SHAKESPEARE

Synopsis

Version, intended for television, of Welles’ stage production of his play based on Melville’s novel. Filmed for three weeks but filming subsequently abandoned after c75 minutes had been shot. It was performed at the Duke of York’s in London in 1955 and the film starred the original stage cast. Set in a mid-19th century American repertory theatre, the play begins stealthily as the audience arrives with the cast milling around an empty stage. The cast fools around and complains about their boss and the forthcoming production of King Lear which they are rehearsing. Then, making a big dramatic entrance and smoking a cigar, the actor manager comes onstage and tells them they are going not going to rehearse King Lear after all, but another piece, Moby Dick.

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Medium

Television

Recording date

15 Jul 1955

Credits

Director

Orson Welles

Cinematographer

Hilton Craig

Screenplay

Orson Welles

Cast

Christopher Lee	Stage manager/2nd Mate/Mr Flask
Gordon Jackson	A Young Actor/Ishmael
Joan Plowright	A Young Actress/Pip
Kenneth Williams	A Very Serious Actor/Elijah and others
Orson Welles	Actor-manager/Father Mapple/Captain Ahab
Patrick McGoohan	Serious actor/Starbuck
Wensley Pithey	A Middle-Aged Actor/Stubb

Additional Details

Production type

Television and Radio Drama

Plays

King Lear

Subjects

Drama

Keywords

Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Notes

General

`Welles’s minimal stage design was possibly influenced by his long-term friend, Michael Macliammoir, and what he termed "anti-naturalist theater". The stage was bare, the actors appeared in contemporary street clothes, and the props were minimal. For example, brooms were used for oars, and a stick was used for a telescope. The actors provided the action, and the audience’s imagination provided the ocean, costumes, and the whale. In The Fabulous Orson Welles, by Peter Noble, cameraman Hilton Craig reveals, "it was by no means merely a photographed stage-play. On the contrary, it was shot largely in close-ups and looked very impressive on near-completion."[wikipedia, 2/2007].

Reviews

Kenneth Tynan’s review of the stage production is reprinted in Tynan on Theatre (London: Penguin, 1964, pp137-9). Tynan writes ‘Mr Welles clearly sees Ahab as Lear and Pip as a cross-breed of the Fool and Cordelia’.