Back about 25 years ago when I was just in the throes of coming out, I worked for a few months doing coatcheck at a Minneapolis club called Norma Jean's. It was the kind of bar where straight college kids danced and partied all night and jumped up and down to "Mony Mony" and chanted "get fucked, get laid" in between chorus's. It was good money although the coat check system sucked. We'd take coats in through a half door in the kitchen, tie them to a rope and the person on the other end on the second level would have to haul the rope up and hang the coats up there. Given that people had to go to the bathroom once in awhile, there would be times when one would be getting the coat ticket and then climbing up on a chair through the cut out in the floor, getting the coat and then climbing back down. When you have a coked up patron demanding their coat back, they don't care that the other coatcheck person is taking a whiz.
I was thinking about this last Saturday night as I sat through a one woman show on the life of Marilyn Monroe, SIREN'S HEART, MARILYN IN PURGATORY at Theatre for a New City. When it was apparent that the show wasn't going to hold my interest, I tried to think if it was the subject matter that bored me, or if it was the production itself. While I've never been gaga over Marilyn the way many gay men are (I had to take a pass on Madonna worship too) I think she's always nice in anything I've seen her in although I've always felt that she had a limited range. LIke with many celebrities, you can't see the girl who gets the fuzzy end of the lollipop, you only see Marilyn. That works against someone who wants to be recognized as an actor. If you can't become other people, you become a celebrity (Julia Roberts is only good when she's basically playing a version of herself, for example). There's nothing wrong with that but I can see where that would be frustrating.
Anyway, there are several problems with the show, the biggest is the writing by Walt Sepp. It felt as though I was listening to anecdotes being told to me by an older gay man who has read every book on the subject rather than hearing an actress embody the character. Marilyn, as played by Louisa Bradshaw is likeable enough, but I felt that while she sort of sounded like Marilyn (which I could care less about) and moved a little like Marilyn (which I also could care less about) Bradshaw couldn't make the leap to truly embody her.
There's a difference between simply impersonating someone and really understanding what made them tick. Bradshaw does her best but the script gives her little choice but to race from story to song to story again and given that there's little emotional depth there, Bradshaw simply races. It doesn't help that it feels as though Marilyn is never in control of the stage - the Musical Director Gregory Nissen rushes her music cues to the next song, the script demands she pick up a scarf (you can almost see Bradshaw rushing to get the prop as the song starts before she is truly ready), but I seldom felt that this was Marilyn's space and it was Marilyn's turn to tell her own story. I seldom felt that it was Bradshaw controlling the show, the show controlled her. And in a one woman show, it ought to be the actress controlling the show.
Now if this was an artistic choice, it needed to be backed up with an epiphanal moment where Marilyn finally seizes control of her life and her surroundings (which I was desperate for her to do). But it felt more like poor stage direction on the part of Lissa Moira than a playwriting choice.
The show's sole saving grace is a story that Marilyn tells of having gone on a USO tour and being adored by 7000 servicemen. Bradshaw shines in these moments as Marilyn has a semi- epiphany. The script doesn't really back it up with an insight that would give me as an audience member the sort of catharsis that the story demands. Instead the script has Marilyn make us, the audience a substitute for the servicemen who adored her. Unfortunately, at least this audience member wasn't adoring her and wanted her, after nearly 50 years, come to some sort of insight that would take her out of Purgatory. And this too seemed to be a missing piece of the show - why are we seeing this moment (as opposed to 90 minutes in 1974, for example) if it's not dramatically relevent?
If you're thinking to yourself that I was thinking too much during the show, you're right. I should have been pulled in, enthralled. Instead I was bored and hoped that my own visit to Purgatory would be over as soon as possible.
SIREN'S HEART, MARILYN IN PURGATORY runs through Sunday October 23rd at Theatre for a New City.
