A look at Me And Orson Welles...

IT’S late 1937 in New York City and two giants of the stage are setting up the famed Mercury Theatre.
Orson Welles (Christian McKay) and John Houseman (Eddie Marsan) are the two entrepreneurs although Welles has many other strings to his bow, of course.
Just 22-years-of-age in 1937 he had already staged an all-black version of Macbeth and was an accomplished actor and radio performer.
The ‘me’ in the film’s title is star-struck teenager Richard (Zac Efron) who manages to bluff his way into the small part of Lucius in Welles’ famous modern dress version of Julius Caesar at the Mercury.
Richard receives some very sage advice from backstage production assistant Sonja (Claire Danes).
She might be highly ambitious but Sonja knows a thing or two. “Orson is very self-centred, very competitive and very brilliant. And you don’t criticise him. Ever,” she warns young Richard.
Welles, is of course, not only monstrously arrogant, manipulative and ruthless, but also charismatic and sublimely talented.
It’s hard to comprehend he’s only five years older than Richard so vast is the gulf in worldliness. McKay has played Welles before and his character towers above everything and everyone around him in the film.
Richard is both shaken and stirred by his first encounter with the stage and his acting instructions from Welles. It’s something of a coming of age story with Richard learning a lot more about life than he would have by just staying at school.
And in case you’re wondering, the stage performances of Julius Caesar pre-dated Welles’ famous War Of The Worlds hoax broadcast on CBS radio by 12 months.
It’s also another four years before Welles stars in, and directs, his first film Citizen Kane, often regarded as the finest movie of all time.

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