Posted June 12, 200817 yr link Goodbye, cruel wind Gone With the Wind was set to be the biggest show in town. Cast member Ray Shell gives the inside story as to why it flopped so badly Thursday June 12, 2008 The Guardian Every night, as I make my final entrance through the audience of Gone With the Wind, past rows and rows of empty seats, I think: this can't be right. Gone With the Wind was supposed to have been the theatrical event of the year - what happened? Now that our closing date looms - this Saturday, after less than two months in the West End (we were originally booked until January next year) - it's a question that everyone has been asking. All 36 cast members have sat in their dressing rooms wondering what, exactly, strangled this production from the moment we moved into the theatre. Article continues -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What happened was that we rehearsed, very happily, a script that was almost five hours long, starting in early February. The mood was upbeat and we were working with the don of British theatre, Sir Trevor Nunn - what could possibly go wrong? We were confident that Gone With the Wind would run and run, no matter what the critics said. Yes, we had doubts about the music and the length of the script, but we were confident that our director would make it all come good with a sprinkling of that Nunn magic. And then the cuts began. Our producers had assembled a world-class cast, made up of members of hit shows such as Cats, Les Misérables, Starlight Express and My Fair Lady. But Gone With the Wind is really all about four people: Scarlett, Rhett, Melanie and Ashley. If you haven't read the book and know only the film, Prissy and Mammy are in there, too, but that still leaves 30 other actors needing something to do. So we became narrators, Nicholas Nickleby-style. And when the cuts began, the obvious thing to go was the narrating. Nunn tried to cut as much as he could without igniting a mutiny, but I'm sure the grumblings must have reached him. When we previewed the show, it was still nearly four hours and 20 minutes long. Previews are meant to be the point in a production's life where a show can be tried out before an audience, to see what works and what doesn't. They used to be an intimate affair, and there was a certain bond of trust between the performers and an audience who had paid less to see the unpolished version. But in the internet age, those days are over. Before we had even left the theatre on the night of our first preview, our fate was sealed. I went home that night to read damning comments on a blog called the West End Whingers: the knives were already out, sharp and bloody. Still, I didn't lose any sleep; I knew that Nunn would fix it, and the following week he cut another 20 minutes out of the show. It wasn't enough. When we opened towards the end of April, the show ran at an incredible three hours and 40 minutes, with an interval. The critics buried us with one word: long. Long is a word that scares a credit-crunch audience, who will think twice about paying £60 (top price) to see a production they may have to miss the end of if they want to catch their last (expensive) train home. It's also a word that scares an audience whose attention span has been frazzled and shrunk by the multimedia demands of the 21st century. If you're going to do long, then you'd better get in your explosions and helicopters and adrenaline rushes in the first three minutes: the days of a slow story build-up are gone. A week ago, I tried to introduce my 19-year-old nephew to Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. I couldn't believe he'd never seen the greatest gangster film ever. But no bullet is fired or blood spilt until at least 30 minutes into the film; you've got to get through the wedding, the gradual introduction of Michael Corleone and the rest of the family before the guns go off. With a yawn, my nephew told me he was bored and asked if we could play Grand Theft Auto IV instead. It's not that the necessary adrenaline rushes aren't in the script of Gone With the Wind. It's more that the cast had learned and discarded several versions of ever-decreasing scripts, so that the main thing on our minds on opening night was remembering to perform the correct, current version. Had we been able to delay opening for another two weeks, I'm certain we'd still be running. As in most things, practice makes perfect. It's only by owning a show completely that a cast can feel confident enough to transport an audience to another time and place, without the joins showing. Gone With the Wind now runs at three hours 10 minutes, with an interval. We get standing ovations every night, but this will not save us, and that makes me sad. I am proud of our work and know that, given time, we could have found our audience and given Cats and Les Mis a run for their longest-running-musical titles. The show we're now performing is not the one the critics saw, but we're still damned by those terrible reviews. Just as the owners of the Titanic didn't anticipate the need for extra lifeboats - why, when their ship was deemed unsinkable? - nobody thought we'd need a money chest to keep Gone With the Wind afloat. We planned for every eventuality but failure. Isnt this exactly our thoughts!!
June 12, 200817 yr Thank you PIP. Sad though that is to read whose fault is it that it was a changed script so many times and ran so long yet didnt get sorted in the preview weeks.
June 12, 200817 yr Author I think this was a bad error, - what a wasted opportunity, they should have had money left to carry the show through, such a huge project, to risk it so wanoenly. I thought it was very remiss that reviews of early previews by less than professional critics..Westend Whingers to name one such!!! were everywhere on the net, and used to spread through other media, such a negative impression of the show from the out, what with that and the snobbery about a debut writer..well, beggars beleif.
June 12, 200817 yr Agree with what you say PIP but the more I see that the more it makes me think that someone somewhere had an axe to grind especially as you say it sped around the sites like wildfire.
June 12, 200817 yr At last his name is mentioned -[ True forums do play a part. But let us not forget lots of praise about this show has gone on this board and I’m sure has generated lots of extra revenue. It works both ways. I feel a lot of the responsibility lies with Terror Nunn. A show of it’s original length can’t survie in the commercial sector. Maybe the length could of worked at the NT or RSC but I think those publicly funded theatre’s would have major concerns about telling this particular race story … “It’s history from the wrong end of the telescope” – Michael Billington in his Guardian review Anyway Terror Nunn really needs to learn some editing skills and take into account that people have concerns about sitting for so long (as a lot of West End theatre’s are starved of cash and getting the lick of paint they so deserve) also people need to catch their last trains home. The producers need to have exercised more control over their investment and insisted on cuts in the rehearsal period way before the previews started. After the trimming down. Why wasn’t a new press night called? The whole thing from writing, development and production stinks of a total lack of understanding of modern musical theatre.
June 12, 200817 yr The comments from the audience members yesterday echo what Ray Shell thinks - they have a brilliant show of which they can all be proud and no-one seemed to understand why the closure notices were posted on such a show. There's a comment on theatremonkey from a group leader who says that in eight years of going to shows and they've seen many, GWTW is the best show they've seen. It must be so frustrating for the cast seeing how much the audiences love it.
June 12, 200817 yr Author for sure I hope they can perform to interested pople and get across this is a great show - they just need to get past those reviews
June 13, 200817 yr If the critics had come to the shows on now, the reviews would be very different. Another excellent show tonight and standing ovation at the end.
June 13, 200817 yr That's what makes it so heartbreaking - the needless waste! You can hear a pin drop in that audience during many of the scenes because people are so involved. I wonder if any of the backers who cut and ran actually saw the show. I doubt it very much.
June 13, 200817 yr Author thats what I am wondering, people waiting with more money to come in and invest probably read reviews and stopped in their tracks - its all about the money isnt it, such a shame as if a millionaire had done this production they could probably finance it through the lean times - it really is West Ends Loss, it also seemed to be scoffed at because "older" people, especially women were enjoying it - I found that really annoying, with all the tat around we need something for the older generation too - thats were a lot of money is I find it so irritating that if you are a woman past 45 your likes are dismissed, everything has to be aimed for the young and it is so true that they are so geared up for the "quick fix" they dictate what we have to have! mine wouldnt sit through any of the films I loved as a youngster, it takes too much concentration and following a story, as Ray says in his article,
June 13, 200817 yr Arrgh! The 3 am girls wrote on 4th June that Darius intended to continue with his career after GWTW and then took a swipe at him saying "See you in the jungle, mate!" That annoys me so much. It gives the impression that D's only option after the failure of GWTW will be to do I'm A Celeb or some other reality show.
June 14, 200817 yr Well obviously they've done no research and just made a stupid comment off the cuff but it's there in print and many of the paper's readers will totally believe it and it will go around the internet that Darius has signed on for the next series of IAC. Then there will be a barrage of derogatory comments on other sites which will be picked up by the lazier journalists and go back into print as scoops embellished with "quotes" from Darius or inside sources. It's just so unnecessary and spiteful.
June 14, 200817 yr Nothing, sadly. I don't know why I ever hoped the credibility he'd gained in the WE since February might have tempered these blinkered attitudes.
June 15, 200817 yr It wont - but it has altered thousands of people's opinions. It's so great to hear people truly realising just how good he is. My daughter said that the show was brilliant but that they'd have a hard time replacing Darius or Jill as they were sjust so outstanding. People are now saying that they wishj they'd seen it and not listened to critics. It hasn't done the critics reputation too much good.
June 15, 200817 yr Time to do away with critics I think, what do they know, they are only their opinion and they all jump on the bandwagon, do half of them go or do they pick up and copy bits from each others write up.
June 15, 200817 yr No, according to .........yes that's right........Mark Shenton, they do not discuss the show until after their notices go into print. Maybe he should have. Alongside all the other ones, his "wooden Rhett" looks somewhat out of place. Of course we don't know in this internet world if they would have read blogs etc. about the previews and indeed whether the two critics who were seen at a first week's preview had already formed strong opinions before they came again officially.
Create an account or sign in to comment