Play review: 'Don't Cry For Me' offers reasons to 'give a damn'

Frankly, the newest performance now showing at Pioneer Playhouse is definitely worth a damn or two — or three.Heck, I’ll give it a dozen damns and throw in a crate of bananas just for fun.“Don’t Cry For Me Margaret Mitchell,” the latest offering at Danville’s outdoor theater, is a quasi-historical, semi-truthful retelling of how the book, “Gone With the Wind” got turned into the movie by the same name.Unlike earlier plays this summer with a dozen or more players, “Don’t Cry For Me Margaret Mitchell” features just four main characters.The play focuses on actual historical figure “Gone With the Wind” producer David O. Selznick (Daniel Hall Kuhn) and two other men, Ben Hecht (Jon Kovach) and Victor Fleming (Eben French Mastin), who find themselves stuck in Selznick’s office for a week, subsisting on bananas and peanuts, attempting to write a fresh new screenplay for “Gone With the Wind” before they run out of time and Hollywood shoots Selznick’s career down.Viewers need not worry if they haven’t read the book or seen the movie, the play is enjoyable regardless.The humor takes a while to get going, but the acting does not. Right from the start, Kuhn, Kovach and Mastin are clearly throwing themselves fully into their roles, a necessity for a character-driven play like “Don’t Cry For Me Margaret Mitchell.”Once the initial few minutes have passed and the humor gets going, it doesn’t stop. The last three-fourths of the play is full of laugh after laugh as the characters simultaneously make a mockery of and improve upon Margaret Mitchell’s long-winded novel.It’s hard to pick a best moment from all the ridiculous arguments the characters have about “Gone With the Wind,” but one of the best is when the characters attempt a myriad of horrible replacement phrases for the classic line, “my dear, I don’t give a damn,” after the sensors ban the word “damn” from the movie.The movie would indeed have a distinctly different feel if Rhett Butler had looked into Scarlett O’Hara’s eyes and said, “My dear, the whole thing is a stench to my nostrils.”The whole play is a showcase for Kuhn’s acting skills, and he doesn’t disappoint. He performs a long monologue summarizing the novel quite badly; he acts out most of the major plot points in a fast-forwarding mime style; and somehow, amazingly, he acts completely “torpid” (unmoving, unfeeling) with his eyes open for a good five minutes as Hecht and Mastin drag him around the stage, throwing him on furniture and forcing his legs to pantomime walking motions.Mastin is his usual, dependable self, acting his role perfectly and giving his all for the audience. Kovach plays the straight man for many jokes, but shines particularly during a scene where the characters let off some steam by acting out whatever comes on the radio.The fourth member of the cast, Selznick’s assistant Ms. Peabody (Noelia Antweiler), has a limited role but performs it well. Her best moment comes during intermission, when she puts on a “halftime show” of sorts, cavorting around Selznick’s office, dancing to the radio, pretending to be her boss and literally tackling the bathroom with a scrub brush.Overall, “Don’t Cry For Me Margaret Mitchell” is a surprisingly satisfying hit that starts off quietly and builds itself into a great night of comedy.Go see it this coming week before it’s gone with the — well, you know.IF¿YOU¿GOPerformances Tuesday-Saturday. Tickets for dinner  and show are $28, and show only $16. For reservations, call: (859) 236-2747 or toll-free at (866) 597-5297.Dinner is served at 7:30 p.m. with curtain at 8:30 p.m.Find complete schedule at www.pioneerplayhouse.com.