Most everyone is assuredly familiar with "Lawerence of Arabia," the 1962 epic film which starred Peter O'Toole as T.E. Lawerence, an eccentric, adventorous homosexual who became an unlikely crusader for the Arab cause before dying at a young age from a motorcylce accident. When I was in the Raleigh area last week, I was surprised to hear that there is a stage version of Lawerence's life and it is now being performed in the North Carolina state capital.
According to the Feb. 11th edition of "The News-Observer" (Raleigh's main daily newspaper), the play "The Man in the Desert" is a colloboration between stage director Michael Lilly and Ira David Wood III. The article by Orla Swift stated that Wood is perhaps the best known stage actor in the Raleigh-Durham area because of many iconic roles, including several performances as Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol." Wood, who has also played roles as diverse as Hamlet and Count Dracula, is actually performing the one-man play on a stage that bears his name!
"The Man in the Desert" is actually different than "Lawerence of Arabia" in many regards. The play by playwright/screenwriter Peter Colley is apparently more directly political in nature. And, according to the article, Colley's play illustrates both the positive and negative aspects of the Lawerence legend. In one sense, he was courageous warrior who fought the 'dasterdly' Ottoman Turks (the word dasterdly here is obviously meant to be a joke. For those of you who don't know, I am half-Turkish), but Lawerence was also a man who was a hyprocrite who pretended to care about the Arab people while working to protect British interests.
The play runs through Feb. 24. It is apparently an outdoor (brrr...!) show.
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