http://www.indielondon.co.uk/Theatre-Revie...the-wind-review

 

Gone with the Wind - New London Theatre (review)

 

Review by Lizzie Guilfoyle

 

product

 

IT WAS never going to be easy stepping into the shoes of screen icons Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable but Jill Paice and Darius Danesh have risen to the occasion and made the roles of Scarlett and Rhett their own in Trevor Nunn’s musical adaptation of Gone with the Wind.

 

Set in 1860s Georgia, Gone with the Wind is a remarkable story, spanning 12 turbulent years in the life of Scarlett O’Hara, the beautiful but headstrong daughter of cotton plantation owner Gerald O’Hara. Outwardly carefree, Scarlett’s happiness is thwarted by the one thing she can’t have – Ashley Wilkes.

 

An obsessive love, it endures despite Ashley’s marriage to his cousin Melanie and her own marriages of convenience, first to Charles Hamilton and later to Frank Kennedy. Even a third marriage to the cynical blockade runner Rhett Butler, with whom she shares a stormy relationship, is no obstacle.

 

Yet the winds of change threaten everything Scarlett holds dear as Civil War sweeps into Atlanta, destroying her hopes and dreams and eventually, her love for Ashley….

 

I was one of a second wave of journalists charged with reviewing this epic production so, of course, I’d read the earlier damning reviews. However, I went with an open mind and was soon of the opinion that I was seeing an altogether different production.

 

Yes, it is long – a little over three and a half hours to be precise – but, with just over a thousand pages of small print, so is the book. And forgive me if I’m wrong, but the film ran for a marathon four hours and I don’t recall anybody complaining about that. Besides, the essence of Mitchell’s enduring and well-loved story would surely be lost in a ‘cut’ version.

 

That said, the second act which is considerably darker than the first, could be trimmed simply by cutting down the musical numbers. And yes, I know this is a musical but does Melanie really need to sing on her deathbed? I don’t think so. The music, however, is far from superfluous and catchy little ditties are interspersed not only with love songs but also with negro spirituals and blues numbers. Even so, listening to them just the once isn’t enough for their worth to be truly appreciated.

 

As I’ve already hinted, Danesh and Paice are superb as Rhett and Scarlett – Danish is roguish charm personified, yet at the same time, he manages to expose the inner pathos of a man deeply wounded by betrayal and the death of his beloved daughter. And Paice, as pretty as a picture, eases herself into the demanding role of feisty heroine who learns too late the error of her ways. There’s an undeniable chemistry even when grief tears them apart.

 

In fact, I cannot fault the cast in any way and special mention must go to Madeleine Worrall as Melanie, Edward Baker-Duly as Ashley, Natasha Yvette Williams as Mammy and Jina Burrows as Prissy, whose performances capture the characters they portray in a way I’m sure Mitchell envisaged them – helped in part by the rich array of costumes.

 

Finally, John Napier’s uncluttered set that extends into and around the auditorium suits the production well. It may lack the extravagance of certain shows and be somewhat short on spectacle – the burning of Atlanta, for example – but it serves it’s purpose adequately. Besides, these are shortcomings – if you can even call them that – that work very much to the cast’s advantage, allowing them to shine without unnecessary distraction.

 

If you love the book, you’ll love this production. And if the film was your introduction to Gone with the Wind, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I just hope critics haven’t condemned it to failure because that really would be a pity.

 

Gone with the Wind – presented by Aldo Scrofani, Colin Ingram, Gary McAvay, Nederlander Presentations Inc and Peter Kane.

 

Based on the Novel by Margaret Mitchell.

Book and Lyrics by Margaret Martin adapted by Trevor Nunn.

Music by Margaret Martin.

Designer – John Napier.

Costume Designer – Andreane Neofitou.

Lighting Designer – Neil Austin.

Movement Director – David Bolger.

Sound Designer – Paul Groothuis.

Musical Director – David White.

Resident Director – Stephen Rayne.

Casting Director – David Grindrod.

Executive Producer – Aldo Scrofani.

Orchestrations – William David Brohn.

Musical Supervision and Arrangements – Gareth Valentine.

Directed by Trevor Nunn.

 

 

Great to read a report from someone who saw the same show as I do. Goodness knows where the others went to watch.

I like the recognition that the second act is darker than the first. That was something from thebook that this show was trying to show rather than the sweetened celluloid version.

I can only think of 2 peices of music I'd cut from the second half. I love the second half.

This is the one I mentioned in another thread , the one Rachel posted today

 

New Statesman

Going, going . . . gone

Andrew Billen

Published 01 May 2008

Trevor Nunn slips up with this tuneless assault on the English language

 

It was fine, as maybe Dixie thought first time round, until they burned Atlanta. I was beginning to think that the director, Trevor Nunn, had pulled off the impossible and made sense not only of Margaret Mitchell's 1,000-page novel but the book, music and lyrics penned by one Margaret Martin, a writer hitherto best known for Pregnancy and Childbirth: the Basic Illustrated Guide (but who had somehow acquired the musical rights from the Mitchell estate).

 

The storytelling was clear, John Napier's set uncluttered, and the central triangle of Scarlett the selfish Southern belle, Ashley the Southern gentleman and Rhett the Southern cad as robust as ever. An interesting symmetry even began to emerge, with both men agnostic when it came to the Southern cause and both fighting for a woman who believed in nothing. True, there was no dancing to speak of and no songs worth the humming, but the evening was proceeding painlessly.

 

But once Atlanta had gone up in flames - represented by a blazing Confederate flag and a partial demolition of the set - I began to worry. Scarlett and Rhett rode out of town on a cart drawn by an invisible horse. You wanted them to go clop clop. Although Nunn was using the techniques he pioneered in Nicholas Nickleby - characters commentating on their own stories and voicing their thought bubbles - we were being pushed into the trickery of budget troupes such as Shared Experience. The first half ended with a song that, I fear, contained the lyric "The world I used to know so well/Why did it have to turn into a living hell?"

 

I must congratulate Vanessa Feltz on her prescience. Of all the B-list celebs papering the stalls on the first night - Joan Collins, Christopher Biggins, Babs Windsor - she was the only one not to return after the interval. She would have been in for another hour and 45 minutes during which the show lost all focus. For scenes at a time Rhett, Scarlett and Ashley disappeared from view to make way for discussions, sometimes set to music, of political reform, impeachment and splits in the Republican Party. In a misguided attempt to make this story of self-involved Southern whites politically correct, attention turned to the liberated slaves and their songs of freedom.

 

And those songs! They began to scale the depths. Refrains included "Born to Be Free", "These Are Desperate Times", "The Wings of the Dove", until the inevitable "Tomorrow Is Another Day". This was cliché orchestrated in the hope it would make it less of a cliché. It merely magnified the assault on the language. And still there was not a memorable tune, a curious crime when the 1939 film had one of the greatest theme tunes ever, by Max Steiner. The original cast recording from this stage musical would be a gift for your worst enemy.

 

The storytelling became confused. Scarlett shot a Yankee soldier and stole his looted money and jewellery but was still so broke that when the farm got a big tax bill she went begging to Rhett, in jail, for a handout. And Rhett? How come one moment he was facing the noose and the next he was out of jail and profiteering again? Interest was captured only a couple of times: when Rhett and Scarlett's daughter was thrown to her death from an invisible horse (the mime was effective this time) and when Rhett scooped Scarlett off her feet and made to rape her. This, worryingly, got a big cheer from the first-night audience, as did, of course, his "Frankly my dear" line, though I doubt whether either of the Margarets meant Scarlett by this stage to be quite so unlikeable.

 

I feel sorry for Jill Paice as Scarlett, who worked hard to engage our sympathy and could certainly deliver a song. Darius Danesh, him off Pop Idol, scored a personal triumph as Rhett. Admittedly his mike was turned way up but he commanded the stage, kept his accent together and even found a new way to say "I don't give a damn" so as to make it his own. Edward Baker-Duly brought moments of pathos and depth to Ashley. But this is where my plaudits stop, somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

 

Funnily enough, having entered thinking a musical of Gone With the Wind utterly pointless, I left believing the right one could work very well. Not this one, however, not without a 45-minute cut and some songs. Then it might be salvageable. Otherwise, tomorrow is another play.

 

Andrew Billen is a staff writer for the Times

 

 

 

I love the tunes.

I can't get "Alone" out of my head

Slump fever

Lloyd EvansWednesday, 30th April 2008

 

Gone With the Wind

New London Theatre

 

 

How did they get it so wrong? Turning chicklit’s greatest story into a hit musical should have been a doddle. Just put the characters on stage and let the warm romantic breeze of the narrative carry you safely home. And that’s exactly what Trevor Nunn has done and yet the critics have misinterpreted Gone with the Wind and denounced it as a flop. I’m baffled. At last week’s Saturday matinée I joined a sell-out crowd and saw a handsome gutsy version of a completely captivating novel. Never mind the timeless magic of the storyline, look at the performances. Jill Paice is a brittle, beautiful cracker of a Scarlett and Darius Danesh’s Rhett has all that’s required, devilish eyes, a sonorous voice, a lot of slicked black hair and something extra too, the god-like swagger of a young Sean Connery. And Natasha Yvette Williams, playing Mammy, has a voice with a kick as powerful as Aretha’s. But not everything’s perfect. The opening song is a sluggish ensemble number so the show hits the ground dawdling. And there are too many melodies crammed into the 215-minute running time. Some should go, but which ones? Songs between the stars? No. The audience wants the stars. Songs by lesser characters? No. That’ll upset the dressing-room. Best solution is to keep it as it is and make that a selling point. Yes, it’s sprawling, it’s kitsch and it’s cumbersome but that’s the idea.

 

I agree with this one

 

From .net

 

link

 

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/ar...ump-fever.thtml

I also agree with his ending.

 

So the question remains. How did the critics get it so wrong? Well, there’s slump fever for a start. The newspapers keep peddling the myth that we’ll soon be living in caves, eating grass and bartering. Then up pops this lavish theatrical gamble and it gets fed into the same blender as everything else. Gone with the Wind cannot succeed because that’s not the story. Disaster is the story so it must fail. The second oddity is that the public are now doing to the critics what the critics have done to the show’s producers: openly discrediting their expertise. Oddest of all, the bad notices have lowered expectations so audiences come out feeling not just entertained but also gratified far beyond their hopes. If this is a turkey I’d like to invest in the next one.

 

 

From today. It felt funny the others going in and me not but, it was lovely meeting everyone again.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v614/megham/Gone%20With%20The%20Wind/IMG_3770cropsmall.jpg

that is a lovely picture, thanks Meg

 

and now they are back on stage again!!

Edited May 3, 200817 yr by prettyinpink

I bet they are exhausted by the end of the second. Sue was saying that he did come out to see them again- she thingls NaTasha who plays Mammy told him to.

I read a post somewhere from someone who said she was Sir Trevor Nunn's daughter which said he's been working really long hours at home trying to re-adapt the GWTW's book in order to cut the running time of the show without cutting out characters.

 

I think the cast are amazing. They have to sometimes rehearse various bits differently for a couple of days and continue performing the older version of the show at nights until those changes are implemented later. How they remember whether they're coming or going, lower stage, auditorium or balcony, far less their cues, I don't know. Hats off to them all.

 

I think they are amazing for the reasons baytree says and it gets me mad when I read about them fussing on the theatre sites over nancy in oliver and jospeh both done to death and nothing new.

And this is just so good. Shame boiling oil's not allowed.

I'm hoping the brochures will be available this week. Do we know anyone going tonight?

Edited May 5, 200817 yr by Baytree

They aren't expected for a few weeks yet, so I'd be surprised to see them there tomorrow.

Showand stay indepth review of GWTW link

 

The Wind Blows Hot and Cold

 

The opening of Trevor Nunn's version of Gone With the Wind last week has to go down as one of the most talked about events in West End history. We sent one of our writers to see what all the fuss was about

 

You certainly don't need a degree in Computer Science to be able to see that, of late, the internet has been positively swimming with reviews and criticisms about the new musical version of Gone With the Wind. Reports of an epic running time, illnesses in the cast and last minute cancellations have had the more spiteful critics sharpening their knives, salivating and queuing up right around the block.

 

If anyone had tried that last night outside the New London Theatre however, they would have got pretty darn wet. Yes, our dash from the delightful Bertorelli's in Covent Garden was certainly hampered by April's most famous meteorological feature. Suitably dried off in the welcoming foyer though, we made our way through the modern concrete and glass halls of the New London Theatre to the fully decked out auditorium. Huge wooden facades, aged boards and countless flags of the Confederate were there to meet us; right from the off there was no mistaking the historical atmosphere that hung about the thrust stage. The lights dimmed, the band flared up and there we were met by the ensemble for the first time.

 

Due to the complexities of the huge plot, Margaret Martin employs the use of many shifting narrators to tell the story. Each step forward to deliver a sentence or two and then the spotlight shifts over to the next person. This was a little confusing at first (especially when actors start narrating about their own characters in the third person) but everyone soon got used to it. Suitably enough it was Danesh's Rhett Butler that opened the play. "Eighteeeen siiixty one" he bellows in a bassy Southern drawl before the narration swiftly moves on to another actor. Hold the phone! A perceptible murmur flitted around the audience: that's not Darius 'hit me baby one more time' Danesh is it? The transformation is amazing. It's not that he looks very different at all, but it feels like you're watching a complete stranger. He's tall (very tall actually), elegant and debonair and every inch the Southern gent. No one can quite believe it. It's a few scenes before he comes back on again to reaffirm our suspicions. Yes, it's him, definitely, but not quite as we know him. Striking and dignified, Danesh glides through the Wilkes' BBQ as though the critical twitterings surrounding the show's opening are nothing more than silly hearsay. His voice, a deep and rich Southern baritone, is flawless; the accent is effortless and the singing feels just as easy. Clearly the man cuts quite the first impression. Now, if I may break off for a second here, between you, me and the proverbial gatepost, I am not the biggest fan of pop reality TV shows. No sirree! (I think all those Confederate accents have got to me) Then, when I heard that Danesh was booked for Rhett Butler over Hollywood stars like Hugh Jackman, I did question whether or not Sir Trevor Nunn had started drinking or something. I have to admit however, that (unsurprisingly) I was wrong and he was right. Musical theatre is Darius's calling; he is simply outstanding.

 

Now, that's quite enough of that, back to the plot.

 

Scarlett O' Hara, played tirelessly by Jill Plaice, finds out that her childhood favourite Ashley is to be married to his cousin Melanie and the whole tangled love story is kicked off. Cue the onslaught of the bloody Civil War, the odd roll on the military snare and some pretty liberal Yankee-bashing and there's no mistaking we're watching Gone With the Wind except, of course, there's quite a lot of singing

 

The vocal performances are all strong, Natasha Evette Williams, who plays Scarlett's slave Mammy, is literally stunning. When she finally gets to open up in the second half she totally brought the house down.

 

 

Unfortunately, this is also where it would seem Gone With the Wind's biggest shortfall is. Some of Margaret Martin's music and lyrics are just, well, silly. Moments before the burning of Atlanta, the frustrated Scarlett, in reference to the male wounded soldiers, completes the couplet "they might be wrecks" with "at least they're members of the opposite sex". Ouch. Once might be forgivable, but after reminiscing that the unmarried Scarlett "had it all", it seems quite a cruel move for Martin to have her conclude "Like Humpty Dumpty I had a great fall". A few seething winces shot around the stalls at moments like that but, as the night wore on, it would appear that this delicate balance of the serious and the comical is a shift that the production plays with and plays with very well. For example, echoes of those immortal closing lines pop up from time to time in the action and they receive half-cheers every time they do.

 

That, perhaps, is where all the critical buzz comes from, the fact that the show straddles comedy and tragedy so freely. There are genuinely fantastic moments in Gone With the Wind, heartfelt and brave performances, intelligently poised cultural references and honest characterisation. There are, of course, problematic moments too. Some of the dialogue seems forced and stretched and the unpleasant attitudes to slavery in the original film and novel are roughly sanitised by the fact that the characters, without exception, condemn the practice. Even when Ashley briefly joins the Klu Klux Klan we are decidedly shown very little. Obviously we are not trusted with actually seeing one of the romantic heroes draped in the white sheets of the Klan as this would compromise our sympathies towards him. Also, Rhett is a far more likeable chap than Mitchell's novel ever really permitted him to be.

 

In short, Gone With the Wind is quite the mixed bag. At times some of the dialogue and music falls short but, crucially, far more often the brilliantly worked set pieces and fantastic performances over shadow the failings. Clearly Nunn's version of Gone With the Wind is causing quite a stir in the West End at the moment so the only way to judge it is to see it for yourself. And, with such a huge buzz swarming around the whole thing, who wouldn't want to see what all the fuss was about?

 

Published by: Nathan Brooker

 

I have to say the only two lyrics examples anyone seems to be giving is the humpty dumpty, and the physical wreckes..which I cant even recall - they keep harping on abuot lyrics - so why only these two are being dished up, cant anyone think of any others...

Edited May 7, 200817 yr by prettyinpink

Thanks pIp for that review, fantastic for Darius and by a man at that!!!

Quite honestly the pace of the show overshadowed the lyrics for me, it was only on thinking back that I realised, it made no difference to me as I loved all of it. However humpty dumpty reminded me of another lyric, huffed and puffed and blow my house down and I did wonder!!

It's all change again tomorrow. Not too much though, I hope.