REVIEW: Moonlight and Magnolias provides laughs and history at Laguna Playhouse

LAGUNA BEACH, CA—When you've got a prestige project like Gone With The Wind in your hands, your goal as a director or a producer or a writer or, hell, even a craft services caterer, is to make it be the Best. Movie. Ever. In 1939, in what seemed like a banner year for celluloid masterpieces, David O. Selznick was a young, ambitious, forward-thinking producer that knew this film, based on Margaret Mitchell's global best-seller, should be better than how it was progressing. Thus, according to Hollywood legend, he decides to shut down production on this massive film project, fire his original director, and bring in a trusted script doctor to fix the flaws in what would eventually prove to be one of history's most successful and celebrated pictures of all time.

Thus is the premise of playwright (and real-life script doctor) Ron Hutchinson's MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS, now playing at the Laguna Playhouse through November 1. Based on actual events, the play examines the five straight days Selznick, script doctor Ben Hecht and director Victor Fleming locked themselves in Selznick's office to fix the troubled production, primarily by hashing out a new shooting script that improves on the mistakes and ensures a happy MGM studio. The movie was famously plagued with problems, culminating in Selznick's firing of original director George Cukor and pulling the plug on the production after just three weeks of shooting. Under studio (and personal) pressure to deliver an epic with popular and critical appeal, Selznick (played by a witty and confident Jeff Marlow) yanks Fleming (Brendan Ford) off of his directorial duties on The Wizard of Oz and pushes Hecht (Leonard Kelly-Young) to rewrite the script from scratch. Selznick forcibly sequesters Fleming and Hecht in his office, living off of nothing but peanuts and bananas for the whole duration.

There's plenty of laughs here, from the witty, Hollywood-insider jokes about the industry back in its infancy, to the riotous scenes in which Fleming and Selznick literally act-out moments in Gone With The Wind (complete with voices, improvised "costumes," and staging even) as Hecht bangs them into the script on a vintage typewriter. Hutchinson fills in the gaps of historical fact with the kind of rapid-fire exchanges reminiscent of classic screwball comedies. The actors themselves—most notably Marlow—are agile, physical comedians that give the play a much more interesting overall picture than its premise suggests. Why take interest in a play about writing a movie? Most people know the results of such high-energy brainstorming (the film went on to win 10 Academy Awards). But to ultimately realize that these three grown men—stuck in a (beautifully-designed) room together for five days, acting like adolescents, trading snarky observations and insults—somehow managed to put together such a cinematic masterpiece, is what makes the play, under the direction of Andrew Barnicle, an interesting piece of theater.

Marlow as Selznick uses much of the stage from end to end, adding to the image of his character as this small go-getter that desperately wants to be the big power player in the studio system. He's a golden age carnival barker with the impossible task of selling his movie not only to audiences that loved Margaret Mitchell's book but also to his father-in-law Louis B. MayeR. Kelly-Young is admirable as Hecht, a character hardened by his sarcastic view of the world and being smacked by the industry he both enjoys and despises. Ford plays his Fleming for welcome chuckles as an overcompensating ladies' man that somehow manages to be convincing role-playing as a Caucasian Queenie (complete with the ugly stereotypes of the day). Even the occasional appearance of Selznick's loyal secretary (played with cute hilarity by Emily Eiden) places another funny dynamic in the action.

Though slow and too long at certain moments (some discussion tangents could have been left out or benefit from a little trimming), the play is amusing and at times thought-provoking. It sheds light on a "backstage" revelation that not too many people may have been privy to regarding one of the most talked-about movies of all time. The play's beautiful set is so striking (and full of wonderful, subtle details) it almost becomes another character in the action. Watching the play is like viewing a live, vintage version of a hidden camera behind-the-scenes DVD extra, only funnier, thanks to some dramatized insider information that may or may not be true. And to think, "Frankly, My Dear, I Don't Give A Damn" was just a stumbled-upon line is truly inspiring.

Grade: B-

Top Photo: Brendan Ford, Leonard Kelly-Young and Jeff Marlow by Ed Krieger.
Bottom Photo: Emily Eiden, Leonard Kelly-Young, Brendan Ford and Jeff Marlow by Ed Krieger.

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MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS Performances continue through November 1, 2009

Showtimes:
Tuesday – Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m.

Tickets to any performance are available by purchasing tickets in person or by calling the box office at (949) 497-ARTS [2787]  (or group sales, dial ext. 229) or by visiting their web site at www.lagunaplayhouse.com. The Laguna Playhouse is located at 606 Laguna Canyon Road in Laguna Beach, CA.

MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS is a co-production with McCoy Rigby Entertainment (Tom McCoy and Cathy Rigby, Executive Producers) & La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. Performances continue at the Laguna Playhouse through November 1, then moves on to the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts November 6 - 22.

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