Frankly, My Dear, Not a Bad Retelling of a Classic

LONDON — There's Rhett Butler's mischievous grin and Scarlett O'Hara's 22-inch waist. There are even real flames when Atlanta starts to burn.

"Gone With the Wind," one of the most quintessentially American stories of all time, opens Tuesday night [April 22] as a stage musical in London's West End theater district.

And despite its debut an ocean away from Georgia, purists who revere the 1939 film are not likely to be offended by this 3 1/2-hour production directed by a Brit and showing in previews earlier this month.

To be sure the show innovates, opening with a stirring number by the slaves called "Born to be Free." And it ends not with that famous line by Scarlett, but with a musical number.

Yet other action comes straight from the movie and the novel, such as Scarlett's charge that Rhett "looks like he knows what I look like without my shimmy."

And, yes, Rhett's infamous line — "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" — is here, too.

For British audiences, there's even a helpful Deep South glossary printed in the program that includes definitions of words such as carpetbagger, plantation, and overseer, and the meaning behind organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

The musical is Southern through and through, with ubiquitous references to Yankees, scalawags, and the savagely red clay lands of Georgia.

Still, fans of the film, might wonder why in this version Scarlett does not slap Prissy's face when Prissy admits she knows nothin' 'bout birthin' babies.

The show is the work of first-time playwright Margaret Martin, an American who penned the book, music, and lyrics. She would like to bring the production to New York after its London run.

The production, she says, is based on Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel, not the Oscar-winning film. As a result, this Scarlett gives birth to three children (as in the book) instead of one (the film).

Trevor Nunn, the British director who created sizzling stage atmosphere in such hits as "Cats" and "Les Miserables," stages this production.

The story plays out on a circular stage with no orchestra pit separating the actors from the audience. When stage props start to fall during the burning of Atlanta at least a few audience members squirmed uncomfortably in their seats.

Like Hollywood producer David O. Selznick, who cast the virtually unknown British actress Vivien Leigh as Scarlett in the film version, Nunn also went with a little-known name for his lead.

His choice, the energetic Jill Paice, a 28-year-old native of Ohio, is nearly the spitting image of Leigh. Paice has a tiny waist, gorgeous dark hair, and even sounds uncannily like Leigh in the way she delivers her distinctive Southern drawl.

Darius Danesh, 28, a former Pop Idol contestant (Britain's version of American Idol) from Glasgow, Scotland, plays Rhett and does a good job, though Clark Gable's shoes are hard ones to fill.

Jina Burrows — who plays Prissy — has a spectacular voice and garnered the loudest applause with an emotional number in which Prissy yearns for an education.

There aren't a lot of showstopping numbers in this production, but rather songs that seem to move the story forward — and offer not-so-subtle messages about the world today.

There is a song about "reconstruction plunder" that "makes you wonder who is minding the till." There's also lots of preaching about the futility of war. (Can anyone say "Iraq?")

The musical ends not with the reminder that "tomorrow is another day," but with a song belted out by the entire cast. The song is called "Gone With the Wind" and its basic message is the Civil War era is a period of time that is, well, gone with the wind.

The crowd roared its approval and many gave the show a standing ovation.

But Britain's notoriously tough theater critics have yet to weigh in on a show that is bound to draw comparisons to a classic film with a very long shadow.

ON THE WEB: www.gwtwthemusical.com