Salina Art Center

Before Orson Welles directed what many critics believe is the greatest American film ever made (at the age of 25!), he was a skinny, handsome genius who created (with John Houseman) the legendary Mercury Theatre. The company is perhaps best remembered today for its venture into radio with “Mercury Theatre on the Air,” highlighted by a certain mischievous Halloween prank that threw America into a panic. But even before Welles scared the nation with “live” reports of a Martian invasion (actually just a broadcast dramatization of the H.G. Wells classic The War of the Worlds), he was making theatre-goers take notice with his brilliance on stage, as actor and director. Based on the novel by Robert Kaplow, director Richard Linklater’s new film focuses on the backstage drama behind a particularly inventive production: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar re-imagined as a Mussolini-like Fascist dictator. The “me” of the title is Richard Samuels, one of those background players who rarely get lines—but oh, the backstage stories they could tell…. Teen heartthrob Zac Efron is likeable and surprisingly confident in the role, expertly creating the needed audience-identification figure from whose perspective we meet such idols as Joseph Cotton (James Tupper), John Houseman (Eddie Marsan), George Coulouris (Ben Chaplin), and of course, the supernaturally talented young Orson Welles. Called by critic Roger Ebert “one of the best backstage movies I’ve ever seen,” Me and Orson Welles is a delight for anyone involved in theatre, but it’s highly enjoyable even for those who know nothing about footlights, matinees, green rooms, or the superstition about never saying “Macbeth” (it’s bad luck: it’s usually referred to as “that Scottish play”). Moviegoers don’t need a theatrical background to sense the verisimilitude of Linklater’s detailed but lively re-creation of the theatre world of the 1930’s: the camaraderie, the politics, the creative differences, the flop sweat—it feels like being immersed in a new world, just as it probably did to pioneering artists like Welles. Linklater conveys the feeling of a bygone era, a brief period during the Depression when theatre set out to change society, not just entertain. It’s an exciting reminder of the power and importance of Art. And it’s fitting that Orson Welles, one of the filmmakers who made a convincing case for cinema as Art—alongside poetry, painting, sculpture, the novel, and, appropriately, theatre—should be the subject of this tribute to creative endeavor and artistic vision. That’s not to say that Me and Orson Welles is the portrait of a saint. Far from it, and therein lies the greatest success of the film: Christian McKay as Orson Welles. McKay is a British stage actor whose performance is a revelation. Playing Welles requires more than replicating the appearance, sonorous voice, facial expressions, and body language: it requires an actor who possesses nearly the same level of personal magnetism and self-confidence. No blasphemy intended, but it’s the same kind of acting challenge as playing Jesus (or Satan). “Orson Welles” (the character) needs to blow everyone else off the screen in order to work. McKay does. He is Welles, moving through the film like a predatory animal, doing whatever he needs to do to get his way—which includes being almost preposterously charming when necessary. Welles is a master manipulator with a mammoth ego, but you can’t take your eyes off him. This backstage circus depends on its charismatic ringleader, and McKay delivers, making audiences understand just what an astounding, infuriating phenomenon Welles was even before he directed Citizen Kane. Just for this performance, Me and Orson Welles is one of the most riveting films of the year.