A small stage, a stool, a radio, a decanter of brandy, a well-thumbed copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Audio of vintage recordings of Orson Welles’ stentorian voice is piped in before the lights change and the man himself emerges.In 1946 Orson Welles is on a lecture tour to try to once again escape his periodic insolvency between decreasingly successful creative projects. He is famous, yet already something of a has-been, hailed as a genius and yet widely declared to be washed-up, and he’s only 31 years old.
Orson Welles is one of those special figures that most people, even of my generation, are still very keenly aware of, even if they may not know much about him beyond having made Citizen Kane and the War of the Worlds broadcast (and, perhaps, as the voice of Unicron), which is considerable testament to the legend of a man who famously left so many of his projects unfinished and was considered by many as an erratic artist with as much a proclivity for failure as for brilliance. After all, this was a man who caused a panic by convincing a significant proportion of the listening public that Earth really was being invaded by Martians and was declared to have made what, even some seven decades later, is widely considered to be the greatest film of all time, both before he was 30. Perhaps a man with these accomplishments would be destined to be well remembered regardless of anything else he ever did, or failed to do, in the rest of his career. These certainly appear to be thoughts that occupied the mind of the man himself even at the distance of less than a decade.
Pearls Before Swine – An Evening with Orson Welles is a very intriguing little show, the kind of theatrical gem that is a pleasure to come across even if, rather like Welles’ own career, it meanders along with some elements that do not entirely bear fruit. It is not clearly indicated, but this one-hander appears to be something close to verbatim theatre, with the writer/performer crediting his script as “based on the written and spoken words of Orson Welles”. Assuming that the content is assembled and perhaps extrapolated from real speeches and writings rather than being primarily based on any specific lecture, one may be forgiven for being a little surprised that the end result does not have more of an imposed dramatic structure, however much a contrivance that might be. Yet perhaps it is truer to life that the show is comprised instead of vignettes that have only a loose thematic throughline in Welles’ melancholy musings on life, human folly and, indeed, some measure of folly in his own life.
Welles relates interesting stories that are equally about his famous career as they are obscure little anecdotes that illustrate his views on humanity, or perhaps merely pique his whimsy. As the lecture rambles, so too does this show, punctuated by fades in the lighting and recordings of the real Welles, followed by the performed Welles reading relevant Shakespeare monologues before returning to his urbane, seemingly aimless lecture. It’s a loose structure in danger of unravelling, but thankfully never quite does so.
Although the content of these speeches is undeniably intriguing, this alone would not be sufficient to carry the show were it not for a charismatic and engrossing performer to embody the larger-than-life man delivering them. Fortunately, this production has exactly that. One has to acknowledge that it’s a pretty audacious choice to play audio clips of the real Orson Welles in direct juxtaposition to the actor with the unenviable task of approximating the famously rich, idiosyncratic voice, with the potential to undermine his performance. Thankfully though, this is far from the case.
Pulling impressive double duty as both writer and performer is Blake Erickson, with credits primarily in musicals, who conveys not only a believable physical embodiment of Welles but moreover creates a striking vocal recreation. Erickson does an excellent job portraying the famous actor’s persona that was at once intense yet aloof, faintly elitist but universally engaging. He brings a strong sense of character and intellect to a man who clearly had an abundance of both, but also the rueful air of an artist who has grown weary of bucking the system. Of the many subjects that Erickson expounds as Welles, perhaps that which comes closest to the heart of what this show seems to be about is Welles’ frustration with, and incomprehension of, those who allow the mediocrity of the “safe” artistic path to rule them and insist on imposing this dubious ethos onto those who plot a more recklessly creative course. Describing himself as a man who always valued experimentation over actual success, Welles’ view is a challenge to those in the arts today that is well worth contemplating.
This is a stimulating and beautifully performed little show that is hopefully indicative of the other offerings at this year’s Fringe. My only real complaint would be that the ticket prices are rather high for such short, simply-produced shows as this, and one can’t help but wonder if this is not offputting for the type of young audience the Fringe is presumably trying to entice to see multiple shows in a single evening, let alone doing so on several evenings as a festival atmosphere would suggest.
1985 Productions presents
Pearls Before Swine: An Evening With Orson Welles
Part of the 2010 Sydney Fringe Festival
Venue: The Fuse Box
Dates/Times: 12 & 17 Sept @ 9:30pm; 18 & 22 Sept @ 8pm; 19 Sep @ 1:00pm
Tickets: Adult: $24.00, Concession: $20.00
Bookings: thesydneyfringe.com.au
