Tony Lawton’s Goldfish premieres at the FirstGlance Film Festival

Fish out of water

The film, photographed in black and white, is certainly a product of the theater. It’s almost entirely made up of long, dramatic scenes between two characters at a time. Written by John Kolvenbach, Goldfish indeed was originally conceived as a play. It’s the story of a father, son, the son’s girlfriend, her mother, and how they all interact with one another.

“I've been a stage actor for 32 years,” Lawton said in an interview with BSR. “This is a play script that a friend sent me that a friend of his had written. I've loved this script for like ten years. And I tried to get theaters to produce it.

“I don't know if there was just not enough name recognition for the author or what, but nobody wanted to produce it. So a friend of mine said he thought it would be a good movie and not too expensive to produce. So that thought germinated in me for a while. And then I went for it.”

Lawton hadn’t always wanted to direct a film. But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.

“With the ease of distribution and with the permanence of the art form as opposed to, you know, theater costing so much and then when it's over, it's over. But film is forever,” he said.

Goldfish was shot in 11 days, spread out over the course of six months, and most of those days consisted of shooting one or two individual scenes. The film, according to the press notes, cost $46,000, which by modern movie standards is an uncommonly low budget. It was shot on location around, mostly in and around Philadelphia, including at DeSales University, at various Airbnbs, and even in Lawton’s own house.

The title comes from a metaphor, for a son leaving the house, that’s mentioned in one scene of the film. Goldfish opens with Nico’s “The Fairest of the Seasons,” and Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” is featured in the trailer. Both songs are also on the soundtrack of Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums, and while Lawton admits he’s a huge fan of Anderson and that film, he says, “it wasn't until I rewatched that movie this year that I realized that both of those songs came from there.”

Next for the film are more festival submissions. After that, Lawton plans to continue with movies, including another project that he’s trying to get off the ground.

In the meantime, it’s back to the stage for Lawton, for a Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival production of Mel Brooks’ The Producers, in which he will play Franz Liebkind, the playwright of Springtime for Hitler. The show runs from June 11 to 29 on the Main Stage at DeSales University's Labuda Center for the Performing Arts.

In his theatrical career, Lawton’s favorite roles have included a production of Romeo & Juliet in which he played Friar Lawrence, a solo version of A Christmas Carol, and the Irish comedy The Lonesome West. That was written by Martin McDonagh, another veteran of the theater who has leaped to film directing.

Lawton has been hearing concerns locally about government cuts to the arts affecting the theater scene. “In Philly, it's been hitting some companies real hard,” he said, although he doesn't believe it has yet hit anything that he’s involved in.

“These are for projects that are done already,” he said of some of the cuts that have hit local theaters. “So the theater companies are gonna have to subtract that money from productions they have coming up. And it's a lot of money.”

“I'm very proud of it,” Lawton said of the film. “My hope was that it would wind up looking like a movie. And it exceeded my expectations in that respect. I’m very proud of a lot of what the actors did in it. At the screenings we have had, we always come out afterwards. And there are people with tears streaming down their faces. It’s not everybody, but it’s some people. And that’s the effect that the script had on me. And I hope we continue to move people.”