I Don't Give A Damn

Tacking footling events onto the epic sweep of history is an old trick for writers seeking social relevance.

Margaret Mitchell, whose 1936 novel, Gone With the Wind was turned into a legendary film by David O. Selznik 69 years ago, clearly understood this.

Depicting the life and times of Scarlett O’Hara, a spoilt southern belle who falls for the wrong man, the plot unfolds alongside the cataclysmic events of the American civil war. Yet the nod towards great historical events merely underlines the superficiality of Mitchell’s privileged white characters.

So why theatrical novice Margaret Martin (who has written the show’s book, music and lyrics) wanted to stage this politically myopic work is anyone’s guess.

Things do not bode well during an early scene, when a black character intones, during a surrogate southern ditty:

“Some folks are mean-
They don’t do what’s right.
They make you cry in the dark of night…”

Then there’s Julian Forsyth’s Gerald O’Hara, who epitomizes the moronic “leprechaun” depictions of Irish characters that Richard Harris once complained of.

A musical play that needs to telescope around 1000 pages into 3 hours and 40 minutes has a lot to do, and patronizing two races in the space of 10 minutes is an impressive start.

So condensed are the adventures of Scarlett that the piece resembles a Reduced Shakespeare Company romp- but without the laughs.

The nose- bleed inducing pace discourages engagement and events soon become a not very interesting blur.

As in his Royal Shakespeare Company version of Nicholas Nickleby, director and adaptor Trevor Nunn has characters scuttle around declaiming narrative details. But here the sketchy characterization sees the technique fall rather flat. Matters are not helped by John Napier’s unimaginative wooden set.

Meanwhile, Nunn’s revisionist, “right on” take on the reactionary original feels like a trendy afterthought. A scene where a newly freed slave announces her desire to teach feels particularly twee.