"Shadow" play

"Orson's Shadow" opens at the Pasadena Playhouse tonight. Cool play for stage buffs: the drama that unfolds when Orson Welles tries to direct Laurence Olivier in a production of Ionesco's "Rhinoceros" in England at the behest of theater critic Kenneth Tynan. Vivien Leigh and Joan Plowright -- Olivier's first and second wives -- are characters as well.

First caught this play some seven years ago now at San Diego's Old Globe. A very good L.A. production produced by the Black Dahlia moved to the Tiffany back in 2002.

In previewing the PP production, I talked to playwright Austin Pendleton, a longtime actor and Steppenwolf Theater Co. alumni who originally wrote "Shadow" at the suggestion of Judith Auberjonois as a vehicle for her husband Rene Auberjonois to play Olivier. He never did. Nor did Alfred Molina -- forecasted to play Welles -- ever strap on the bulk. Oh, well, maybe if they do a movie. Which they should.

Despite a very intriguing subject matter, "Orson's Shadow" apparently did not exactly write itself, says Pendleton.

"I fooled with it for like 3 and a half years, went up every blind alley you could think of, and then after about three years, I had almost a complete draft. I’m a member at Steppenwolf where they had done another play I had written. They heard I was working on it and they said, can we read this new one? I thought, 'Oh I don’t know.' I was very un-confident about it. Finally I let them see it, and I thought that, since I was an ensemble member, maybe they'd put up a reading so I could hear what’s up with it. But then to my surprise, they said they wanted to produce it. Which really threw me. I didn’t expect that. And then they did."

In 1960, when the play (which is partially fictionalized for dramatic purposes) is set, Welles is on the outs with the studios and, grossly overweight, is playing Falstaff to thin crowds in fringe British theater. Olivier, on the cusp of creating the National Theatre, is looking for a non-classic role after doing "The Entertainer"

The friction that figured to develop between the two theater giants figured to sabotage things. And, in fact, it did.

"It's very ambiguous whether Welles was fired or whether he felt compelled to quit," says Pendleton. "In all the stuff you read, there's barely a paragraph in biographies of either man, and it's only a paragraph that says it wasn’t working out between them. It's about as vague as that. It's said that Orson began to feel Olivier was directing the actors behind his back. The play takes that idea and runs with it."

I asked if Pendleton viewed "Shadow" as a kind of valentine to the stage. Exactly the opposite, the playwright says.

"It shows the process of a genuine theatrical collaboration that was an accident waiting to happen. Even among people as good as that, particularly among people who are as good at that, they automatically bring out the deepest fears in each other. I've always observed and felt to be true that as wonderful as it is, a life in theater, and the cost of it on a person is really fierce. All of that is what I thought when I was writing it."

"Orson's Shadow" plays through Feb. 17 at the Pasadena Playhouse. (626) 356-7529, www.pasadenaplayhouse.org.

On a final "Shadow-ing" note, I got an e-mail back from Sharon Lawrence (who plays Vivien Leigh) thanking me for the story I wrote on her and the play. It appeared in Wednesday's edition of the Daily News:

Evan,

Thanks for your great work on the Daily News Arts Profile. It really captured my passion for creating this portrayal including the challenges and discoveries.

I always appreciate hearing how anyone practices their craft. Your clarity in detailing the “why and how” are of value to those of us who like to study the process other go through on their goal to create.

Hope you get to see the results!

Best

Sharon Lawrence

Sienna Productions

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I've been interviewing and writing about actors for quite some time now. Usually -- like theater blog readers -- they don't respond. It's kind of cool when they give an attaboy. I've also received phone calls, letters e-mail notes from Nia Vardalos, Hal Holbrook, Garry Marshall and Amy Yasbeck.