Orphans (Lyle Kessler play)
Encyclopedia
Orphans is a play by Lyle Kessler
. It premiered in 1983 at the Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles starring Joe Pantoliano
, Lane Smith
and Paul Leiber, where it received critical and commercial success and won the Drama-Logue Award
.
In 1985 it went on to be directed by Gary Sinise
at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre starring John Mahoney
, Terry Kinney
and Kevin Anderson which Sinise said "kicked" the three actors "off into the movie business". John Mahoney
, who received the Derwent Award and Theatre World Award
for his performance in the production said that "Orphans affected people more than any other play I've ever done. I still get mail from it, I still get people stopping me on the street, and it's twenty years later".
After its Chicago run, Orphans traveled with the Steppenwolf company to New York and in 1986 was the first Steppenwolf production to be performed internationally in London where Albert Finney
, playing the part of Harold, won an Olivier Award in London's West End
at The Apollo Theatre
.
The Steppenwolf productions in London and the United States helped establish Kessler
's status as a major American playwright as well as the company's signature "rock and roll" brand of theatre. To help highlight the emotional intensity of Kessler's parable they featured an assortment of compositions by Pat Metheny
and Lyle Mays
to be played along in the background of the piece and which have remained optional for every production since.
Orphans has many far reaching fans beyond the typical theater crowd. Lou Reed
is an outspoken admirer of the play, and Tom Waits
, who had his own play, Frank's Wild Years, done at Steppenwolf,also directed by Gary Sinise, was apparently so moved by Kessler
's Orphans that at its conclusion,long after all the rest of the audience had left, sat in his seat too overwhelmed by the experience to get up.
Orphans is performed continually in almost every country in the world and was made into "Orphans"
the film, starring Matthew Modine
, Albert Finney
and Kevin Anderson. In 2005, Al Pacino
took to the stage with Orphans at the Greenway Court Theatre in Los Angeles; Southland's Shawn Hatosy
co-starred.
Older brother Treat , brutal and violent, provides for his younger brother Phillip by being a petty thief- interpreting the role of father .
With the love and protectiveness of an older brother and an orphan's fear of abandonement, Treat takes away Phiilip's chances to grow up , depriving him of knowledge and forcing him to live in a world of illiteracy and innocence,— relegating him to their childhood lost .
As Treat is out stealing to put food on the table, Phillip never leaves the house, thinking he will die from something outside because of a near deadly allergic reaction he had as a child .
Haunted by the death of their mother, he spends his time laying in her closet filled with unworn clothes, and curious about the world he secretly attempts to understand things by watching reruns of the" Price is Right", and "'underlining words" in newspapers and old books he finds lying around.
Treat kidnaps and ties up a Chicago gangster named Harold. Harold, an orphan himself, with the prowess of an escape artist, loosens the ties that bind him, turns the tables around, and with gun in hand, puts himself into the role of teacher, healer and surrogate parent .
T.H. McCulloh of the Los Angeles Times wrote it is "just as wise and knowledgeable about the human condition
" as Tennessee Williams
and "also as theatrical as Williams. Kessler has something very important to say, and he says it in terms we can't ignore. The biggest message is that we need each other, and that's something the viewer can't ignore...."
Tony Adler of the Chicago Reader declared "Lyle Kessler's unassuming tale of two nearly feral brothers and the mysterious businessman who befriends them was and remains among the most devastating things I’ve seen onstage"
's Orphans, among many of his other pieces of literature , has been praised as a hybrid of 20th century realism
, Pinter-esque absurdism
, and Shakespearean tragedy
, but in many ways it aligns itself better with the literary tradition of Magical Realism ,a more prevalent genre in Latin American
countries than in the North American theatre. The way Orphans can move from a hyper realistic state into a parable
while still maintaining its emotional pull and deeply felt sense of reality goes well with what magical realism is understood to be- magical elements blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality.
The American theatrical tradition tends to not embrace these perceived contradictions as readily . An expressionistic play is expected to be cerebral and conceptual not visceral. A realistic play is expected to maintain the same logic that one sees in the outside world. But, like Kafka , Kessler grasps for a reality that is felt within us but doesn't always obey the logic outside of its own prescribed universe.
, production in 1996, "Whatever the medium, the viewer finds it hard not to be drawn into the emotional journey...". This production of Orphans, by the first sign language theater in the western United States, went on to be a Critic's Choice from the Drama-Logue newspaper and Joseph Dean Anderson's performance as Phillip won him a 6th Annual Ticket Holder's Award under the New Discoveries category.
Further praise for Kessler's ability to create something with such flexibility , while still taking people of its "emotional journey", came from a 2007 production of Orphans at the Penguin Repertory Company in upstate New York where NY Times critic Sylviane Gold, calling the production a "splendid revival" mused " it is strange to say about a play that burst into New York from Chicago in 1985 on the strength of the testosterone-fueled acting of the Steppenwolf Theater Company" but it can be directed "with as much attention to the play's heart as to its fist".
In Japan, where Orphans made its premiere in 1991 by a "Tokyo style" theater group going on to have a nationwide tour and performing continually in theaters around Japan ever since, including the internationally renowned Kaze Theater Troupe, further illustrates Orphans ability to harmonize with different theatrical variations as well as cultural traditions.
Orphan's ability to maintain its inherent emotional pull regardless of its theatrical approach, is one of the reasons for its continued success.
Lyle Kessler
Lyle Kessler is an American playwright, screenwriter and actor, best known internationally for Orphans, the play he wrote in 1983.-Actor:...
. It premiered in 1983 at the Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles starring Joe Pantoliano
Joe Pantoliano
Joseph Peter "Joe" Pantoliano is an American film and television actor. He played the character of Ralph Cifaretto on The Sopranos, Bob Keane in La Bamba, Cypher in The Matrix, Teddy in Memento, Francis Fratelli in The Goonies, Guido "the Killer Pimp" in Risky Business, and Jennifer Tilly's...
, Lane Smith
Lane Smith
Walter Lane Smith III was an American actor. Some of his well known roles included portraying collaborator entrepreneur Nathan Bates in the NBC television series V, Mayor Bates in the film Red Dawn, newspaper editor Perry White in the ABC series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,...
and Paul Leiber, where it received critical and commercial success and won the Drama-Logue Award
Drama-Logue Award
The Drama-Logue Award was a theater award established in 1977, given by the publishers of Drama-Logue newspaper, a weekly west-coast theater trade publication. Winners were selected by the publication's theater critics, and would receive a certificate at an annual awards ceremony...
.
In 1985 it went on to be directed by Gary Sinise
Gary Sinise
Gary Alan Sinise is an American actor, film director and musician. During his career, Sinise has won various awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1992, Sinise directed, and played the role of George Milton in the successful film adaptation of...
at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre starring John Mahoney
John Mahoney
John Mahoney is a British born American actor, known for playing Martin "Marty" Crane, the retired police officer, father of Kelsey Grammer's Dr...
, Terry Kinney
Terry Kinney
Terry Kinney is an American actor and theatre director, and is a founding member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, with Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry.-Early life:...
and Kevin Anderson which Sinise said "kicked" the three actors "off into the movie business". John Mahoney
John Mahoney
John Mahoney is a British born American actor, known for playing Martin "Marty" Crane, the retired police officer, father of Kelsey Grammer's Dr...
, who received the Derwent Award and Theatre World Award
Theatre World Award
The Theatre World Award, first awarded for the 1945-46 season, is an American honor presented annually to actors and actresses in recognition of an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, either on Broadway or off-Broadway.-History:...
for his performance in the production said that "Orphans affected people more than any other play I've ever done. I still get mail from it, I still get people stopping me on the street, and it's twenty years later".
After its Chicago run, Orphans traveled with the Steppenwolf company to New York and in 1986 was the first Steppenwolf production to be performed internationally in London where Albert Finney
Albert Finney
Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
, playing the part of Harold, won an Olivier Award in London's West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
at The Apollo Theatre
Apollo Theatre
The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. Designed by architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfield, and the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street, its doors opened on 21 February 1901 with the American...
.
The Steppenwolf productions in London and the United States helped establish Kessler
Lyle Kessler
Lyle Kessler is an American playwright, screenwriter and actor, best known internationally for Orphans, the play he wrote in 1983.-Actor:...
's status as a major American playwright as well as the company's signature "rock and roll" brand of theatre. To help highlight the emotional intensity of Kessler's parable they featured an assortment of compositions by Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...
and Lyle Mays
Lyle Mays
Lyle Mays is an American jazz pianist and composer from Wausaukee, Wisconsin. He is best known for his work with guitarist Pat Metheny as a member of the Pat Metheny Group...
to be played along in the background of the piece and which have remained optional for every production since.
Orphans has many far reaching fans beyond the typical theater crowd. Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
is an outspoken admirer of the play, and Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, who had his own play, Frank's Wild Years, done at Steppenwolf,also directed by Gary Sinise, was apparently so moved by Kessler
Lyle Kessler
Lyle Kessler is an American playwright, screenwriter and actor, best known internationally for Orphans, the play he wrote in 1983.-Actor:...
's Orphans that at its conclusion,long after all the rest of the audience had left, sat in his seat too overwhelmed by the experience to get up.
Orphans is performed continually in almost every country in the world and was made into "Orphans"
Orphans (film)
Orphans is a 1987 film directed by Alan J. Pakula. It was written by Lyle Kessler, based on his play.-Plot:Brothers Treat and Philip have lived alone since they were kids when a small time criminal enters their lives....
the film, starring Matthew Modine
Matthew Modine
Matthew Avery Modine is an award-winning American actor. His film roles include Private Joker in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, the title character in Alan Parker's Birdy, high school wrestler Louden Swain in Vision Quest, football star turned spy Alec McCall in Funky Monkey and the...
, Albert Finney
Albert Finney
Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
and Kevin Anderson. In 2005, Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
took to the stage with Orphans at the Greenway Court Theatre in Los Angeles; Southland's Shawn Hatosy
Shawn Hatosy
Shawn Wayne Hatosy is an actor with over 40 film and television credits to his name.-Personal life:Hatosy was born in Frederick, Maryland, the son of Carol , a loan officer, and Wayne Hatosy, a graphic designer and event planning director...
co-starred.
Synopsis
Two grown Orphan brothers live in an old dilapidated row house in North Philadelphia-deserted in childhood by an unfaithful father and by the death of their mother.Older brother Treat , brutal and violent, provides for his younger brother Phillip by being a petty thief- interpreting the role of father .
With the love and protectiveness of an older brother and an orphan's fear of abandonement, Treat takes away Phiilip's chances to grow up , depriving him of knowledge and forcing him to live in a world of illiteracy and innocence,— relegating him to their childhood lost .
As Treat is out stealing to put food on the table, Phillip never leaves the house, thinking he will die from something outside because of a near deadly allergic reaction he had as a child .
Haunted by the death of their mother, he spends his time laying in her closet filled with unworn clothes, and curious about the world he secretly attempts to understand things by watching reruns of the" Price is Right", and "'underlining words" in newspapers and old books he finds lying around.
Treat kidnaps and ties up a Chicago gangster named Harold. Harold, an orphan himself, with the prowess of an escape artist, loosens the ties that bind him, turns the tables around, and with gun in hand, puts himself into the role of teacher, healer and surrogate parent .
Critical Acclaim
Described by the New York Times as "theater for the senses and emotions,"T.H. McCulloh of the Los Angeles Times wrote it is "just as wise and knowledgeable about the human condition
Human condition
The human condition encompasses the experiences of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. It can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not connected to gender, race, class, etc. — a search for purpose, sense of curiosity, the inevitability of...
" as Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
and "also as theatrical as Williams. Kessler has something very important to say, and he says it in terms we can't ignore. The biggest message is that we need each other, and that's something the viewer can't ignore...."
Tony Adler of the Chicago Reader declared "Lyle Kessler's unassuming tale of two nearly feral brothers and the mysterious businessman who befriends them was and remains among the most devastating things I’ve seen onstage"
Genre
Lyle KesslerLyle Kessler
Lyle Kessler is an American playwright, screenwriter and actor, best known internationally for Orphans, the play he wrote in 1983.-Actor:...
's Orphans, among many of his other pieces of literature , has been praised as a hybrid of 20th century realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
, Pinter-esque absurdism
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
, and Shakespearean tragedy
Shakespearean tragedy
Shakespeare wrote tragedies from the beginning of his career. One of his earliest plays was the Roman tragedy Titus Andronicus, which he followed a few years later with Romeo and Juliet. However, his most admired tragedies were written in a seven-year period between 1601 and 1608...
, but in many ways it aligns itself better with the literary tradition of Magical Realism ,a more prevalent genre in Latin American
Latin American literature
Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the...
countries than in the North American theatre. The way Orphans can move from a hyper realistic state into a parable
Parable
A parable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive principles, or lessons, or a normative principle. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human...
while still maintaining its emotional pull and deeply felt sense of reality goes well with what magical realism is understood to be- magical elements blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality.
The American theatrical tradition tends to not embrace these perceived contradictions as readily . An expressionistic play is expected to be cerebral and conceptual not visceral. A realistic play is expected to maintain the same logic that one sees in the outside world. But, like Kafka , Kessler grasps for a reality that is felt within us but doesn't always obey the logic outside of its own prescribed universe.
Direction
Orphans has been applauded for its lack of dependence on one particular theatrical approach . As quoted by Los Angeles Times critic Scott Collins when reviewing a Deaf West Theatre CompanyDeaf West Theatre
Deaf West Theatre Company is a North Hollywood, California-based cultural institution serving as a model for deaf theatre worldwide. Founded in 1991, by Ed Waterstreet, it is noted for being the first professional resident Sign Language Theatre in the western half of the United States...
, production in 1996, "Whatever the medium, the viewer finds it hard not to be drawn into the emotional journey...". This production of Orphans, by the first sign language theater in the western United States, went on to be a Critic's Choice from the Drama-Logue newspaper and Joseph Dean Anderson's performance as Phillip won him a 6th Annual Ticket Holder's Award under the New Discoveries category.
Further praise for Kessler's ability to create something with such flexibility , while still taking people of its "emotional journey", came from a 2007 production of Orphans at the Penguin Repertory Company in upstate New York where NY Times critic Sylviane Gold, calling the production a "splendid revival" mused " it is strange to say about a play that burst into New York from Chicago in 1985 on the strength of the testosterone-fueled acting of the Steppenwolf Theater Company" but it can be directed "with as much attention to the play's heart as to its fist".
In Japan, where Orphans made its premiere in 1991 by a "Tokyo style" theater group going on to have a nationwide tour and performing continually in theaters around Japan ever since, including the internationally renowned Kaze Theater Troupe, further illustrates Orphans ability to harmonize with different theatrical variations as well as cultural traditions.
Orphan's ability to maintain its inherent emotional pull regardless of its theatrical approach, is one of the reasons for its continued success.