AboutFACE Ireland to Present Orson Welles' A CHRISTMAS CAROL, 12/20-22

AboutFACE Ireland will be presenting Orson Welles' Christmas Carol, a new play for Christmas for the whole family, at the Powerscourt Theatre in Dublin, for 5 performances only, December 20th-22nd 2013. Written by Paul Nugent, it tells a fictionalized account, based on true events, of the Christmas Eve 1938 night where, in CBS Radio Studio 1, the young radio superstar Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air are set to perform their eagerly awaited weekly 60-minute version of a classic; tonight it's "A Christmas Carol." Only things aren't too Christmassy: it's ten minutes to ON-AIR and legendary Scrooge Lionel Barrymore has fallen sick, and now 23-year-old Orson has to step into his shoes; plus the script still isn't right, Orson's on the rampage, his cast are revolting after three days of rehearsing without sleep, and the pressure's on after the success of "War of the Worlds": the Nation awaits and Hollywood's watching! Will this Christmas Carol have a happy ending?

AboutFACE, fresh from co-producing the sold-out 3rd annual NEWvember New Plays Festival in upstate New York (which broke box-office records at the Carpenter Shop Theatre in Tivoli, NY) return to Ireland, with cast members coming from New York, London and Dublin, to present this delightful and moving new play. The show includes a 50-minute version of "A Christmas Carol," performed in the 1930's American radio style, with live sound effects!

The show will be performed at the new Powerscourt Theatre in the Powerscourt Townhouse shopping centre, a stone's throw from Grafton Street and perfectly located for a 75-minute break from shopping for a classic Christmas treat for all the family, with a touch of old Hollywood glamour!

In this year of the Gathering, director Paul Meade (Artistic Director of Guna Nua) will wrangle an international cast - coming from New York are Paul Nugent, (playing Orson, recently starred in McGoldrick's Thread which won New York's 1stIrish Festival's 2013 Best Production Award) and Anna Olson Nugent (who just finished in To Fool The Eye for Boomerang Rep in NYC), while flying in from London for the show are Maureen O'Connell (BBC's Doctors, Father Brown, Quick Cuts) and Cillian O'Dee (Anglo the Musical), joining Dublin-based actors Noni Stapleton and Alan Walsh in the cast. In addition, costume, hair and set design is being provided by bespoke milliner Tara McKeever of Tootsie Royale Designs, and image design by Michael Fitzpatrick of TwistedInc. The show is an official part of The Gathering Ireland 2013.

"Orson Welles actually had a very special connection with Ireland - that's where he did his theatrical apprenticeship," says Paul Nugent, AboutFACE Co-Artistic Director, "After traveling around the West of Ireland in a horse and cart painting watercolours, he turned up in Dublin as a 16 year old, and with only his schoolboy acting experience (including, ironically, playing Scrooge aged 12) he told the owners of the Gate Theatre that he was a Broadway star. Whether they believed him or were just charmed, they cast him, and he began what he later called the most enjoyable year of his life. And his connections to Ireland stayed strong thereafter - he returned here on many occasions, including shooting the ghost story short film Return to Glennascaul in Ballyfermot in 1951, and playing Falstaff in Dublin in 1960."

"This play takes place in such a fascinating time in Orson's life," Paul adds. "By the end of 1938, at 23 years of age, Orson had become a huge radio and theatre star in New York, and at this point was being closely watched by Hollywood, having meetings with studios, he was under a lot of pressure - part of which he put on himself because he was such a perfectionist - and he was living a crazy life, barely any sleep, running from theatre rehearsals to radio recordings to movie meetings. On Broadway, he was being called a genius for his Voodoo MacBeth set in Haiti and his Nazi Julius Caesar inspired by the Nuremberg rallies, while his radio version of "War of the Worlds" merely weeks before had people around the US believing Martians had landed. And he was 23! And I love his combination of bravado and ingenuity: Orson was so in demand as a radio star, including playing the voice of The Shadow, that in order to rush from the studios of CBS to NBC, he hired an ambulance, and sped through the Manhattan streets sirens blazing, having discovered there was no law requiring one to be injured to ride an ambulance! He's such a fascinating man, and I think this young period in his life, when he was on the rise but before making Citizen Kane, is just a hugely intriguing time to look at his character."

"And he's not the only fascinating real-life character in the show - he surrounded himself with actors in his Mercury Theatre Company who were then just scraping by, but who went on to great things," says Paul, "like Joe Cotten, who would go on to star in Citizen Kane, Shadow of a Doubt and The Third Man, Agnes Moorhead, later nominated four times for an Oscar and who famously played Elvira on the TV show Bewitched, and Arlene Francis: later as one of the first female TV show hosts, she would be a pioneer for women in TV; Newsweek would put her on its cover as the 'first lady of television'. So it's great fun to have all these really interesting people in the same room at an early stage of their careers."

 

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