Moonlight & Magnolias
by Ron Hutchinson
1930s Hollywood hits Delph
Legendary film producer David O. Selznick is five weeks into shooting Gone With the Wind when he realizes the script is awful, and that the director doesn’t have a clue. He has five days to replace them, and restart the shoot, or the production will shut down. Selznick calls Victor Fleming from the set of The Wizard to Oz to direct, and he taps legendary playwright, screenwriter and script doctor Ben Hecht to rewrite the script. There’s only one problem: Hecht hasn’t read the book.
Over the course of five madcap days, the three men, assisted by Selznick’s assistant, Miss Poppenghul, frantically craft one of the most beloved screenplays of all time. As Selznick and Fleming act out the book for Hecht, the phone rings off the hook with calls from the likes of Vivien Leigh, Louis B. Mayer and Ed Sullivan.
Hutchinson’s play, based on historical events, is written as farce, with some real laugh out loud moments but the characters also deal with serious questions about race and the fragile position of Jewish executives in Hollywood.
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Cast & Crew
Cast
David O. Selznick…………………………………………… Mark Rosenthal
Ben Hecht……………………………………………………………….Phil Clegg
Victor Fleming …………………………………………………….Vince Kenny
Miss Poppenghul………………………………………..Lorraine Reynolds
Crew
Director……………………………………………………………….Verity Mann
Set design ……………………………… Keith Begley & Verity Mann
Construction …………………………..Keith Begley, Jan Wieringa
………………………………………………………….Colin Watt, Verity Mann
Stage manager……………………………………………………..Colin Watt
Technical……………………………………………………………….Luke Settle
Lights………………………………………………………………..Andrew Mann
Sound…………………………………………………………………. Alistair Scott
Costume…………………………………………………………Emma Hulmes
Prompt……………………………………………………………….Melvyn Bates
Props …………………………………………………………………..Helen Tinker
Review by Antonia Kinlan
What an absolute joy to watch! Having come not really knowing anything about the play, and having not been to this particular theatre before, I did not know what to expect. I certainly did not know that I would laugh quite as much as I did for such a prolonged period of time!
My husband and I have been quoting the lines ever since and laughing randomly to ourselves – the performances by the cast were utterly brilliant and clearly very memorable! The interplay was slick, the dialogue snappy, have the physical comedy incredibly well directed.
No other film can have made such an impact as Gone with the Wind. The first feature film to come out wholly in glorious Technicolor with a star-studded cast headed by Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, Gone with the Wind seemed to have everything, with its compelling love story played out against the epic struggle of the American Civil War. It has deservedly become a legend in the history of cinema and even today, there can be few of us who don’t respond to its lush theme music or aren’t familiar with the famous riposte: Frankly, my dear I don’t give a damn!
Clearly a play exploring the creative process behind such an achievement could come up with some fascinating insights but would the material really hold our attention for a whole evening? Would those of us who had never seen the original film find disputes over the minutiae of the film’s plotting and dialogue that enthralling? In short, would there really be more to it than the overly romantic if ironic title Moonlight and Magnolias suggested?