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Marilyn – My Secret

Reviewed by Martin Hernandez
Macha Theatre
Through August 24

“The fucking you get is not worth the fucking you get” laments a bathrobe-clad Marilyn Monroe, raised from the dead and describing the wringer the film industry puts its minions through, to make a buck. Born to a schizophrenic mother, shipped between sundry family members and foster homes as a child, sexually abused as an adolescent, Norma Jean Baker had a lot of strikes against her. But as Marilyn Monroe, she garnered the intelligence, strength, and, yes, cunning, to become a screen superstar. Perhaps it was because she had survived so much that she achieved such success. And perhaps it was because she suffered so much at the hands of others, as well as herself, that she overdosed at 36, nude and alone in her Brentwood home.

Co-writers Odalys Nanin (who also directs) and Willard Manus’s heartfelt and well-researched play pays homage to the screen icon, shedding light on Marilyn’s secret affairs with women, along with other “secrets” along the way. Opening with Marilyn (Erin Gavin) lying in bed, nude and deceased, an unidentified man rises from her bed and exits. Marilyn then rises to regale us with episodes from her life, breathily alluding to flings with Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck and Elizabeth Taylor. She relates tales from her troubled marriages with Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller and her sordid affairs with John F. Kennedy and his ruthless brother Bobby (Sean McCracken).

We also meet her lovers Natasha Lytess (Merri Jamison), an acting coach who tried to control Marilyn’s life and career (Marilyn would have none of it); and striptease artist Lili St. Cyr (Ma Hilger), dubbed the “Anatomic Bomb,” who advises the “Blonde Bombshell” to remember that moist lips and loose hips are tickets to stardom. (Jamison also plays another of Marilyn’s acting coaches, Paula Strasberg.)

Perhaps with the ironic knowledge she could lose performers to Hollywood, director Nanin has all four roles multi-cast (Marilyn and Bobby Kennedy have been triple cast.) Sadly, this results in a lack of chemistry, sexual or otherwise, and dramatic tension, between Gavin and her fellow performers, who barely can scratch the surface in creating credible characters and relationships. While Marilyn’s breathy, baby doll voice could be endearing in films, Gavin’s take eventually grows tiresome and at times is hard to hear, especially when singing songs Monroe made famous, like “Running Wild,” “I Want to Be Loved by You,” and, of course her iconic “Happy Birthday to You” for JFK.

MACHA Theatre/Films, 1107 N. Kings Rd., W. Hlywd; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 6 p.m.; through Aug. 24, machatheatre.org