, not just a static camera for the full stage with the occasional close-up.
This 2002 performance just came out on netflix this week, although it can be ordered from stagedirect.com.