There’s not much in
it – other than the clash of egos. But what
egos. Laurence Olivier versus Orson Welles. That and the idea of Welles staging
a seminal play from the Theatre of the Absurd and Olivier playing the main
character. That in itself is a brilliant non-sequitur.
But perhaps the most
intriguing part of it, beyond the masterful acting and the intimate setting of
an independent theatre (and the fact that I’m soaked through, with only a small
bottle of white New Zealand wine to make me warm), is that it’s all about Rhinoceros. A play which in Orson’s Shadow has the intensely invisible role of Ionesco's odd-toed ungulates.
