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MArillyn Monroe died on August 4, 1962 of “probable suicide.” But was it actually a foul game? And was Bobby Kennedy present tonight? Who knows. The only certainty is that Monroe, in her afterlife, hovers on the astral plane – a vulnerable blonde bombshell whose death is linked to conspiracy theories involving the CIA, the Mafia and politically motivated murder.
Writers Vicki McKellar and Guy Masterson mix a cocktail of fact with fiction and an overarching theory that Monroe’s (Genevieve Gaunt) friends and associates were part of a cover-up.
There is Monroe’s housekeeper Eunice (Sally Mortemore), who finds her unconscious; the doctor Dr. Engelberg (Maury Richards), who announces her death; and her shell-shocked best friend Pat Newcomb (Susie Amy). Also present are others with a less obvious reason for being there: Monroe’s therapist Ralph Greenson (David Calvito); his wife Hildy (Angela Bull); and, importantly, socialite and JFK’s sister Patricia Kennedy-Lawford (played heroically by understudy Natasha Colenso after McKellar, cast for the role, falls ill) alongside Peter Lawford (Declan Bennett), the president’s brother-in-law.
Directed by Masterson, it plays out as a Hollywood homage combined with a classic British living room whodunnit as they gather in Sarah June Mills’ 1960s living room.
The scenes alternate between the hours before her death, when she’s in a dressing gown and bare feet (albeit with impeccably red nails and lips), and a few days earlier, when she’s riding high with a $2 million studio contract.
The play becomes a thinly veiled exercise in airing conspiracy theories and mysteries, characters who variously sound like suspects or detectives. Monroe’s affairs with John and Bobby Kennedy are mentioned. We hear that the latter has been violent towards her and fears that there is incriminating information in a diary that Dr Greenson has encouraged her to keep. Monroe’s real-life diaries reveal her fear of Lawford and he is a harassing figure here, orchestrating a top-sanctioned cover-up of heinous male violence.
Marilyn herself feels like an imitation, breathless and erratic. She looks like a spoiled child playing with a stuffed toy and calling her therapist “shrinki”, her vulnerability not real or deep enough. The characters get bogged down in repetitive conspiracy theories and it seems to drag on. But the group dynamic shows how people are bullied into collusion, and the theory that Monroe’s death was the result of bare male desire, power and control certainly lands.
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