Orson's Shadow is a fictionalized encounter between two Hollywood giants and great egotists: the erratic and reclusive director Orson Welles and the brilliant actor Laurence Olivier. Austin Pendleton, the award-winning author of Uncle Bob, has woven fact and fiction for this drama, which takes place in 1960, when legendary theater critic Kenneth Tynan has proposed that Welles direct Olivier in a revival of Rhinoceros, Eugene Ionesco's absurdist classic. But it is the rehearsal process that brims with absurdity as these titanic personalities wrestle the muse, each other, and even Vivien Leigh in this humorous depiction of the drama of theater.
Charles Isherwood of The New York Times called it "deliciously funny, " and says that "Austin Pendleton's delightful backstage comedy is a sharp-witted but tenderhearted examination of the thin skins, inflamed nerves and rampaging egos that are customary side effects when artistic talent meets worldly achievement."