“JULIUS CAESAR"

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20522, 11 June 1938, Page 17 (Supplement)

“JULIUS CAESAR"

PRODUCED AS FASCIST PLAY | A REMARKABLE PERSONALITY I Mr C. B. Cochran, the well-known j producer, who has .just returned to i London from America, thinks a young American producer. Orson Welle?, aged 23. the most promising nowspirit In the theatre. “Orson Welles," he said, "is a really remarkable creature. While I was in New York he produced ‘Julius Caesar as a Fascist play, lie did it without scenery, using black-outs, and with his stage at different levels. ‘•How .lid he make ‘Julius Caesar into a Fascist play? Well, some of the scenes were transposed, a point here and there was underlined, and some speeches from ‘Coriolanus* were put in. It was easily the most exciting production that I saw In New York, so exciting that I was sitting on tho edge of my seat for the whole two hours—and that doesn't often happen to an old theatre hand like me. "But don't run away with Hie idea that Orson Welles is a faddist ! —i person, you know, whose experiments merely end in a piny getting divorced from the theatre. Orson Welles is an experimentalist, steeped in the theatre and with a knowledge of Shakespearean acting from Kean onwards that is second to none. I wanted to get Desmond Flower to invite' him to do a production at Stratford, blit, unfortunately, 1 was too late. Perhaps 1 shall bring him over myself, but not this vear. Perhaps next.”