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LONDON — To most, Scarlett O'Hara is a Southern spitfire who always wants what she can't have. But to Margaret Martin, Scarlett is representative of all the world's stressed-out single moms who have been forced to go it alone.

To most, the 1939 film "Gone With the Wind" is an epic love story set against the backdrop of America's Civil War. But to Martin, a first-time American playwright who has adapted the story as a musical for the stage, romance is just the tip of the iceberg.

Catherine Ashmore/Premier PR (ENLARGE)
Margaret Martin lured director Trevor Nunn to the project after reading an interview in which he expressed a passion for Civil War history and civil rights.
Catherine Ashmore/Premier PR (ENLARGE)
American Jill Paice plays Scarlett O'Hara, a character in whom Margaret Martin sees herself. Both were teenage mothers married to abusive men.
Catherine Ashmore/Premier PR (ENLARGE)
The cast of 'Gone With the Wind: The Musical' includes Darius Danesh (from left) as Rhett Butler, Jill Paice as Scarlett O'Hara and actor Edward Baker-Duly as Ashley Wilkes.
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Martin's interpretation of the classic — she wrote the music and lyrics, too — begins previews on London's West End on April 2 and officially opens April 22.

"There's also the status of women and the impact of war on women and families," said Martin, 54. "There are race issues. There are occupied people resorting to terrorism to achieve a sense of control.

"And there are reconstruction efforts and fortunes made at the expense of the projects that were supposed to have been undertaken," she said.

Toward that end, Martin said audiences would definitely recognize in her play the people at Halliburton, the oil giant once run by Vice President Dick Cheney that later won lucrative contracts in Iraq. "They even have their own song," she said.

Similarities to Scarlett

If Martin's retelling of the story sounds infused with contemporary themes, she credits none other than the original author, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Margaret Mitchell. The success of the film, she says, overshadowed the deeper, darker elements of war and its effects found in Mitchell's book.

But make no mistake, Martin has invested plenty of herself in the production, starting with the fact that she dared add singing to a perfectly good story. The Los Angeles resident toiled four years to win the rights to the book from Mitchell's Atlanta-based estate. Then she lured director Trevor Nunn — of "Cats" fame — to the project after reading an interview with the British director in which he expressed a passion for Civil War history and civil rights.

Although she grew up on the Hawaiian island of Oahu as the daughter of a choral conductor, Martin knows something of racial tensions in the South. In the summer of 1965 she accompanied her mother to Greenville, Miss., to help register black children for the then-new Head Start program.

"We stayed there in the home of a single black grandmother raising a few grandchildren and a few other children as well," she said. "Seeing my mother working alongside her to help clean up a mess that wasn't of their own making has been a touchstone for me."

Martin said she was drawn to the similarly strong female characters in Mitchell's book. In particular, Martin sees a lot of Scarlett in herself.

"The other thing that brought me to the project is that, like Scarlett, I have three children," she said. "I had my first child at 17. I was a battered teenage mom married to an abusive man. He left me, and I had to take care of my family.

"I felt I had walked inside Scarlett's shoes," she said.

While in her 20s, Martin lifted herself out of poverty by working at a nonprofit organization before going on to purchase and renovate distressed properties in Los Angeles.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Martin enrolled in college at the age of 33. She went on to earn a doctorate in public health from UCLA in 1998 before deciding that what she really wanted to do was write a musical.

American dreams

Martin's lived the American dream in such spectacular fashion that she's even named her middle child "America."

"I've always been fascinated by the dreams on which America is founded and that's one reason it's so painful for me to see how far America has sunk in the estimation of people in Europe," she said.

But the production, Martin said, is not a razzmatazz musical, although a song by the young male stars called "Come Join The Troops" is accompanied by an exuberant dance number.

"In general the songs are more organic in nature," she said.

Martin said one of her favorite parts of the show is when the character who plays Mammy — NaTasha Yvette Williams, the daughter of a preacher — sings a song called "Every Child Wants to be Wanted."

Martin says her aim is not just to entertain, but also to send a powerful message. "I'm hoping that this production reminds Americans that we've lived through more bitterly polarized periods in the past and we've learned then the value of coming together and toning down the incendiary rhetoric," she said.

"I'm hoping it reminds Americans to focus on all that unites us rather than all that divides us," she said.

It's a tall order for a show that's likely to be seen by a lot more Britons than Americans. But, if successful, Martin said the production would move to New York within 18 to 24 months.

For now, Martin said she's having the time of her life in London. "Previously, I haven't been that religious, but more recently I've learned to be a person of deep faith," she said. "I've come to really depend on a higher power and feel that I've been called to do this production."