The Books: The Fun of It: Stories from The Talk of the Town, edited by Lillian Ross; ‘Et Tu, Shadow?’, by A.J. Liebling

Next up on the essays shelf:

The Fun of It: Stories from The Talk of the Town (Modern Library Paperbacks) is a collection of “The Talk of the Town” pieces in The New Yorker, grouped by decade, which is a lot of fun because you can see how the “voice” of the magazine developed, and how “The Talk of the Town” has grown and changed over the years.

Orson Welles’ life is epic, in a very American way. There’s a reason Simon Callow felt the need to push his biography of Welles into three volumes (still waiting for that third volume, Simon). There are so many elements, the life had such scope, such highs and lows. It’s a symbolic life, and you can’t say that about too many people. I, however, am particularly fascinated by Welles’ time in New York pre–Citizen Kane. His relationship with John Houseman, the formation of the Mercury Theatre, their radio programs (of which the famous War of the Worlds was only one episode, although it certainly put them all on the map), the famous “Voodoo Macbeth“, the brouhaha surrounding the musical When the Cradle Will Rock (1937) (read about that in the link to John Houseman), and then, of course, Welles’ famous modern-dress production of Julius Caesar in 1937.

Read here for an excerpt from Simon Callow’s biography of Welles, where he discusses the Julius Caesar production. It was insanity. They were barely ready by the time the curtain went up on opening night, and Welles kept tweaking. This was classic Welles. He was never done.

Welles wasn’t even yet 30. I don’t think he was even 25 when all this stuff was going on. It’s insane. He was so inventive. He never stopped to rest on his laurels. He was always busy planning the next thing. He was, in many ways, a trickster, a magician (he loved magic). These weren’t just productions. They were stunts. His Julius Caesar was giant hit for Mercury, and also seemed to tap in to the anxiety about fascism, which, in 1937, was reaching its peak. The cast dressed in black military suits, like Mussolini’s goons, and the setting was abstracted: giant platforms and giant drapes, with pin-spots, and targeted lighting. The few pictures that survive are dramatic and frightening. The “Voodoo Macbeth“, which Welles set in Haiti, and cast with mostly non-professional African-Americans, was a huge hit for him as well, and white audiences traveled into Harlem to see what the fuss was about. It helped make his name. Julius Caesar was a classic hit, and people went crazy about it.

It was 1937. “War of the Worlds” happened in 1938, and then, of course, came Citizen Kane, right on the heels of that stunt-to-end-all-stunts.

So Welles was already famous in 1937. He was famous in a local New York kind of way. That was about to change.

Here, in 1937, A.J. Liebling writes about seeing an ad in the newspaper for “The Shadow”, and being struck by the fact that “Orson Welles” was also the same guy who was playing Brutus on Broadway in his own production of Julius Caesar. It seemed astonishing to Liebling that it could be the same man. He tuned in to “The Shadow” to get a listen to it. He was amazed by Welles’ vocal capability, in the dual-role of “The Shadow/Le Monte Cranston”.

Liebling decided to go check out Julius Caesar, and see what this whole Orson Welles person was all about.

Here is an excerpt.

The Fun of It: Stories from The Talk of the Town (Modern Library Paperbacks), edited by Lillian Ross; ‘Et Tu, Shadow?’, by A.J. Liebling

“Did you have to listen to that?” said Mr. Welles. He had just come from the stage and was still in costume, a blue serge business suit. Offstage, he’s still a tall, moon-faced youngster with a baby’s complexion and a mop of brown hair. The only new characteristic we discovered was a sudden giggle. If you read the dramatic pages, you already know that, at the surprising age of twenty-two, he had created history with his productions of “Macbeth” and “Doctor Faustus” even before “Julius Caesar”. Probably you also know the story of how, when sixteen, he left his native Kenosha – “a nasty little Middle Western city,” he calls it – to go to Ireland and paint. Running out of money, he introduced himself at the Gate Theatre as a Guild star on vacation and was immediately presented by the trusting Dubliners with a series of leading roles. He even made guest appearances at the Abbey Theatre. “I don’t want to sound jaded,” he told us, “but this success here, grateful though I am for it, isn’t a patch on my Dublin success.”

Back to New York (after a sojourn in Africa during which he wrote “Everybody’s Shakespeare” – 90,000 copies sold so far), he married and cast about for something to work at. Radio turned out to be his first dish: three months after he was first inside a studio, he had a finger in the production of about twenty big-time programs and some weeks was making as much as $800. Then, last season, he tied up with the WPA and started doing Shakespeare. He now won’t let his name be announced on the air, but can’t prevent the newspaper billing. “Honestly,” we said, “what do you think about the radio?” “I think it’s a lovely medium,” he said. It has been a loving enough medium to buy him a house in Sneden Landing, where he maintains his wife, a chauffeur, a cook, a gardener, a cocker spaniel, and a Lincoln limousine.

The success of “Julius Caesar” came as pretty much of a surprise. Mr. Welles says, “When I took the Mercury on a five-year lease, it was the most presumptuous act in modern theatrical history. I still go into a cold sweat when I think what might have happened.”