MOONLIGHT & MAGNOLIAS. To 3 November.
London
MOONLIGHT & MAGNOLIAS
by Ron Hutchinson
Tricycle Theatre To 3 November 2007.
Mon-Thu 8pm Mat Sat 4pm & 10, 31 Oct 2pm.
BSL Signed 18 Oct.
Runs 2hr 5min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7328 1000.
www.tricycle.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 October.
The movies are rarely this much serious fun.
Writers often complain of working for peanuts, but Ben Hecht, Chicago and New York journalist turned Hollywood scriptwriter, must be the only one to work on the things. According to Ron Hutchinson’s new comedy, that is, where Hecht has 5 days to rewrite the screenplay of Gone With the Wind.
Producer David O Selznick locks Hecht, new director Victor Fleming (he’s just sacked George Cukor) and himself into his office, offering a supposedly brain-stimulating diet of peanuts and bananas while the epic script gets carved from the long novel.
Like all farces, the set-up is incredible: Selznick has neither script nor director but already hums Max Steiner‘s theme-tune. And as Hecht’s never read the novel producer and director act out its scenes for him. Yet Selznick insists on sticking to Mitchell’s dialogue.
But, as in good comedies, it doesn’t matter. Hutchinson’s mix of farcical situation and comic dialogue propels the first act and much of the second in a whirlwind, never touching ground. Only the opening of act two brings things down to thematic earth with discussion of Jews like Selznick and Hecht being cold-shouldered by American elites (was Beverley Hills built for movie Jews who weren’t encouraged to live in Hollywoodland’s earlier paradises?) and reports of Nazism abroad.
It’s an important point, but it’s taken up more successfully within the comic scheme later through a series of ‘phone calls. Meanwhile director and writer slug out their differences. Literally, when all three offer chins and cheeks to try-out a controversial slap for the film as Hecht strives to bring thirties political correctness to an inter-racial blow.
Selznick, money-man and idealist, works himself into spasms over his grand project as the others tell him what a turkey he’s insisting they help him breed. And Hecht’s incredulity when reaching the novel’s final line needs to be experienced in Duncan Bell’s incredulous tones.
While Andy Nyman’s Selznick wheedles, commands and just about controls the others, and Steven Pacey’s Fleming has a director’s command, Bell provides a wry, cultured reserve. In Sean Holmes’ riotously precise production, they provide the comic performances of the year.
David O Selznick: Andy Nyman.
Victor Fleming: Steven Pacey.
Ben Hecht: Duncan Bell.
Miss Poppenghul: Josephine Butler.
Director: Sean Holmes.
Designer: Francis O’Connor.
Lighting: Davy Cunningham.
Sound: Carolyn Downing.
Movement: Michael Ashcroft.
Dialect coach: Penny Dyer.
Fight director: Terry King.
2007-10-02 16:22:25