Theatre Review - The Marilyn Conspiracy
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| Genevieve Gaunt in The Marilyn Conspiracy [Nux Photography] |
THE suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Marilyn Monroe in August 1962, aged 36, have fuelled conspiracy theories for decades.
She was believed to have had affairs with US president John F Kennedy and his brother Bobby. Just before she died, Monroe had threatened to call a press conference and release the secrets contained in her diary.
Vicki McKellar and Guy Masterson’s The Marilyn Conspiracy (with Genevieve Gaunt in the title role) tracks the star’s last days and imagines the five crucial hours between her death, and the reporting of her “probable suicide” by “drugs overdose” to the police.
In those missing hours, seven friends and employees of the Hollywood star meet in her home to discuss and agree on the same story before calling the police.
Pat Newcomb (Susie Amy) was Monroe’s publicist. Her housekeeper Eunice Murray (Sally Mortemore) discovered her body. Dr Hyman Engelberg (Maurey Richards) prescribed her sleeping pills and declared her death a suicide. Dr Ralph Greenson (David Calvitto) was her psychiatrist, Hilda (Angela Bull) his wife.
The play focuses on the actions of Peter Lawford (Declan Bennett) an English-American actor, brother-in-law of the Kennedys, and his wife Patricia Kennedy Lawford (Natasha Colenso, who stepped into the role at the last minute).
Crucially Lawford had visited Monroe with Bobby the afternoon of her death. Bobby returned that night with two other men. Lawford and Patricia have good reason to hush up Bobby’s involvement with Monroe in the hours before her fatal overdose. But they need to persuade the others to comply with their version of events.
Masterton, who also directs, presents the drama as a whodunnit. Although it occasionally feels crowded with eight actors trooping on and off the Park’s small stage, and the characters are sketchily drawn, The Marilyn Conspiracy is never less than engrossing.
Recommended.
Until July 27