Orson Welles Invades Virginia
Below is the uncensored and more precise version of my Sun review of Lost Eden: The Magnificent Orson Welles, a play written by Marcus Wolland, which just finished its run in Alexandria, Va. A DVD of the original performance is carried by Netflix, so potential victims might find the review useful. It is, to quote drunken Joseph Cotten from Citizen Kane, my first thrust at dramatic crimitism. Excerpt:
Magic is an aptly recurring focus in the play. Not only was Welles a virtuoso magician, but cinema itself is the virtuoso magic act, at once true to and larger than life. As hocus pocus taken to the artistic power, it’s the one narrative medium in which style is substance. This is proven by every minute of Citizen Kane as well as the cash-register chings in The Stranger, the hall of mirrors scene in Lady from Shanghai, the opening shot and hotel fight sequence in Contact of a Less Than Moral Nature (released under the improved title, Touch of Evil), and ultimately by the enduring vitality of all the great character actors—Welles among them—whose captivating presence made Hollywood glisten in its golden age. From that list only Citizen Kane has any literary substance.
