February 11, 2020

Oscars Night in Auckland

Steve Dedalus    posted 11 Feb 2020, 01:51 PM / edited 11 Feb 2020, 01:52 PM

Bloomsday Productions packed out the Thirsty Dog on K Rd last night with its latest production, “CLASS STRUGGLE IN HOLLYWOOD! The True Story of the Oscars.” It was a dramatic and captivating show that combined the story of the unionisation of Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s—particularly of the writers—with a musical backdrop of songs that won Oscars, sung by Linn Lorkin and Mike Munane.

Highlight of the show was Hershal Herscher’s demonstration of the weeping, hand-wringing Louis Mayer explaining to MGM employees they’d have to take a 50% wage cut — “It’s the depression! MGM has run out of cash!” and then turning to an aide after and whispering, “… How did I go?” (All the writers and actors and directors on individual contracts abjectly took the cut. The unionised technicians, gathered in bulk, flatly refused–and that was that.)

The show was put together to coincide with the first Oscars of the new decade, yesterday’s 2020 Academy Awards.

Bloomsday Productions, besides producing Auckland’s annual James Joyce Bloomsday extravanganza in June, has now done four shows at the Thirsty Dog—“When Sinatra was a RED”, “Piaf and Us”, “REDS” (commemorating the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution) and “CLASS STRUGGLE IN HOLLYWOOD”, and one at the Grey Lynn RSC—“Who Killed Blair Peach?” (marking the 40th anniversary of the police murder of NZer Blair Peach in London, April 1979).