Working for peanuts ... and bananas: T2 starts season with comic look at making of cinema classic
Posted on Friday, August 29, 2008
No one exactly knows what took place inside producer David O. Selznick's office for five days in late February 1939 during the rewrite of one of the most endearing movies of all time. Playwright Ron Hutchinson, though, could imagine.
The result of the efforts of director David Fleming, noted screenwriter Ben Hecht and Selznick was the timeless "Gone with the Wind."The result of Hutchinson's humorous vision was "Moonlight and Magnolias,"which will open TheatreSquared's 2008-09 season at 8 p.m. Sept. 5. at Nadine Baum Studios in Fayetteville.
Taking place with four actors in three scenes and two acts, the play, which director Amy Herzberg labeled as "part-farce, part-slapstick, part-wit,"takes a look at what might have happened in Selznick's office on the first, third and fifth days as the three men produced the masterpiece just five days before filming.
"It seems like every generation manages to know and celebrate this certain piece,"Herzberg said of the novel-turned-blockbuster.
At the time, Selznick had done the unthinkable in Hollywood by firing the original director, George Cukor, and closing down production three weeks into production, costing a king's ransom at the time of $50,000 a day when script after script was deemed unworkable.
"The combination of the pressure of going for what [the characters] need at full-steam-ahead is what creates the comedy,"Herzberg said. "What we're really examining here is what it would be like with that kind of tremendous pressure."
Bryce Kemph, a native of Newton, Kan., who will assume the role of Selznick, said the most challenging aspect of his character is maintaining the proper energy level. At first, he would drink a Red Bull before rehearsal.
"It's always go-go-go. He is a guy that will get the job done no matter what, whether it makes him broke or it makes him a star,"said Kemph, who played the title role in TheatreSquared's "Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol"last season.
Although little is known about the real dialogue that took place, the play relies on certain nuggets of verified truth. For one, Selznick locked the men in the room and would not let anyone sleep during the five-day period. Secondly, the producer only fed his captive colleagues peanuts and bananas, thought to be the best brain food. Thirdly, Hecht had never read the highly popular novel by Margaret Mitchell, forcing Fleming and Selznick to re-enact all the scenes.
"There was a New York paper review that said 'Frankly my dear, this is one funny play,'"Herzberg said.
"We do like to start out the season with laughs,"she continued. "One of the things that is important to us is that holding those laughs together is a real center for discussion, and we think this play has that."
Interspersed between funny lines is a snapshot of what life was like in Hollywood -- and America -- in 1939. Among the topics brought to the forefront is the anti-Semitism that Hecht, who was Jewish, faced on a daily basis.
Rounding out the cast is Kevin D. Cohea as Hecht, Justin Scheuer as Fleming and his wife, Virginia Scheuer, as Selznick's secretary, Miss Poppenguhl.
Cohea, a Prairie Grove native who is making his TheatreSquared debut, teaches English at the Main Street Academy in Siloam Springs and Justin Scheuer teaches in Bentonville during the day.
"We get out of school and rush,"Cohea said. "The fact that these characters are dead-dog tired and trying to make this thing happen is pretty realistic."
Although the cast started rehearsing Aug. 19, Herzberg said that by Monday a majority of the lines were memorized after a couple of eight-hour rehearsals -- giving the cast and the director a new appreciation for the long hours put in by the trio of insomniacs.
"Sometimes,"Herzberg said," it feels like we're living the script."
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