Marilyn & Ella by Bonnie Greer at the Apollo Theatre London ~ 2009

Well, here I am again, reviewing Marilyn & Ella by Bonnie Greer. If you have read my previous review of the play in 2008, you’ll know that it took some persuasion to get me to go and see it again! The fact that the Marilyn impersonator Suzie Kennedy was to take the role of Marilyn interested me, as did the fact that I was assured the lines I disliked had been cut from the play and that so much had been added and re-written it would be worth giving it a second sitting! 

Despite my previous experience, I attempted to go with an open mind, although I admit this was difficult in light of the fact I had just recently been totally blown away by the actress Sunny Thompson’s presentation of Marilyn Forever Blonde, which I was lucky enough to see three times before it left the country and really felt it was a performance I couldn’t possibly ever tire of watching. Any small glitches in the script of Marilyn Forever Blonde could be forgiven and over looked due to the superb acting of Sunny Thompson. However, knowing that the previously offending lines had been removed from Marilyn & Ella, and that there had been considerable script changes, accompanied by the fact the role of Marilyn was being played by someone I knew, I decided it would be worth going to see it as a fresh play! 

I went to the matinee performance at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue on Sunday 29^th November, the house seemed pretty full.  

I settled into my seat, a couple of rows back from the front and looked forward to the performance. Unexpectedly, a very loud and clear announcement was made to the audience that Suzie Kennedy would be wearing Marilyn Monroe’s original gold lame dress designed by Travilla and that there were only two women in the world that had ever worn this dress - Marilyn Monroe and Suzie Kennedy. I sat there in total shock, in fact, I’m sure my mouth fell open! This was no misunderstanding – this was a blatant lie!  

The gold dress in question had been amongst dresses designed by William Travilla and exhibited as a ‘prototype’ in October 2007, at the Brighton Metropole Hotel, commencing a tour of the UK and the USA (an article regarding these dresses and the controversy that has surrounded them will be coming to Loving Marilyn in the near future)  

I felt so angry, that all these unknowing people in the audience were being fooled and conned, unless they knew better they would have believed they were watching Suzie Kennedy perform in Marilyn Monroe’s original gold lame dress, and would have believed as they were told that it was a dress that Marilyn had actually worn and no other woman apart from Ms Kennedy had ever worn that very dress.  

See Suzie Kennedy in the dress here www.wooller.com and note that it is being touted by the website as:

“suzie kennedy wears the original gold lame dress, previously worn only by marilyn Monroe” [sic] 

Even if it was Marilyn’s original gold lame dress, which it clearly wasn’t – because that dress went back to the Fox wardrobe, and it had been worn by other actresses – including Jayne Mansfield and Betty Grable.

Jane wore the dress to the premiere of The Spirit of St Louis in 1957 and Betty wore it for a 1954 TV special called A Shower of Stars. Betty wore the dress with a belt as Marilyn had worn during the original costume tests for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; however, she also wore it with the  small buttons at the centre as did Jayne Mansfield. (See photos)

The gold dress Suzie Kennedy was wearing during this performance was also worn by Peaches Geldof for a Hello Magazine photo shoot in 2007! (See photos!)

 So, this didn’t start well for me, however onto the next phase.  

A Frank Sinatra ‘lookalike?/soundalike?’ called Stephen Triffitt opened the play. Singing intermittently throughout, he added nothing to the play itself and was in my opinion surplus to requirements.  The highlight of the play was the jazz quartet on stage, they were an enjoyable inclusion and the first and sadly only, positive addition!  

As the curtains rolled back, a huge photo in a gilt frame was revealed of Suzie Kennedy striking a pose in the aforementioned gold dress. 

The performance started, with Ella  (Hope Augustus) chatting to the audience in her own voice about Ella, this was very confusing right from the start and continued to be confusing throughout, especially when she suddenly switched to a pseudo American accent and then proceeded to slip in and out of accents with no apparent rhyme or reason. Her singing voice was okay, not bad at all, though nowhere near as powerful as the previous actress that had played the part of Ella in 2008, Nicola Hughes.  

The script was baffling – and I know the story!!! It was not cohesive and not always relevant. There is wonderful story potential here, that is wider than Ella and Marilyn, a story of race hate, prejudice and segregation that was partially, for one tiny moment, overcome by the guts, tenacity, intelligence and determination of Marilyn Monroe, this wasn’t apparent. If anything Marilyn came across as pretentious and silly, particularly in the Romeo and Juliet scene where Ms Kennedy rushes to the front of the stage, raising her arm in the air and recites from Romeo and Juliet – I struggled with this one, on all sorts of levels! 

There was far too much ‘Tell’ and not enough ‘Show’ for example, if the audience were told once that Marilyn and Ella were friends, they were told what felt like at least twenty times! This was ironic, in view of the fact that Ella didn’t seem to even like Marilyn! I’m not sure if this was down to the script, the actresses, or the direction? The body language definitely suggested ‘dislike’ and ‘discomfort’ 

The costumes, as lovely as they were, also seemed to bear no relevance to the play. For example Marilyn appears in a spangled red dress similar to the ‘Little Rock’ dress in which she sang with Jane Russell during the opening of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes she also wears a copy of the Pink Diamond’s dress from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and a copy of a dress similar to the Birthday dress she wore to JFK’s birthday gala in 1962 – yet again, there seemed to be no apparent rhyme or reason for the costumes worn by Marilyn within the context of the play. 

Marilyn sang a lot of musical numbers and I couldn’t figure out why? This is about Ella’s voice not Marilyn’s - whilst Suzie Kennedy has a competent voice, in my opinion it does not contrast well with Hope Augustus and I wondered if this was a musical? It certainly didn’t have the guts of a drama. 

I believe they are hoping to continue running with this, the aim being to take it to Broadway. Whilst I cannot recommend this play, except for people to go and make their own decisions, we are all different and we each have a different level of expectation to be fulfilled. Once again, I went away feeling somehow Bonnie Greer had missed the whole point or maybe I had?