As the Citizens awaits its new artistic director, this co-production with Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum retains its distinctive mixture of populism and new writing. Sue Glover’s script captures Marilyn Monroe attempting to develop a friendship with the wife of the man she is about to seduce.
Simone Signoret - played with an accomplished emotional range by Dominique Hollier - was as much an icon as Monroe herself, yet she is unable to prevent her husband departing with the child-like, and wildly depressed American actress. By placing Monroe in an all-female environment, where sexual allure is not enough to assure her ascendancy, Glover pictures a woman in the throes of misery and low self-esteem, without losing her notorious glamour.
The tight script and Philip Howard’s taut direction allow the surreal moments - such as Monroe’s Oscar acceptance speech - to have immediate impact. While Monroe’s story is so well documented that it is difficult to get beyond the irony of the world’s most beautiful woman grappling with lack of self-belief, the suave Gallic charm of Hollier’s Signoret brings out the American nature of Monroe’s attractiveness.
Kenny Miller’s design - a cross between an expensive hotel suite and a movie star dressing room, festooned with lights - lends the action an intensity reflected in the story’s inevitable drift towards Monroe’s breakdown. While it rarely goes beyond the expected, Thorburn and Hollier manage to avoid mere impersonation but capture the essence of the two stars. They are ably supported by Pauline Knowles as Marilyn’s earthy hairdresser, in this genuinely tragic tale.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
Content is copyright © 2012 The Stage Media Company Limited unless otherwise stated.
All RSS feeds are published for personal, non-commercial use. (What’s RSS?)
