Reviewed
by Jerry Kraft
"Moonlight
and Magnolias"
was Ben Hecht's dismissive summation of Margaret Mitchell's epic potboiler
"Gone With The Wind", which he hadn't read. That was something of a
problem, given that he had just been hired by the legendary producer David O.
Selznick to script-doctor a new screenplay for the massive production that
Selznick had halted three weeks into shooting.
Bringing
in the director Victor Fleming from another troubled cinema behemoth, "The
Wizard of Oz", the three men are locked into Selznick's office for a
marathon five day writing session, culminating in the screenplay for a movie
that became a genuine Hollywood legend. Playwright Ron Hutchinson has devised a very funny, mostly
accurate comedy locking us inside that office, and inside the minds of three
movie pros creating a "chicken salad" that defined the great age of
epic movie romance.
This
co-production with San Jose Repertory Theatre is expertly played by a talented
ensemble, and directed with a blend of chaos, slapstick and knowing wit by Timothy
Near. Propelled
by the inherent fascination of looking behind the scenes of movie-making and
the movie business, it's also an intriguing examination of the ways in which
broader social issues are melded into the industry product, and the manner in
which individuals choose to define themselves publicly and artistically. The
play spends a bit more time than necessary on making its political and
sociological points, and briefly becomes too didactic, too obvious in telling
us it's "important" issues. Still, the whole of their exhausting and
exhilarating creative week and the conflicts of imaginative and highly
commercial artists is funny, fast-paced and purely entertaining.
Tom
Beckett is quite
brilliant as the ambitious, talented, driven David O. Selznick. Dizzy with the
thrill with movie-making (he calls it "the biggest bet in the world")
he has all his chips riding on making a movie out of the biggest best-seller of
its time. After half a dozen of the best screenwriters in Hollywood have
already had a shot at adapting the screenplay, he knows that it isn't right,
and until the script is right, the movie can't proceed. Beckett gives us all of
the energy and enthusiasm, but also lets us see the genuine vision this man had
for the film, for film-making, and the enormous need to prove himself to his many
rivals, particularly Irving Thalberg. Beyond that, we see how a producer knows
that only by gathering the right talent, and focusing them on a common
objective and expressing that in a single voice can a successful movie be made.
Selznick respects Hecht and Fleming, but he also knows that only he can get
them to achieve the film he imagines. As an actor, Beckett has great
physicality, and his kinetic energy is precise and comedically delightful,
clearly the driving force behind all the action.
John
Procaccino
brings a different sort of physical comedy to Victor Fleming. This is a
director who is up to his neck in the reality of the business, a bit cynical
and thoroughly disenchanted with the troublesome pleasures of "Oz".
He's also a movie-maker, an image guy, with the visual artist's common
disrespect for the written word. He doesn't like Ben Hecht, a former
newspaper-man who has made a reputation for fixing broken scripts the way a
body and fender man might beat out a dented Ford. Although he derides Hecht for
having not read the book, when asked if he's read it, he responds, "It is
a very big book."
What
we see from Procaccino, though, is that same underlying talent for catching on
to an idea, for inspired imagining of how a scene can look, how an angle can
change the impact of a gesture, how a great visual can carry great meaning.
Nonetheless, he's a guy locked in a room with two other men he doesn't
particularly like, subsisting on bananas and peanuts (Selznick's idea) and
literally bursting blood vessels from the sustained pressure to create. John
Procaccino is certainly one of the finest comic actors in Seattle, and all his
gifts for facial expression, emotional extremity, exasperation and manic
activity are prominently displayed in this delicious role.
Ben
Hecht is rather more problematic. Peter Von Norden captures the writer's rather
uncouth lack of societal sophistication, his "common-man" posture and
his deep social conscience, as well as his blunt professional disregard for
"Gone With the Wind" as a novel. He also creates a nice comic
counterpoint to Selznick's elevated executive sheen and Fleming's
professionalism. It seems to me, though, that director Timothy Near pushed the
characterization a bit too far toward the Joe-Lunchbox and didn't give us
enough indication of the first-rate professional writer, a man whose skill and
craftsmanship made him the go-to guy when a screenplay needed help. Unlike
Selznick and Fleming, I didn't really see the underlying expertise and
technical precision that justified his being on this professional level. That's
not a criticism of Von Norden's performance, which was funny and sympathetic
and well-balanced with the others.
A
delightful supporting role was played by the marvelous Marya Sea Kaminski, as Selznick's loyal secretary
and assistant. In a role that required seemingly endless repetitions of
"Yes, Mr. Selznick" she managed to create a surprisingly satisfying
and interesting character primarily through subtle facial expressions and body
gestures. The look on her face whenever the suggestion was made that Fleming
may have struck Judy Garland ("Just once") implied volumes of
character and personal opinion. Similarly, her delivery of bananas and peanuts,
her frustration with keeping L.B. Mayer on the phone waiting, and her own
fatigue at the end of the marathon all displayed a finished and highly
competent actress.
"Moonlight
and Magnolias" is a slight but very entertaining play, a diverting look
into the less-familiar history of a landmark of movie history, and the
personalities who shaped the production and the industry. It's fascinating,
fun, and smartly performed.