November 27, 2006 in City

Professionalism takes center stage in ART production

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The Actor’s Repertory Theatre’s production of “Moonlight & Magnolias” has a quality I can describe only as “snap.”

Never is there a hint of awkwardness, of hesitation, of tentativeness. All four actors in this comedy about 1939 Hollywood know exactly what they are doing. Every line seems ingrained, as if it were second nature. The result is a play that fairly whizzes past in a blur of laughter and well-timed comic chaos.

Isn’t every show supposed to be like that? Of course it is, but all too often this quality is remarkable by its absence. Here, thanks to the outstanding direction by Tralen Doler and a terrific cast, we have the luxury of seeing what theatrical professionalism can accomplish.

It allows the audience to ignore some fairly serious problems with Ron Hutchinson’s script and to wallow in the play’s strengths: its comic interplay, its spoofing of Hollywood culture and its “backstage” glimpse into the creation of one of the greatest movies ever made, “Gone With the Wind.”

Hutchinson’s inspired idea was to appropriate a bit of Hollywood mythology – that “Gone With the Wind” was written in a panic-stricken burst when producer David O. Selznick locked script doctor Ben Hecht and director Victor Fleming into a room with him for five days. Then Hutchinson stretches this idea to its sleep-deprived comic conclusion.

“Moonlight & Magnolias” consists of these three men arguing, fighting, acting out scenes between Scarlett and Rhett, and, ultimately, pounding out the final script. Throw in a beleaguered secretary, played with aplomb by Wonder Russell, and you have the entire cast.

Part of the comedy is based on the notion that Hecht was particularly unsuited to the job, because he was one of the few people in America who had not read Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War opus. When he flops onto Selznick’s couch and cracks open the book, Selznick screams, “What are you doing? We don’t have time for that!”

There may still be a few people unfamiliar with the GWTW story, but not to worry. The funniest running gag in the play is that Selznick and crew act out all of the big scenes. The biggest laughs in the play consist of their renditions of Scarlett slapping Prissy, Scarlett kissing Rhett and, especially, Melanie giving birth.

“Push! Push!” shouts Fleming, repeatedly and often inappropriately.

Michael Weaver creates a blustery but good-hearted Selznick; a dictator, yet a benign one by Hollywood standards. In one of his best speeches, he explains why the world’s real dictators would never make it in Hollywood: Hitler couldn’t handle the pressure; Mussolini would lack the necessary patience. Stalin? “He’s too nice.”

Patrick Treadway is the calm heart of the play as Hecht, one of Hollywood and Broadway’s best writers. Treadway maintains a cynical, deadpan demeanor through most of the shenanigans, which is quite a feat when you consider that several scenes are practically Three-Stooges-like in their mayhem. Aspiring actors should take particular note of Treadway’s character when he is not speaking a line: He is alert, alive, always reacting and never over-reacting.

John Oswald is feisty, crude and belligerent as Fleming. He delivers his lines with a Jack Lemmon-like panache. He is like a comic raging bull, stomping around the stage in an undershirt.

As expertly choreographed by Doler, all three actors create an irresistibly entertaining comic force, which is a good thing, because it takes our minds almost entirely off of the deficiencies in Hutchinson’s script.

For what is described as a “farce,” this play contains far too many preachy lectures about Jewish identity, the social responsibility of filmmakers and Southern racism. It’s not that these lectures don’t have intellectual merit; it’s just that they are delivered as expository monologues, glaringly out of context. This is closely connected with the script’s other main problem: the tendency to hammer on the same point long after the point has already been made.

Yet here’s exactly what thorough theatrical professionalism can accomplish: It makes us say these magic words on the way home: “Yeah, but I loved it anyway.”

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