Marilyn & Ella by Bonnie Greer

I arrived full of hope, the actress that plays Marilyn is too old for the part (50) Marilyn was 29 in 1955 - but I thought if she gives a good performance you can maybe over look that? She looked nothing like Marilyn either. Anyway, a few years ago I went to see Jail House Rock - the Elvis lead looked absolutely nothing like him BUT he was young, handsome and had a voice to send you direct to heaven - you were able to suspend belief and totally and utterly enjoy the play!  

We took our seats in the very old Stratford theatre - the house was packed, I believe it played to sold out houses every night. I had my tub of Revels at the ready; you can't go to the theatre without a glass of red wine and a tub of chocolates! 

The stage looked good - central was what appeared to be a canvas of a square cut diamond, in the foreground sat a chaise lounge covered with furs, a mannequin wearing a white spaghetti strap dress and a feather boa, a pink telephone on a cream fur rug and various items strewn around the stage, another telephone, horn rimmed glasses, a blanket that apparently according to the programme becomes Grushenka's coat? Go figure! Some books, Frank Sinatra album cover, Ella Fitzgerald album cover and a photo of Ella in heavy gilt frame on the wall - with two black doors either side of the stage.

The lights went down and Ella begins singing "Lady is a Tramp" and as the lighting changes you become aware she is behind the canvas screen - the diamond is now lit to become a keyhole through which you watch Ella perform - I assume the canvas is representative of segregation as Marilyn performs mainly at the front of stage all night whilst Ella is behind the screen until she plays at Mocambo. 

Marilyn appears in front of the screen on her chaise lounge which the programme tells you is also a bed and her shrinks couch?!!

Then... unfortunately Wendy Morgan who is playing Marilyn begins to speak... from the moment she opens her mouth you absolutely know that no matter how hard you try - the possibility of suspending belief kind of equals the possibility of winning £8 million on the National Lottery. 

Firstly, she doesn't physically look like Marilyn  - she's wearing white peddle pushers/capri pants with a white shirt tied to expose her midriff - then she opened her mouth and as she did my heart sunk - throughout the entire performance she did this strange voice - like a woman trying to talk like a man for some reason? My mum does this silly impression of Marilyn singing Happy Birthday - all breathy and deep like she's been running for six hours on a treadmill and I can truthfully say to you that my mum's impression was better than this award winning actress!  

I think it would have been better had she dropped the silly accent, dropped the way she delivered it and just spoke in her regular voice - I saw Robert Lindsay play Hamlet once in jeans and a t-shirt in a room with just a chair - he was awesome - Wendy Morgan should just have been herself representing Marilyn - it wouldn't have been so cringingly farcical then.  

As if that wasn't bad enough - the costumes were plainly horrible. However - and here is the light that almost made a bad job good (but not quite!) Nicola Hughes who played Ella - Oh my goodness that woman can belt out a song - she has a voice that could melt the Antarctic - she's beautiful and talented and an absolutely amazing singer.

So that's pretty much the aesthetics - now the script..........

Apparently the writer Bonnie Greer studied at the Actors Studio with Elia Kazan - she has a CV that would shame the most gifted writer, she has walked the walk and talked the talk - having been on her second novel when she got the idea for this play after watching the biography "Marilyn in New York" Somehow you kind of expect a lot from this woman and unfortunately, like Wendy Morgan as Marilyn - the script does not deliver. 

It tells a basic story about segregation - the fact that Ella is not allowed to play in whites only clubs, and that she can't ride the white train etc. She is given some witty lines and her intelligence shines through, as does her talent - on the other hand... Marilyn's part perpetuates the myth - the used, abused, over sexed, stupid woman with high fluting ideas above her station - much is made of Marilyn wanting to play Grushenka - the horn rimmed glasses come out with alarming speed and regularity and Marilyn suffers lines such as "Do I have on too much Chanel No.5? I hate that smell when a woman's got on too much perfume and the heat from her vagina mixes with it... that's too feminine" 

At one point she implied that Ella got into Mocambo because Charlie Morrison didn't want to be left out of the action or the column inches and she says "It wasn't even the thought of me with my dress around my waist and my panties on his lampshade that did it" 

The story had no guts - Ella carried the whole performance whilst Marilyn solidified and compounded peoples beliefs that Marilyn was an airhead - according to the play she basically decided to get Ella in the venue because she didn't get the part of Grushenka - because she was fed up with the system - like she was striking back at the world for her own injustices by using Ella.  

I could go on and on but I'll stop here - except to say that Marilyn squirmed all around the stage like she needed to go to the toilet - I actually felt embarrassed to watch it - she also cavorted and squirmed all over the chaise lounge in a most unpleasant way - the finale was Ella and Marilyn singing Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend - at that point I could take it no longer and found myself half watching through splayed fingers - it was just simply awful! 

I was always going to be hard to please - but I was willing for it and it could have happened - but not with this play and not with that actress