MONMOUTH — “Moonlight and Magnolias” shines a whole new light on the filmmaking background of “Gone with the Wind.” There is a lot of outlandish slapstick mixed with a good deal of food for thought about racism and other social issues in Monmouth Community Player’s production of this play, running through March 31 at Cumston Hall.
Four actors recreate the true story of a madcap and chaotic five days in 1939 when famous director David O. Selznick locked himself, director Victor Fleming and screenwriter Ben Hecht in his office for a marathon effort to come up with a workable screenplay. Selznick is convinced the world is waiting for his movie version of Margaret Mitchell’s best-seller.
The success of this production, directed by Linda Duarte, rests solidly on excellent performances by two fine actors, Raymond Fletcher and Frank Omar. Fletcher, a veteran British/American actor, plays Fleming; and Omar, known for many performances with Gaslight Theater and Theater at Monmouth, plays Hecht.
Fletcher and Omar make a great team on-stage. When the script calls for all-out farce, they tear up the stage; when the plot swings from farce to dramatic intensity, their characters immediately project the legendary talent and integrity of a great director and a renowned writer/newsman.
David Marshall’s portrayal of Selznick begins with an appropriate stuffed-shirt style, but he yields to the absurd circumstances and his own desperation after investing his own fortune and most of his studio’s resources in making “Gone with the Wind.”
Jacquelyn Mansfield gives a fine performance as Selznick’s secretary, the always-efficient Miss Poppenghul who barely holds her sanity together through the antics in her boss’s office.
The three giants of Hollywood’s pre-WWII moviemaking culture act out the book from page one to the last line, more than 1,000 pages and five frantic days later.
Throughout the play, references pop up that audiences will quickly relate to scenes in the famous movie. The filmmakers give their all in their impromptu enactment of episodes from the book, including the hilarious enactment of the birth of Melanie’s baby with Selznick as Scarlett O’Hara and Fleming as Prissy, the young black maid. Hecht taps away at his typewriter as the story comes together, but he is inclined to go off on tangents. He insists that audiences won’t buy a movie about the Civil War. He balks at the book’s scene in which Scarlett slaps the dawdling maid.
Hecht lobbies hard for the movie to take on a social conscience, while Selznick just wants to create entertainment. Fleming claims nothing in moviemaking happens until a director shouts “action,” and Hecht argues that writers are most important. Selznick settles it by declaring, “In the beginning was The Deal.”
“Moonlight and Magnolias” can be enjoyed on a number of levels. The humor ranges from juvenile jokes and sight gags to clever dialogue that defines each of the characters. The subject matter opens up all kinds of nostalgic connections as well as the social issues of impending war in Europe. The class and race issues of Hollywood’s principally Jewish corporate management become a sobering counterpoint to the absurdity of the situation in Selznick’s office.
“Moonlight and Magnolias,” written by Ron Hutchinson, was originally produced in New York City by the Manhattan Theatre Club on March 3, 2005.
Remaining shows
WHAT: “Moonlight and Magnolias”
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 30-31; and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 1
WHERE: Monmouth’s Cumston Hall
TICKETS: Call 514-4929 or email tickets@monmouthcommunityplayers.com
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- Ben Hecht, played by Frank Omar, tries to sort out Scarlett’s many lovers as he works on the screenplay for “Gone With the Wind” in Monmouth Community Players’ production of “Moonlight and Magnolias.” The play is running through April 1 at Monmouth’s Cumston Hall. For tickets, call 514-4929 or visit monmouthcommunityplayers.com.
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