Posted by Faye Bell on September 29, 2005 at 11:44:54:

Now that I am back to the "real world" of playing catch-up after being away for a couple of days, I am doing a posting about the MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS play I saw in Atlanta this past weekend at the Alliance Theatre. The play will be there through October 9th.

A good time is always to be had when I meet with my customers/friends to do a fun GWTW weekend. We had Windies meet us from England, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Indiana and we all enjoyed seeing the play together. Opening originally in New York back in March/April (the ole memory fails me right now), playing in Chicago, San Diego and now Atlanta, this comedy was inspired by actual events and is supposed to be the story behind our favorite film.

The legendary producer David O. Selznick is in the midst of filming Gone With the Wind, but he has a small problem -- he doesn't have a script. Can he get a screenplay in only five days from a writer who never read the book? You'll have to see the play to find out how they accomplish this. Although there are only four actors/characters in the play, the dialog these actors had to remember was tremendous. Thomas Sadoski played the part of Selznick, Kevin O'Rourke that of Victor Fleming, David Pittu the part of Ben Hecht, and Tess Malis Kincaid as Miss Poppenghul (Selznick's secretary). I felt the researcher for the facts relative to the dialog did a great job and any Windie could follow what was happening. Unfortunately, somehow I missed the "Contains Adult Language" and was very disappointed with the explicit language as it absolutely, in my opinion, contributed nothing to the plot.

This play was written by Ron Hutchinson and Wendell Brock of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (September 22, 2005) adds these comments to his Theater Review on the play:
"... Hutchinson seems bent on making political statements, too. So while Selznick imitates Scarlett and Fleming pretends to be both Melanie and Prissy (which is quite funny in the baby-birthing fracas), Selznick has to fend off the PC goadings of Hecht, as well. No doubt Hecht was a card-carrying liberal who cared about the treatment of blacks and Jews. But, the Jewish self-loathing routine confuses the tone and nearly derails the show's comedic engine."

I have to agree with Mr. Brock. I don't think any of us GWTW fans give any thought whatsoever to the fact that David Selznick was Jewish -- he was a genius producer who gave the world the greatest movie of all time and that is what matters!

You can visit the Alliance Theatre web site at alliancetheatre.org, or give them a call at (404) 876-5794 (Thanks much, Jacob -- you were super to work with!!)

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