A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney: Disney Dearest
23 Apr 2024 - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Walt Disney exists both as a beloved mythical genius and as the dubious creator of a very successful and voracious corporate brand. In the magical plastic dream that is Disney World, there is a museum packed with extensive audio-visual presentations extolling the foresight and benevolence of Disney. Conversely, by the time your post vacation credit card bill rolls in, you're aware of how deftly your pockets have been picked. The two elements exist in a conscious happy haze of cognitive dissonance that perfectly reflects the Disney ethos. A world of perfection where no-one dies except for a horde of lemmings. Playwright Lucas Hnath takes these two facets and sets them on a collision course in A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney (henceforth referred to as "A Public Reading."). The 'screenplay' is merely a hook, I sincerely doubt that Disney ever sanctioned anything beyond hagiography, and the pages are merely props to drive the plot. It is a shrewd intellectual exercise to get deep into the bones of a character and set the conflicts in motion. Hnath takes every Disney virtue, and every Disney rumour and scandal, and turns A Public Reading into Disney Dearest with his brother Roy, his daughter Diane, and son-in-law Ron as the conflicted Christines.

Being an Outside the March production, the Baillie theatre has been completely reconfigured. We enter into a roped off cinema, red plush seats and a huge screen with Mickey Mouse as Steamboat Willie. It is the way that those of us of a pre-streaming age were first introduced and seduced by the Disney name. The only thing missing is the aroma of popcorn. We are ushered to the side into what would normally be the stage and backstage area which has been transformed into a boardroom. All set up for us to witness whatever is going to happen at the corporate desk on a platform dead center of the room. There are drinks and snacks enticingly arranged on small tables, a Mickey Mouse phone (which becomes a comic device and then a devastating metaphor), and animated animal sound effects chirping over an electronic him. We are primed for Walt Disney's entrance, the atmosphere making Diego Matamoros (Post-Democracy, Little Menace, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Royale) initially appear to be a carbon copy, or one of the theme parks' animatronic dead ringers, of the great man himself.

Matamoros begins to perform/read the screenplay to the trio who have joined him, Anand Rajaram (Uncle Vanya, As You Like It, Buffoon, Mustard) as Roy Disney, Tony Ofori (Wildwoman, Fall On Your Knees, Copy That, Bunny) as Ron Miller, and Katherine Cullen (Stupidhead) as Diane Disney Miller. Just as Matamoros insists that the company must expand from cartoons into "the real world," Matamoros's third person narration becomes a dialogue with Rajaram that becomes a debate on art vs finance, guilt and manipulation (those pesky lemmings must be coerced to perform in a "real world" manner), and a sibling rivalry that is as fierce as it is struggling to remain subtext. Matamoros gives a towering performance, moving from charming to cajoling to threatening to raging against the dying of the light. He is riveting and, like Walt Disney, there is an underlying affable charm and awareness of his affect that is uncanny, disturbing and comforting. Rajaram matches Matamoros beat for beat, sneaking in punches from a subservient position, laughing and twitching nervously as he realizes how far Walt intends to go. They battle in the intensely intimate and vicious way that only brothers who have been in competition for decades can.

We are visiting the pivotal moments when the lemming scandal broke, Disney World was being built, and Walt was, unknown to most, dying of lung cancer. Walt is concerned about his legacy, about the company continuing. Roy, being in charge of finances, is to be entrusted with the company. Ron and Diane have other ideas. The conflicts spread amongst the four and we see just how tragically cold and ruthless someone who stands for wholesomeness and family entertainment can be. It is a battle for control, exemplified by the original plans for Disney World versus what eventually was built. Family melodrama at a fever pitch. Director Mitchell Cushman (No Save Points, Lessons in Temperament, The Flick, The Tape Escape, Hand to God, Dr Silver, Mr Burns) coaxes lacerating performances out of the actors, aided and abetted by Anahita Dehbonehie's set and Nick Blais's lighting design which are full of surprises and dramatic reveals. Even the pages of the screenplay get into the action, being transformed and origamized into symbols and blood-soaked shattered dreams.

While A Public Reading may be at heart, a critique of how creativity is corrupted by capitalism and greed, Hnath also appears to have a deep affection for his idealized version of the subject matter. The lemmings story is well known, but gets a particularly horrific recounting here, especially in contrast to Roy's beloved family dog. But there are a host of other tiny details that can only come, unless they are from Hnath's imagination, from a deep dive into Disney lore. The flirtation with fascism and his casual instructions to "just slap my name on it" to make it sell, are both from biographies that were scandalous in their time, but mostly dust-covered today. Walt bragging that Senator McCarthy is not only a fan but also a friend, tells us more than any accumulation of facts could. Hnath and Cushman take a factoid that was new to me, that Disney's Snow White was Alan Turing's favourite movie, and fashion a wicked witch moment that is pure pulpy poison. Of course the never to be effectively debunked cryogenics myth surfaces in theatrical splendour, and Hnath's insistence on its reality distorts our reality with the same deadly precision as the leaping lemmings. He may be a chilly Disney Dearest but Walt is still culturally immortal, and an absorbing subject for the vivid vivisection that is A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney.