Who knew that the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema was powered by bananas? Playwright Ron Hutchinson did, to judge by his wacky play "Moonlight and Magnolias," currently receiving an amiably romping production from the Barksdale Theatre.
Hutchinson's comedy takes a behind-the-scenes look at the frantic 1939 creation of the screenplay for "Gone With the Wind." In a famous true incident, producer David O. Selznick pulled the script together at the last minute; in Hutchinson's version, he does it by locking a director and a script doctor in an office, and feeding them nothing but peanuts and bananas.
The director and screenwriter in question are Victor Fleming and Ben Hecht, played in the Barksdale production by local theatrical powerhouses David Bridgewater and Scott Wichmann.
While Hecht hunkers obediently over his typewriter, despite his personal conviction that "Gone With the Wind" is a racist bit of piffle, Fleming and Selznick (portrayed by Joe Pabst) attempt to inspire him by acting bits of Margaret Mitchell's book. As the office fills up with banana peels and peanut shells, the conversation veers between barbed quips and exhausted hysteria. But there's room also for some serious (if none-too-subtle) talk about the business of moviemaking -- a debate about whether film should diagnose social ills, for instance.
A key asset of director Steve Perigard's staging is Wichmann, whose dry interpretation of Hecht ballasts the show's farcical elements.
Bridgewater takes a far hammier approach to Fleming: In one particularly droll sequence, he minces around campily while talking in a falsetto, his head in a kerchief, imitating Scarlett O'Hara's maid. At another point, he does a mean Clark Gable imitation.
Pabst is unduly fidgety in his early scenes as Selznick, but he gains a little comic poise as the show progresses. Joy Williams indulges in some scenery chewing in the small role of Selznick's secretary.
Perigard ratchets up the show's screwball quotient with some witty sight gags (sound gags, too), and he keeps the action moving fluidly around Brian Barker's handsome set, with its peach-colored walls and sleek art deco furniture. In an ongoing joke, Selznick's office becomes increasingly messy -- so a special nod must go to this production's properties mistress, Lynn West, for coping with the piquant slovenliness. Sue Griffin supplies the period costumes.
An added perk of the production is the exhibit of "Gone With the Wind" memorabilia in the Barksdale lobby: The collection, owned by John Wiley Jr., is a trove of interesting and oddball items, including original call sheets from the movie shoot, and tie-ins such as a "Gone With the Wind" board game. It's a nice reminder that, no matter how hair-raising and banana-stoked its genesis, Selznick's movie became one of our culture's watershed events.