Perth Theatre
4 stars
The story of the making of Gone With The Wind is as epic as the
big-screen adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s thousand-page novel
itself. Ron Hutchinson’s own adventures in the screen trade over
thirty-odd years have clearly been channelled into his reimagining of
what might have gone on in producer David O Selznick’s office during
the fateful week he ditched both script and director. The end result is
a relentlessly turbo-charged meeting of bullish but fragile minds, as
Selznick puts idealistic script-doctor Ben Hecht and Wizard of Oz
director Victor Fleming under lock and key for a five-day marathon
where deadlines and desperation go hand in hand.
As Hecht’s desire to tell uncomfortable truths about America are
over-ridden by Selznick’s need entertain the masses, Hutchinson’s play
sets up a neat debate on the tug of love between art and commerce.
Personal insecurities too are brought to the fore. While Selznick must
prove to his father-in-law, movie mogul Louis B Meyer, that he’s no
failure, Fleming lives in fear of winding up a chauffeur again. As for
Hecht, well, he’s a writer.
In the closing production of her inaugural season, director Rachel
O’Riordan navigates her cast through the play’s heightened, hyper-manic
drive in a way she did similarly with the equally breathless The
Gentleman’s Tea-Drinking Society a couple of years back while running
the Ransom company. The interplay between Joseph Chance as Hecht, Benny
Young as Fleming and especially Steven McNicoll as Selznick ricochets
around the stage, with the only pause for breath coming from Helen
Logan as the unflappable Miss Poppenguhl in this delicious dissection
of Hollywood Babylon in exelcis.
The Herald, March 20th 2012
ends
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