KURIER

A Madhouse Surrounds the Making of „Gone with the Wind“

I haven‘t often laughed so much as at the splendid comedy, „Moonlight and Magnolias“ by Ron Hutchinson at Vienna’s English Theatre. At the premiere on Tuesday, a glimpse behind the scenes in 1939 Hollywood, at the legendary chaos during filming of the greatest film of all time, „Gone with the Wind“, had the audience in hoots. Philip Dart directs this „backstage comedy“, which casts a sarcastic light upon the chaos and hysteria in the film industry, with tremendous verve.

Brilliant Comedy

Producer David O. Selznick, magnificently impersonated by Mark Pearce, halts shooting and demands a new script from old hand, Ben Hecht (Neil Bromley); he; however, hasn‘t read a single page of the novel. (…) Time is pressing and in his hour of need, Szelnick resorts to unusual measures: together with director Victor Fleming (Mark Elstob), he enacts the complicated plot before them. They yell, love, deal blows and give birth to the story within five days, assuming all the roles in the process. Whoever would have thought that a coquette Southern Belle lurked beneath the skin of the portly Szelnick? Or that hard-boiled Fleming was capable of writhing on the ground whilst whining piteously as a naive slave-girl? After a welter of high drama and clever punchlines, the deed is done: a film-script which is the stuff of legends.

3. April 2014
Werner Rosenberger

Wiener Zeitung

Bananas as the Path to Success

Can bananas be the stuff of which triumphs are made? Can one create the script of the commercially most successful film of all time within five days whilst under their influence? They certainly can in Ron Hutchinsons‘s play, “Moonlight and Magnolias”.
(…)
Is this really what happened? More than likely not, whatever the difficulties encountered. Be that as it may, „Moonlight and Magnolias“ remains immensely entertaining. Soaked in comedy, it arouses in one the desire to watch that good old blockbuster, „Gone with the Wind“, yet again. Not least thanks to the excellent acting from the ensemble (especially noteworthy Mark Elstob as director Victor Fleming, at once belligerent, droll and desperate).

03.04.2014
Alexander U. Mathé

KRONENZEITUNG

Wit, Charm, Irony

Great works of art need great stories. Especially background stories; legends surrounded their creation, anecdotes that highlight the „human“ side. And so, the play, “Moonlight and Magnolias”, risks a peek at the making of the film-script of the first real blockbuster, “Gone with the Wind”: Amusing!

We‘re talking about the film which was the biggest box-office magnet, the greatest „weepie“ of all time, and still is, 75 years after it was made. Now, at Vienna‘s English Theatre, audiences can glimpse the creation of its film-script. Here we go: three men – the producer, a hastily recruited director and a scriptwriter who‘s seen it all – have but five days in which to complete a new script. The problem: the intended author is more than likely the only American who has not yet read the original novel! And so, director and producer enact for him every scene of the script… Ron Hutchinson weaves an imaginitive and entertaining theatre evening from this premise, an evening larded with countless laughs. What happens is foreseeable – but it is precisely this that makes it so entertaining: they argue over scenes, come to blows, have rows and make it up; in the process they discuss key aspects of the film business. And all the time it all remains moving and sympathetic, witty and full of charm. It is legitimate, under such circumstances, to go „over the top“ – after all, our filmmakers, with only five days without a break for their task, come to the brink of total insanity.

Philip Dart directs all this expertly and with splendid irony: Mark Pearce, Neil Bromley and Mark Elstob act with verve and great skill.

09. April 2014
Oliver Lang