Orson Welles

Lore & Background

In the fall of 1937, Orson Welles unexpectedly offered a 17-year-old high-school student, Richard Samuels, the role of Lucius in *Caesar*, the first production of his new Mercury Theatre repertory company. The company was immersed in rehearsals at its Broadway theater. Welles was having an affair with the leading actress while his wife was pregnant. A few days before the premiere, Welles told Richard he was worried because he had recently had nothing but good luck; he feared that he would finally have bad luck with the premiere, and that the play would be a flop. During rehearsals Richard set off the sprinkler system, soaking the entire theatre. When accused by Welles he denied having anything to do with the deluge, and suggested that the catastrophe was the bad luck that Welles needed to get out of the way. Welles decided the entire production crew would benefit from a coupling game, and Richard cheated to ensure he was paired with Sonja. Richard spent the night with Sonja, but became jealous when she spent the next night with Welles. He confronted Welles, mentioned his pregnant wife, and was fired. An apparent reconciliation followed, and Richard performed on the first night. The anti-fascist adaptation of *Caesar* was a huge success, but after the premiere, Richard was told that Welles only needed him in order to secure a successful first-night production and, that done, he had again been fired.

Reader's Guide

In the theatre, Christian McKay had portrayed Orson Welles in the one-man play *Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles* at a number of venues, including the Edinburgh Festival and King's Head (London). He reprised the role in the U.S. at the 2007 'Brits Off Broadway' festival, where Richard Linklater saw his performance and then cast McKay as Welles, retaining him over the subsequent objections of the project's producer. The film's design team found the Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man, which closely resembles the old Comedy Theatre on 41st Street that was torn down five years after *Julius Caesar* opened there. Using Samuel Leve's original designs, they reconstructed the set for *Julius Caesar* on the Gaiety's stage. Linklater then filmed some 15 minutes' worth of scenes from the play, lit according to Jean Rosenthal's plot, accompanied by Marc Blitzstein's original incidental music and staged in a style as close to that of the 1937 production as is now possible. Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout wrote, 'I've never seen a backstage movie that was truer to the experience of putting on a show.'

Did You Know?

• The real-life 15-year-old Arthur Anderson played Lucius in Welles' 1937 production of Julius Caesar.
• Christian McKay had previously portrayed Orson Welles in the one-man play *Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles* before being cast in the film.
• The film's design team reconstructed the set for Julius Caesar using Samuel Leve's original designs on the Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man.
• Richard Linklater filmed about 15 minutes of scenes from the play, lit according to Jean Rosenthal's plot and accompanied by Marc Blitzstein's original incidental music.
• The film's release was a DIY effort by production company CinemaNX after failing to secure a distributor at Cannes and Toronto film festivals.